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Continent Death
National Review Online ^ | 12/23/03 | Wesley J. Smith

Posted on 12/23/2003 1:34:11 PM PST by redgolum

Continent Death Euthanasia in Europe.

By Wesley J. Smith

Too many people think with their hearts instead of their brains. Wanting the world to suit their desires, when faced with hard truths to the contrary, they refuse to face facts they don’t want to believe. This common human failing has a name: self-delusion.

Self-delusion is rampant in the euthanasia movement. Most proponents recognize that it is inherently dangerous to legalize killing. But they desperately want to believe that they can control the grim reaper. Thus, they continue to peddle the nonsense that "guidelines will protect against abuse" despite overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary.

Euthanasia has been around long enough and practiced sufficiently enough for us to detect a pattern. Killing is sold to the public as a last resort justified only in cases where nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. But once the reaper is allowed through the door, the categories of killable people expand steadily toward the acceptance of death on demand.

The classic example is the Netherlands, where doctors have been allowed to euthanize patients since 1973. Dutch death regulations require that euthanasia be strictly limited to the sickest patients, for whom nothing but extermination will alleviate overwhelming suffering — a concept in Dutch law known as force majeur. But once mercy killing was redefined as being good in a few cases rather than being bad in all circumstances, it didn’t take long for the protective guidelines to be viewed widely as impediments to be overcome instead of important protections to be obeyed.

Thus, supposedly ironclad protections against abuse — such as the doctrine of force mejeur and the stipulation that patient give multiple requests for euthanasia — quickly ceased meaningfully to constrain mercy killing. As a consequence, Dutch doctors now legally kill terminally ill people who ask for it, chronically ill people who ask for it, disabled people who ask for it, and depressed people who ask for it.

Euthanasia has also entered the pediatric wards, where eugenic infanticide has become common even though babies cannot ask to be killed. According to a 1997 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, approximately 8 percent of all Dutch infant deaths result from lethal injections. The babies deemed killable are often disabled and thus are thought not to have a "livable life." The practice has become so common that 45 percent of neonatologists and 31 percent of pediatricians who responded to Lancet surveys had killed babies.

It gets worse: Repeated studies sponsored by the Dutch government have found that doctors kill approximately 1,000 patients each year who have not asked for euthanasia. This is not only a violation of every guideline, but an act that Dutch law considers murder. Nonvoluntary euthanasia has become so common that it even has a name: "Termination without request or consent."

Despite this carnage, Dutch doctors are very rarely prosecuted for such crimes, and the few that are brought to court are usually exonerated. Moreover, even if a doctor is found guilty, he or she is almost never punished in any meaningful way, nor does the murderer face discipline by the Dutch Medical Society. For example, in 2001, a doctor was convicted of murdering an 84-year-old patient who had not asked to be killed. Prosecutors demanded a nine-month suspended probation (!), yet even this brush — it can’t even be called a slap — on the wrist was rejected by the trial judge who refused to impose any punishment. Not to worry. The appellate court decided to get tough: It imposed a one-week suspended sentence on the doctor for murder.

Even such praising with faint damnation isn’t enough for the Dutch Medical Association. As a result of this and the handful of other non-punished murder convictions of doctors who engaged in termination without request or consent, the organization is lobbying to legalize non-voluntary euthanasia. Along these same lines — and demonstrating that the culture of death recognizes no limits — the day after the Dutch formally legalized euthanasia, the country’s minister of health advocated the provision of suicide pills to the elderly who do not qualify for killing under Dutch law.

Lest we think the Dutch experience is a fluke, let us now turn our attention to Belgium. Only one year ago the Belgians legalized Dutch-style euthanasia under "strict" guidelines. As with the Netherlands, once unfettered, the euthanasia culture quickly began to swallow Belgium whole. Moreover, the slide down the slope has occurred at a greatly accelerated pace. It took decades for the Dutch euthanasia to reach the current morass. But Belgian euthanasia went off the rails from day one: The very first reported killing — that of a man with multiple sclerosis — violated the legal guidelines (not that anything was done about it). Moreover, while 203 people were officially recognized as having been euthanized in Belgium during the first year of legal practice, most euthanasia deaths were not reported (a violation of the law). The actual toll is probably closer to 1,000.

And Belgian euthanasia advocates have already begun agitating to expand the categories of killable people. A just-completed forum attended by hundreds of Belgian doctors and euthanasia enthusiasts advocated that minors be allowed to request euthanasia, as well as people with degenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, who are not imminently dying. Not only that, but the chairman of the conference wants to force doctors to participate in killing patients, even if they are morally opposed. If he gets his way, the law will soon require doctors who oppose euthanasia to refer patients who want to be killed to a colleague willing to do the deed. So much for choice.

The Swiss have also unleashed the culture of death into their midst. Rather than authorizing doctors to commit euthanasia, however, Swiss law instead permits private suicide facilitation. As a result, Switzerland has become a destination for "suicide tourists" who travel there not to ski, but to receive a poison cocktail.

A private group that goes by the name "Dignitas" facilitates most Swiss assisted suicides. Its founder, lawyer Ludwig Minelli, recently told the Swiss press that he will not restrict Dignitas’s dark work to providing services to the dying. Indeed, the report said Minelli believes that "severe depression can be irreversible and that he is justified" in helping "the mentally ill" to die. Along these lines, a Swiss doctor is being investigated for possible prosecution for the double suicide of French twins with schizophrenia. That may sound like a serious effort to crack down on abuse, but remember, once euthanasia is legitimized, such talk is often cheap. If the Dutch experience is any indication, even if the suicide doctor is convicted, he will not be meaningfully punished.

Despite this history, euthanasia advocates here and abroad still cling irrationally to the hubristic and foolish notion that they are competent to administer death. They remind one of Dr. Frankenstein, who, in the name of benefiting humankind, unleashed a terrible monster.

— Wesley J. Smith is an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. His most recent book is the revised and updated Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope From Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: euthanasia; euthenasia; forcedexit; righttodie; wesleysmith
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More for comment. Europe is committing sucide.
1 posted on 12/23/2003 1:34:11 PM PST by redgolum
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To: redgolum
Euthanasia will win out in Socialist countries to reduce the burden on the state payroll.
2 posted on 12/23/2003 1:41:02 PM PST by ampat (to)
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To: redgolum
The entire continent of europe suffers from misplaced arrogance.To think that one can actually believe they have the intelligence or power of the ALMIGHTY to make that kind of decision is ridiculus!Pull the plug and you have committed murder.
3 posted on 12/23/2003 1:50:37 PM PST by INSENSITIVE GUY
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To: ampat
Full-blown euthanasia is a "natural" part of any socialist state, because the only way a socialist state can achieve its utopian goals is by eradicating the natural uncertainties of human life that revolve around birth, sickness, and death. This is why, for example, there is no logical inconsistency in a state allowing (or even mandating) abortion and euthanasia while at the same time providing inoculations, prohibiting smoking, and requiring people to wear seatbelts.

The ultimate goal of a socialist state is not to provide for people's needs through the natural course of their lives -- it's to do so while ensuring that their lives are lived in such a way that economic decisions can be made with minimal uncertainties. The ideal socialist state is one in which everyone lives a life free of all illness, but then drops dead instantly at the age of 80.

4 posted on 12/23/2003 2:03:50 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Alberta -- the TRUE North strong and free.)
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To: Lucretia Borgia
bump
5 posted on 12/23/2003 2:04:53 PM PST by brbethke
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To: redgolum
Hmmm. And I just recently saw assurances that the Netherlands had fixed their "involuntary euthanasia" problem.
6 posted on 12/23/2003 2:17:39 PM PST by Question_Assumptions
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To: Alberta's Child
The ideal socialist state is one in which everyone lives a life free of all illness, but then drops dead instantly at the age of 80.

And what's the problem with that? It sounds like a good ideal to me, and I'm not even a RINO. If my sudden death at 80 is due to too much sex, so much the better. Of course the ideal ain't going to happen.

7 posted on 12/23/2003 2:44:47 PM PST by expatpat
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To: redgolum
Euthanasia has also entered the pediatric wards, where eugenic infanticide has become common even though babies cannot ask to be killed. According to a 1997 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, approximately 8 percent of all Dutch infant deaths result from lethal injections. The babies deemed killable are often disabled and thus are thought not to have a "livable life." The practice has become so common that 45 percent of neonatologists and 31 percent of pediatricians who responded to Lancet surveys had killed babies.

The obvious result of unfettered abortion-on-demand policies. These are just late-late term abortions. Coming to a hospital near you.

8 posted on 12/23/2003 2:47:51 PM PST by Spiff (Have you committed a random act of thoughtcrime today?)
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To: redgolum
BUMP
9 posted on 12/23/2003 3:01:55 PM PST by nickcarraway (www.terrisfight.org)
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To: Canticle_of_Deborah; MarMema
ping
10 posted on 12/23/2003 3:02:20 PM PST by nickcarraway (www.terrisfight.org)
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To: expatpat
There's nothing wrong with that kind of ideal -- the problem is when a state uses measures like euthanasia and eugenics to get as close to that ideal as possible.
11 posted on 12/23/2003 4:51:27 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Alberta -- the TRUE North strong and free.)
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To: INSENSITIVE GUY
I remember a situation years ago, where a couple, with child, whom I believe lived in England, had been informed that she was going to produce twins, but they didn't have much chance to live long, one must be sacrificed to save the other, or they both must go to save the mother.

It was a soon-to-be mother's worst decision.

Know what she and her husband did?

They refused to take any action. They thought it best that GOD make the decisions, even if the mother died to have the children.

Pretty tough, huh?

Then, the state and courts and doctors attempted to file suit to force them to allow the abortion.

They refused, choosing jail if necessary, rather than make a decision that they saw only belonged in the hands of GOD.

A nice ending to this story would be...... but unfortunately, I never got to hear how it turned out. I know they fought the courts, doctors, and I believe they won.

The courage, the faith, the strength it took, that this couple had to make those decisions, and fight everyone to keep their beliefs I can only stand in awe of.

When they stand in front of their Creator, I have a feeling I know exactly what they will get.

For in the willingness to give up all, even life, to ensure another life Granted by God, they gained everything.

Hope I get to face GOD before they do.

12 posted on 12/23/2003 4:52:01 PM PST by UCANSEE2 ("Duty is ours, Results are God's" --John Quincy Adams)
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To: Alberta's Child
No argument there.
13 posted on 12/23/2003 5:34:22 PM PST by expatpat
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To: Victoria Delsoul
Euthanasia bump.
14 posted on 12/23/2003 5:39:20 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Alberta -- the TRUE North strong and free.)
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To: Alberta's Child
Despite this carnage, Dutch doctors are very rarely prosecuted for such crimes, and the few that are brought to court are usually exonerated. Moreover, even if a doctor is found guilty, he or she is almost never punished in any meaningful way, nor does the murderer face discipline by the Dutch Medical Society.

I wonder how long it will take for us to face the same situation.

15 posted on 12/23/2003 8:12:32 PM PST by Victoria Delsoul (Freedom isn't won by soundbites but by the unyielding determination and sacrifice given in its cause)
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To: Victoria Delsoul
That's a good question, especially with looming shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare.
16 posted on 12/23/2003 8:13:43 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Alberta -- the TRUE North strong and free.)
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To: Alberta's Child
That's right. Just a matter of time.
17 posted on 12/23/2003 8:17:17 PM PST by Victoria Delsoul (Freedom isn't won by soundbites but by the unyielding determination and sacrifice given in its cause)
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To: UCANSEE2; All
I posted this article and the one written by Styne in the Telegraph for two reasons. First, is the changes I have seen in the society of the US in my relatively short life (turned 28 today) have been shocking. Where once we had a culture that as a whole valued life, now it is becoming one where you as a person are valued only by what you contribute to society. There are a lot of old sci fi movies that take that theory to its logical extreme.

The second reason is that I am a history nut, and have just started to wade through all six volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (which I think should be required reading for anyone aspiring to public office by the way). The Romans built a comfortable society with their blood and sweat. After a few generations, the people were more concerned about food and circuses than what is best for the country. Children were viewed by the upper class as a burden, and abortion was common.

What killed the Roman empire was that they reached a point were they were no longer "Roman". The Gauls were conquered early, assimilated, and became part of the culture. After a while, the new Roman citizens that came into the empire had no understanding of the customs, laws, or culture. They changed society, and gradually destroyed Rome.

This is a gross oversimplification, there are many more factors in the fall of Rome, but I see the same thing happening to Western Civilization again.
18 posted on 12/23/2003 9:10:12 PM PST by redgolum
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To: Question_Assumptions
Euros taking themselves out one way or the other is not really a bad thing, saves the muslims the future trouble (and cleans up our future fields of fire).
19 posted on 12/23/2003 9:59:02 PM PST by ChEng
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To: Alberta's Child
Even while Europe faces problems because of decreasing population due to high abortion rates and increasingly euthanasia.

Socialism is a suicidal ideology. It's natural progression is to destroy itself through the slaughter of its adherents.
20 posted on 12/25/2003 3:47:01 AM PST by WaterDragon (GWB is The MAN!)
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