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“This person suffering from hereditary defects
costs the people 60,000 Reichmarks during his lifetime.
People, that is your money. Read ‘New People’.”
Posted on 01/04/2010 3:40:22 PM PST by wagglebee
Amsterdam, (LifeNews.com) -- The number of euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands rose significantly in 2009 compared with 2008. There were reportedly 200 more deaths under the law, but pro-life advocates say those numbers are likely lowball estimates given the underreporting in the Dutch system.
The Dutch News indicates approximately 2,500 people died via euthanasia in 2009, but the actual number is unknown because the government estimates about 20 percent of cases are not reported.
The new government figures also include six registered cases of euthanasia on elderly patients with senile dementia, all of whom were supposedly in the early stages and able to make their wishes to die known.
In Holland, patients wanting to be killed must be in unbearable pain, the physician must sign off on the patient making an informed choice, and a second physician must certify the doctor's findings.
Alex Schadenberg of the Canada-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, discussed the new numbers.
He says the number of people dying in the Netherlands is higher because assisted suicide figures are not included. If they are included, another 500 people should be added to the 2,500 who were killed last year via euthanasia.
He also says deaths without explicit consent are not included and pointed to the most recent government report from 2005 showing 550 deaths are directly and intentionally caused by the physician but not reported as euthanasia because they lacked consent.
Schadenberg also notes that, as of 2007, approximately 10% of all deaths in the Netherlands were connected to the practice of terminal sedation.
"Many of those deaths were caused by dehydration, due to the physician sedating the patient and then withholding hydration until death occurs, which usually takes 10 - 14 days," he said.
Meanwhile, the Dutch News report "acknowledged that people with dementia are dying by euthanasia in the Netherlands, but the article didn't mention how many infants died by euthanasia in 2009," he pointed out.
"The Groningen Protocol allows infants who are born with disabilities to die by euthanasia based on the request of the parents and the agreement of the physician," he said.
Schadenberg said he is "concerned that since the Netherlands does not collect information concerning the euthanasia of people with disabilities, we therefore ask the question, how many people with disabilities are coerced into death by euthanasia based on a false concept that living with a disability is a life of suffering."
American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith also commented on the new numbers.
He says he has seen studies showing as many as 50 percent of all euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands going unreported -- meaning the lowball figures Schadenberg says are higher could be higher still.
Smith says he finds it "amazing" that the "number of euthanasia deaths are under-reported because non voluntary and involuntary euthanasia don't count as euthanasia because the patient didn't consent."
"And that isn't all. As Alex notes, these statistics don't include the unduly high numbers of terminal sedation deaths–palliative sedation used not as a legitimate pain control technique but as back door euthanasia," Smith continued.
"I would also point out that Dutch doctors refer patients they don't want to euthanize with how-to-commit-suicide information," Smith added.
For Smith, "Here’s the bottom line: The Dutch prove that once euthanasia consciousness is accepted, there is ultimately no real control."
Left unchecked euthanasia will soon become the leading cause of death in the Netherlands and it will spread from there.
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Yep, it’s a very thin line between “Right to Die” and “Duty to Die.”
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I suggest that Obamacare includes provisions for euthanasia. By rationing health care and substituting a pill where a (more expensive) surgery might be needed, the government weasels who will run health”care” will be euthanizing Americans soon.
Not if we nuke them first.
***The Dutch prove that once euthanasia consciousness is accepted, there is ultimately no real control.”***
I read, several years ago, that many old people in Holland will not call or visit a doctor when they are sick because they fear the doctor will decide on his own that the patient no longer has any “quality of life” left and will then quietly kill them.
Funny, not many Jihadists are signing up for the “Date with 52 virgins” in Holland. Why is that?
I sure as hell wouldn't call a doctor or even let my family know if I was ill.
I would wonder if even a majority of euthanasia cases are reported. They interviewed doctors a few years ago and found that, while there is a rather elaborate procedure they are supposed to go through, involving the patient, and the family, and some kind of hospital ethics board, in actual fact the doctors were simply acting on their own without saying boo to anyone.
If they decide you don’t have the “quality of life” you ought to have, you get the cocktail. Doesn’t matter what you’re in the hospital for. You might be in there for a couple of tests, and you don’t leave. The doctors weren’t apologetic about it at all.
I’m confused here. Isn’t this part a of what was so abhorrent about the Nazis? They espoused this viewpoint too, something along the line of ‘’useless eaters’’.
Yes, thats it. I believe they called ‘’Daizem uner leben’’ “Existence without life’’ And we fought a war over this. Nice folks them Dutch.
For a long time after WWII many Dutch preferred to be called “Hollanders” or “Netherlanders” because the word Dutch sounds too much like Deutsch. There were over 100,000 Jews in the Netherlands at the start of World War II, less than 900 survived the Holocaust. They appear to have a VERY SHORT memory.
Good point. Short memories. Sounds like that would qualify most of’em to be taking the ‘’cocktail’’.
Isn’t abortion a form of euthanasia?
No, the abortionists are VERY CAREFUL not to refer to abortion as euthanasia. They realize that doing so would be an admission that they are killing an actual human being. They consider abortion nothing more than the removal of a "clump of cells", much like a mole or a cyst. An abortion is a "choice" that a woman makes, just like hairstyle is a choice.
And how much easier it must to be to murder someone and have it covered up.
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