Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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The illusion of limiting legalized euthanasia
So-called safeguards to limit the practice of legalized euthanasia don't work, a recent paper suggests
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However, according to a recent article published in Current Oncology by Dr. José Pereira, Medical Chief of Palliative Care at Bruyère Continuing Care in Ottawa, safeguards are routinely ignored and/or abused. His review of the non-prosecuted violations of safeguards in the Netherlands, Belgium and the state of Oregon show that including safeguards in assisted suicide legislation is little more than drawing lines in the sand.
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Dr. Pereira addresses the safeguards one by one. In the Netherlands, where assisted suicide and euthanasia were made legal in 2001, the law states that individuals must give written consent that they want to die. In spite of this, a 2005 study of deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands found that almost 500 people are killed annually without their consent. Belgium has the same safeguard, nonetheless, a 2010 study found that in the Flemish part of the country, 32 per cent of euthanasia cases were carried out without request or consent. Some were cases where a person couldn’t give consent due to their medical condition. Others were cases where a person could have given consent but didn't. In the latter cases, doctors proceeded with euthanasia because they felt it was in the best interest of the patient, or because they thought discussing it would be too harmful to the patient.
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And even if the second opinion safeguard is not circumvented, the experience of the Netherlands once again shows how it has been abused. There, Dr. Pereira notes, “in 1998 in the Netherlands, 25 per cent of patients requesting euthanasia received psychiatric consultation; in 2010 none did.” No longer is there any check in the Netherlands to make sure that a person requesting euthanasia isn’t depressed
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History shows that safeguards, however well intentioned, do not work. It seems the pressure to open the doors to make more people eligible for euthanasia has taken hold in the vast majority of jurisdictions where assisted suicide and euthanasia have been legalized. Once the law defines assisted suicide and/or euthanasia as a personal right, those who don’t have this right and want it will push for the law to expand. In the Netherlands, for example, the initial reason for legalizing euthanasia was as a last resort for adults with terminal illness facing intolerable suffering. Today, newborn infants can be killed, even if the parents aren’t in unanimous agreement. There’s even a group in the Netherlands called “Out of Free Will” who ran a successful campaign that had the Dutch parliament debating a measure allowing anyone over 70 who is merely tired of life to die by euthanasia.
I wonder what proportion of the last category is doctors following the wishes of a patient's family when the patient is in a position where they cannot, and won't be able to, provide their own opinion?
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Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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A great man who died with dignity
Tuesdays with Morrie is a book about Morrie and a former student of his, Mitch Albom. After seeing Morrie interviewed on Nightline with Ted Koppel, Albom started flying to Morrie's home in New England from Detroit for Tuesday visits. Mitch had discovered that Morrie had ALS, a terminal neurological disease. After about fourteen visits Morrie finally loses his battle with ALS, when it gets to his lungs. Albom's book is full of the lessons and wisdom that Morrie imparts to him in his final stage of life.
Those may be two of the most biased links on the subject that I have seen, one of which uses 20+ year old research which isn't linked to and uses terms like "killed" the other of which is the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, a group which upon doing a very slight amount of research has been very adamant about their disapproval of physician assisted suicide - to use them as a secondary source would be foolish at best.
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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Slippery slope: ‘loneliness,’ ‘fatigue’ now criteria for euthanasia in Netherlands
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UTRECHT, Netherlands, October 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has released new guidelines for interpreting the 2002 Euthanasia Act that now includes “mental and psychosocial ailments” such as “loss of function, loneliness and loss of autonomy” as acceptable criteria for euthanasia. The guidelines also allow doctors to connect a patient’s lack of “social skills, financial resources and a social network” to “unbearable and lasting suffering,” opening the door to legal assisted death based on “psychosocial” factors, not terminal illness.
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“It doesn’t always have to be a physical ailment, it could be the onset of dementia or chronic psychological problems, it’s still unbearable and lasting suffering. It doesn’t always have to be a terminal disease,” said Dr. Nieuwenhuijzen Kruseman, Chairman of KNMG to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director and International Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition committee responded to the new guidelines, saying that in his view “the expansion of euthanasia and assisted suicide has been constant and deliberate.
Schadenberg warned that what has happened in the Netherlands can—and will—occur in other jurisdictions, if euthanasia and/or assisted suicide is legalized.
When the Netherlands sanctioned euthanasia for emotionally ill patients in 1994, Karl Gunning, head of the Dutch Doctors’ Union warned the country of the “slippery slope” it was sliding down.
“We have always predicted that once you start looking at killing as a means to solve problems, then you’ll find more and more problems where killing can be the solution,” he said.
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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Netherlands court sanctions euthanasia for emotionally ill
Saskatoon Star Phoenix (June 23, 1994)
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THE HAGUE, (AP) The debate over euthanasia flared anew Wednesday after the Supreme Court refused to punish a doctor who supplied a fatal dose of sleeping pills to a severely, depressed but otherwise healthy woman.
The Court ruling Tuesday broadened the country's euthanasia guidelines to include the mentally or emotionally ill.
While the country's largest daily, De Telegraaf, accused the government of crossing "a bridge too far," officials said the ruling was in line with current laws.
"There is no need for any legislation at this moment as a result of the ruling," justice Ministry spokesperson Victor Holtus said. "This, comes within our existing regulations.''
That sentiment was not shared by those opposed to euthanasia.
"This is a classical example of the slippery slope,'' said Karl Gunning, head of the Dutch Doctors' Union. “We have always predicted that once you start looking at killing as a means to solve problems then you'll find more and more problems where killing can be the solution.”
