Posted on 12/06/2004 11:54:26 AM PST by killthedonkey
Does History Repeat Itself? Monday, December 06, 2004 By Cal Thomas
Something terrible is happening in the land of wooden shoes, windmills, Rembrandt (search) and wonderful breakfasts.
A Dutch hospital is euthanizing — killing — newborn babies who don't measure up to an arbitrary standard set by the hospital. The hospital at first requested guidelines for so-called "mercy killings" of newborns. It then revealed it has been engaging in the practice without any guidelines at all. Three years after the Dutch parliament passed a law allowing doctors to actively kill patients they deemed terminally ill, in great pain and with no prospects for recovery, it has come to this. At least with the elderly sick, they had to be consulted about their wishes. Newborns receive no such privilege.
I'm not surprised.
Once a single category of life is declassified as having no intrinsic value and a right to life, it is a very short step to declassify other categories when they are considered inconvenient, or burdensome.
Holland is a perfect example of what happens when there is no governing moral standard. The Dutch have decriminalized most drugs and people smoke dope openly in venues set aside for the practice. Prostitutes display their wares like mannequins in department store windows. And now we have at least one hospital murdering already born babies because someone has decreed them unworthy of life.
If ever there was a slippery slope to be studied, this is it.
The Dutch are now grappling with their open border policy. They have admitted thousands of radical Islamists who have not assimilated and are threatening the stability of the nation. A Dutch filmmaker (search) was murdered last month by a radical who didn't like a film he made criticizing Islam's treatment of women.
And now we have the killing of newborns. All of this in a country where the Nazis murdered Ann Frank just because she was Jewish and therefore less than human.
Does history repeat? In Holland, apparently it does.
well it repeats itself if we don't learn from it. And Holland has not learned. Perhaps the Van Gogh killing will give them a new sense of urgency, but i doubt it.
Just wondering.
History doesn't repeat itself. People repeat history by not learning from it.
Anne died in Bergen-Belsen, Germany.
I clearly recall the day, now well over thirty five years ago, when I came to this realization, and did a 180 switch from pro-death to pro-life on the abortion question. Once you realize this truth, you can never go back to being a part of those apologists for wholesale killing of babies. That has also kept me firmly in the conservative column no matter what other issue arose during these many years.
88
Tiergarten Strasse 4
Tierra del Fuegans would dunk newborns into the icy waters to let God decide who lived and died. They were an amazingly cold-hearty race who would be worthy of scientific examination had any survived Western man.
The euthanasia of the Dutch babies is only performed with the mutual agreement of the parents and several doctors. It has been used for babies so badly deformed no chance of survival was present. It has been used on a baby with spina bifida so profound that half the spine was exposed.
Decisions on euthanasia are made all the time, privately, by doctors and patients. The Dutch just decided to codify it. I certainly would prefer to be euthanized than kept alive in some nightmare scenario that would ruin the lives of everyone responsible for me.
Seems a weak argument to suggest that nearly extinct and extinct groups of people are a successsful model. At least the Haitians are still around and in control of their island. Likely the Dutch won't be, based on your argument.
I guess you would also suggest that evolution is an effective means of shaping human destiny, too.
Yes, it's a darn shame Hitler took the principles of eugenics or Social Darwinism and distorted them into a killing machine. However, that does not mean eugenics has no scientific validity, it is simply too politically incorrect to even mention. Other cultures have employed eugenics in a positive way, such as subsidizing their best and brightest to study, marry and have children. I gave two examples of populations that used very merciless selective survival of infants (enforced by society) to contrast with what the Dutch are doing, which is actually merciful.
"Society" is not deciding these Dutch infants should be put out of their misery according to some gene pool improvement program. The parents and doctors make that decision based on intolerable misery and hopelessness of outcome. Society is protecting the right to make the decision privately.
To claim this is the camel's nose under the tent, or a slippery slope is an invalid arguement because the government does not make the decision, in fact it prohibits its own involvement.
Hi,
i'm from holland myself and i really couldn't identify myself and my country with your column.
We do have an "odd" drug-policy, but only soft drugs like weed are prohibited, because tests have shown this drug isn't a danger to the human body, and isn't addictive at all.
I don't agree with the gouvernment, but comparing us with the holocaust is a little strange..
We 'dutchmen' are more open and tolerant then any country, we accept all kind of foreigners and immigrants,
and Anne Frank wasn't even dutch.
Mercy killings are only granted when the family agrees,
no doctor can 'kill' a person without all legal papers filled.
i really hope you can change your point of view,
cause holland is the only country where there is really freedom of speech, the freedom to express yourself, through papers and all, we are a democrate country, and we are highly tolerant.
hope to be a bit of help.
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