Netherlands is the Euthanasia Capital of the World, Will America and Britain Follow?

Life News ^ | 2/13/15 | Wesley J. Smith

[wagglebee]

Newsweek has a long article–in which I briefly appear–exploring how and why the euthanasia monster broke its fetters to turn the Netherlands into ground zero for the culture of death (now seriously challenged by the even more death-enthusiastic Belgians).

Reporter Winston Ross interviewed experts and the impacted on both sides of the issue, so you should read the whole thing. What I wanted to share here, are the theories about why Netherlanders have permitted euthanasia with virtually no meaningful limits.

First, media propaganda. From, “Dying Dutch:

Once a supporter of euthanasia, he’s now one of its most vocal critics. Among the reasons for the euthanasia boom, Boer suggests, is propaganda. Over the past decade, he says, Dutch journalist Gerbert van Loenen has been tracking a series of documentary films that depict euthanasia in a wholly positive light.

“They do ask certain questions,” [Theo] Boer says. “But they systematically ignore most critical questions, so that the general public is presented with an opinion that is completely good, and has no risks. This is contagious.”

We’ve seen the same pattern here: Brittany Maynard! and the shamefully inadequate and incomplete reporting about Jack Kevorkian that transformed a ghoul into a Muppet.

Once the principle that killing is the proper response to suffering infects a society’s bone marrow, there are no ultimate limits that can hold.

Once a supporter of euthanasia, he’s now one of its most vocal critics. Among the reasons for the euthanasia boom, Boer suggests, is propaganda. Over the past decade, he says, Dutch journalist Gerbert van Loenen has been tracking a series of documentary films that depict euthanasia in a wholly positive light.

“They do ask certain questions,” Boer says. “But they systematically ignore most critical questions, so that the general public is presented with an opinion that is completely good, and has no risks. This is contagious.”

Once a society falls of the euthanasia cliff, there is no bottom. Hence, the Dutch 12-year old lower limit on medicalized killing is now under assault, no doubt soon to collapse (following the Belgian example):

Pediatrician Eduard Verhagen [who created the infant killing bureaucratic checklist known as the Groningen Protocol] helped establish the Dutch euthanasia guidelines for infants. He says the law should go further. “If we say the cutoff line is age 12, there might be children of 11 years and nine months who are very well capable of determining their own fate and making their own decisions, but they’re not allowed to ask for euthanasia.”

It is hard to imagine an American pediatrician making that argument. But no one envisioned euthanasia in the Netherlands would expand the way it has in the past 13 years. Perhaps the U.S. isn’t far behind.

We aren’t. It’s just a matter of convincing enough of us to discard our hold on the intrinsic importance of human life and to accept the Kevorkian prescription.

That is the ultimate and inescapable point: It’s the principle of the thing that controls, not temporary and politically expediences of putting in “guidelines” that are really intended to merely give the appearance of control.

Euthanasia consciousness is virulent. Unless society is inoculated by a firm embrace of human exceptionalism, Dying Dutch will become Dying Canadian, Dying American, Dying British, etc. The story will be the same even if written in a different language.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.

[wagglebee]

“They do ask certain questions,” Boer says. “But they systematically ignore most critical questions, so that the general public is presented with an opinion that is completely good, and has no risks. This is contagious.”

And this is the way the left has ALWAYS operated, they restrict the flow of information and leave the public to believe that their's is the only way.

[wagglebee]

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[wagglebee]

[SevenofNine]

I hate to say it I think my state California be next state to legalize this

[Pollster1]

There are quite a few people in “public service” in DC who could make the world a better place by removing themselves from our lives. Even for them, I oppose euthanasia. Life is a gift from God, and who are we to write “return to sender” for no better reason than personal convenience?

[madprof98]

We joke about the mainstream/lamestream media, but the truth is that they can still sell anything. They have sold sodomy. We are now getting gay marriage as a fundamental human right. And they sell death in all its forms—except the death penalty, which they oppose.

[G Larry]

In my 1976 college biology class, I used an essay response to chastise the prof for his pro-abort position.

I warned that this lack of respect for human life would lead to euthanasia and ultimately, the government deciding when you weren’t worth keeping alive.

It was probably my reference to creating a “Master Race” that cost me a letter grade.

It is worth standing up for your beliefs.

[nascarnation]

this lack of respect for human life would lead to

It has borne bitter fruit.

When I was a kid in the 50s, each murder was big news.

Today they happen in the 'hood about as often as car wrecks.

[I want the USA back]

The left desperately wants Whitey dead so the poor, downtrodden, oppressed people in third world countries can waltz in and take their place.

[proud American in Canada]

Canada’s Supreme Court just ruled it was unconstitutional to ban euthanasia.

[Dante3]

This is frightening and demented.

[trisham]

America and Britain are already well on the way.

[Albion Wilde]

The Netherlands has long been the Detroit of Western civilization, as trendy liberalism took hold of them after WWII, funded a hedonism-based sex and drugs industry that took over their society and led them to a suicidal immigration policy that has seen major parts of their country turn into no-go zones. Soon after they legalized gay marriage almost 20 years ago, their heterosexual marriage rate began to decline. Even when 10 years ago they suffered a Charlie-Hebdo assassination of their filmmaker Theo van Gogh who tried to warn them, they did nothing to stop their slide into decadence and the contempt their ghettos of second-generation Dutch jihadists feel for them.

Now they are on the ropes. Individual suicide seems a viable option in a nation that rejected Christ and is reaping the rewards in its own body.

There was a reason God warned, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me."

[Salvation]

Amen and double Amen!

[Alamo-Girl]

Buuump!