Posted on 10/10/2010 9:22:00 AM PDT by wagglebee
Euthanasia guidelines don’t work as advertised. We’ve seen that truth evidenced again–in the Netherlands–and again–in Switzerland–and again–in Belgium–and again–in Oregon. A new study published in the British Medical Journal shows that in Flanders, Belgium, only half of the euthanasia deaths are reported as required by the law. From the study:
The reporting rate for euthanasia in Flanders in 2007 is estimated to be 52.8%. This means that only one out of two cases of actual euthanasia is reported to and reviewed by the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee, and one in two is not. The most important reason given by physicians for not reporting a case to the review committee was that the physician did not perceive the act to be euthanasia (76.7%).Alarge majority of the unreported cases (92.2%) were in fact acts of euthanasia as defined in our study but were not perceived or labelled as “euthanasia” by the physician involved. Unreported cases of euthanasia were generally dealt with less carefully than reported cases: a written request for euthanasia was absent more often; other physicians and care givers specialised in palliative care were consulted less often; the life ending act was more often performed with opioids, sedatives, or both; and the life ending drugs were more often administered by a nurse instead of a physician.
Not only is it against the law for nurses to kill patients, as we discussed here before, a study by the Canadian Medical Association found that nearly half of nurse administered euthanasia deaths in Belgium are without request or consent.
I also don’t buy that doctors don’t know when they are taking direct action to terminate a patient. But be that as it may, this study demonstrates–again–that euthanasia cannot be controlled by doctor administered death regulations. Once you let the vampire out of the coffin, it goes where it will. Guidelines are primarily there to give a comforting illusion of control.
Exactly!
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A large scale, psychological study needs to be conducted of caregivers, to determine their capacity to murder.
I suspect it is a far higher number than in the population as a whole.
To start with, many want to help people because they empathize with them. However, empathy is false. You might think you know what another person is feeling, but you don’t. And if you over-empathize, you can reach some deadly conclusions.
I heard an illustration of this, with two soldiers in combat, one of whom was grazed on the scalp by an enemy bullet and knocked out. Head wounds can bleed profusely, and this one did. His friend was so horrified with his bloody *appearance*, that he *assumed* he was horribly, and mortally, wounded.
Not wanting for his friend to suffer, he decided to “put him out of his misery”. Fortunately for the wounded soldier, he came to and saw his friend about to kill him, so he took off, running.
Still holding on to his false empathy, the shooter thinks that the wounded man is delusional, so he runs after him, trying to shoot him down “for his own good.” This has actually happened, and more than once.
But it is comparable to what an over-empathetic caregiver experiences when they see someone they think is in intolerable pain and suffering, so much so that the caregiver *assumes* they want to die.
The flip side of this are caregivers who are “slightly” psychopathic, in that they naturally have little empathy for anyone. These people actually make pretty good surgeons or doctors, because they can inflict necessary pain for a greater good. They do not let their emotions get in the way.
However, this can lead to a cold objectivity about the lives of others.
Perhaps an example of this is the notorious serial killer Dr. Harold Shipman. It will likely never be known whether his motives in the death of perhaps 200 or more people was based in a desire to murder, or that he reached a calm, objective decision that the lives of his victims were no longer worth living.
Unfortunately, by all appearance, to this day he has many colleagues who would agree with him.
In simple language, “Euthanasia” always includes the murder of people who do not want to die.
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