8mm
Posted on 03/24/2008 4:12:21 PM PDT by wagglebee
Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- A Netherlands psychiatrist who assisted in the suicide of a grieving mother that ultimately led to the Dutch Supreme Court ruling that the depressed should have the right to kill themselves has now published a do-it-yourself guide to committing suicide.
The guide is expected to go on sale soon in the European nation and it contains detailed information on how people can use drugs to kill themselves.
It also contains information on how to perform other acts of suicide using starvation techniques and describes the quickest and least painful ways to do so.
"Doctors learn little about this subject during their training," author and psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot says, according to the London Telegraph. "This book is for people who want to make their own decisions about ending their own lives."
Euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal in the Netherlands and, together, there are already about 4,400 suicides annually.
For noted bioethics watchdog Wesley Smith, that number is high enough already without the publication of a book encouraging more deaths.
"Not content with thousands of euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths a year, the Dutch are about to have access to a suicide guide," he said. "The Dutch have a high suicide rate already."
About Chabot, Smith said he's concerned such a prominent euthanasia advocate would be encouraging more people to kill themselves.
"The author is a true villain in the modern story of euthanasia and assisted suicide," Smith said.
Smith indicated the guide is the slippery slope of euthanasia that promotes death as a solution to any depression or medical ailments.
"The culture of death is like heroin: Once you start to mainline, it is never enough," Smith concluded.
I know the law is pretty pro-death in Europe, which is as a whole committing continent-wide suicide via refusal to reproduce. Still, I think a case should be made that a doctor’s professional responsibilituy is to promote the health of the patient, and nobody is healthier dead.
See my FR profile for a writing by Wesley Smith. Scroll down and enjoy! It is one of the most lovely things I have ever read.
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