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All Hospitals Must Permit Euthanasia
Expatica.com ^ | June 13, 2003 | belgian news

Posted on 09/09/2003 8:10:36 AM PDT by MarMema

BRUSSELS — The right to euthanasia must exist in all hospitals, negotiators forming Belgium's new government said Friday in a move to counter opposition by some Catholic hospitals that have allegedly refused to permit assisted suicide on their premises.

The negotiators, who are forming a government after the 18 May general elections, have laid down that every hospital must have a team of doctors prepared to apply euthanasia, under a strict policy designed to protect patients and their relatives. Euthanasia was made legal, under certain conditions, in Belgium last year.

Doctors will be given a protected status for performing euthanasia.

The chairman of the Flemish liberal VLD party, Karel De Gucht said euthanasia is the business of a doctor and a patient, and that hospitals should not interfere.

In February a doctor who carried out euthenasia on a terminally ill cancer patient in a Catholic hospital was dimissed by managers who accused him of not following the legal correct proceedure by the hospital management and dismissed. The doctor denied that he had disobeyed the law.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: belgium; euthanasia
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To: NotJustAnotherPrettyFace
Considering Belgium is heavily Catholic

In the sense that most Belgians, when they want to have a nice wedding, use Catholic churches for the purpose, sure.

But only one out of every 20 Belgian "Catholics" makes it to Mass on any given Sunday.

The Church in Belgium has been a source of much of the heterodoxy and heteropraxy infesting the Church today. Suenens anyone? Schillebeecx?

Perhaps the best way of finding out how strong the convictions of the Church in Belgium are would be to find out if they have been burying "Catholics" who have been euthanized with the rites of the Church.

Sickening to say, I'll bet they have.

41 posted on 09/09/2003 9:48:53 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: bedolido
It is one thing to give a terminal patient an appropriate level of painkillers and liquid nourishment until the inevitable occurs.

It is another thing entirely to dehydrate or starve a non-terminal patient to death or to hasten the death of a terminal patient by giving them poison or an intentional overdose.

The former is death with dignity.

The latter is murder.

42 posted on 09/09/2003 9:57:55 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: wideawake
true! I misunderstood the difference. I would hope the former would be the case for all people dying in extreme pain (if the patient asks, if not possible, the family asks)
43 posted on 09/09/2003 10:00:03 AM PDT by bedolido (My wife is a sex object - every time I ask for sex, she objects)
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To: MarMema
So in Belgium, the government can tell a Catholic organization what it must do?

No wonder they don't understand what freedom is about.

44 posted on 09/09/2003 10:13:38 AM PDT by MEGoody
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To: bedolido
Allowing someone to die (e.g. not hooked to machines or resusitated, etc.) is different from euthanasia. The former is allowing life to run its course in a respectful manner. The latter is the active taking of life.
45 posted on 09/09/2003 10:15:20 AM PDT by MEGoody
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To: MarMema
As people here in America get older and force workers to pay much larger tax burdens for the ridiculous benefits the elderly will make law, you will find the young here in the USA will promote involuntary euthanasia.
46 posted on 09/09/2003 10:24:50 AM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy; Theodore R.
I am sure skyrocketing healthcare costs are part of the picture, but in the Netherlands and even Belgium there is socialized medicine, and euthanasia has a lot of support there. At least some of it has to be cultural.
47 posted on 09/09/2003 10:27:43 AM PDT by MarMema
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To: MarMema
Vermont begins considering assisted suicide
48 posted on 09/09/2003 10:29:22 AM PDT by MarMema
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To: MarMema
France has their version of Euthanasia just last month as well.

When it costs and the elderly become a burden and can't pay, expect their care to go down and that they be allowed to die.
It isn't nice, but the world gets harsh for those who can't pay.

Besides, in the USA we have to get our priorities straight and keep paying for the health care and education of millions of illegals.
49 posted on 09/09/2003 10:32:05 AM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: bedolido
Euthanized patient story here

"Though neither the patient nor her family asked him to hasten her death, Attorney General William Sorrell said no criminal charges would be filed against Thompson."

50 posted on 09/09/2003 10:53:24 AM PDT by MarMema
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To: Loyalist
That's an interesting story. At least the king didn't act like abortion was the greatest thing since before sliced bread.
51 posted on 09/09/2003 11:01:44 AM PDT by jocon307 (Boy, even I am surprised at myself!)
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To: johnb838
Right to die, living wills, euthanasia, it's all a bunch of crap.

Not, it is not a bunch of crap. If you are suffering and going to die anyway, you will not think that.

52 posted on 09/09/2003 11:11:03 AM PDT by The Other Harry
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To: kidd
"There is no reason for a government to force a practice on a religion that finds it objectionable."

Operating a hospital is a privilege, not a right. If the church does not want to follow governments rules, then they should be forced to shut down operations until they comply fully with the rules of the states.
53 posted on 09/09/2003 11:26:38 AM PDT by The Louiswu (Good morning America)
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To: The Louiswu
Having a hospital is a privilege, not a right. If the government does not want to follow allow religious freedom, then the Catholic church should shut down hospital operations until the government can keep their noses out of their beliefs.
54 posted on 09/09/2003 11:36:42 AM PDT by kidd
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To: The Other Harry
and going to die anyway

Ah, and herein lies the slope.

We are all going to die anyway. Do you think an infant with a simple, correctable, birth defect should be starved/dehydrated to death because it was born with Downs Syndrome as well?

Do you think an elderly confused person should be starved/dehydrated to death because she has trouble swallowing?

Do you think hospitals should be able to decide when your quality of life is no longer worth treatment? Do you think you will be allowed enough say in the decision?

If you have a brain injury and are disabled as a result of it, do you want to be killed in a very painful and suffering-filled way, slowly?

Do you think the disabled, those who were in car accidents and took time to recover, but recovered enough to move around in a wheelchair and play card games, should be sacrificed for organ donations?

All of these things are being debated in the courts and in many cases have already happened.

55 posted on 09/09/2003 11:39:33 AM PDT by MarMema
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To: The Other Harry
I'm torn also. Because of religious reasons, I cannot condone suicide, but because of working in a nursing home for the past few years, I can understand the desire of some to want to go.

I've cared for residents who are virtual vegetables, kept alive by feeding tubes. They are so contracted because of their diseases that they can't get out of bed to sit in wheelchairs. They cannot talk, they cannot swallow, so imagine the extreme discomfort of having saliva, etc. building up in their mouths till an overworked aide has a chance to clean and suction their mouths.

This issue is so very complicated. By the time residents have been in a nursing home for a few months, the average monthly cost of around $5,000.00 plus hundreds for medicine has depleted their assets. The home then gets medical assistance from the state, medicaid and takes their social security checks and any pension checks they may still get. Taxpayers pay for this.

My father is in the nursing home I work at. He had his stroke in 1998 and lived in assisted living till the past year. Between the assisted living and the nursing home, the prescription medicine cost and doctor and hospital bills and medical insurance premiums, his liquid assets are gone. All that's left is his house, that I live in.

His social security and pension checks go to the nursing home. They let him have $30.00 a month for spending money.

I make $10.05 per hour as a certified nurse's aid and I can't afford to pay the taxes on this house. However, when I sell the house I have to turn over the proceeds to the nursing home - all of it. When he dies, if there is anything left from the proceeds of the home, the home will keep half and my sister and I will get the rest. But at $5,000.00 per month, I doubt there will be little left. But that's OK with me.

However, I won't deny that dealing with my father who is paralyzed on his right side, seeing the effects of his brain deteriorating (he's extremely confused and has turned into a very combative resident to care for) and then seeing all that he saved for turned over to a place that cuts costs any way they can, has been an emotional rollercoaster for me and my sister.

When Dad gets a few lucid moments, he doesn't want to live anymore. He got a living will years ago, but he is not at that level where he's on life support or kept alive by a feeding tube. And I could never ever bring about circumstances to help him go home to God.

There are those in the home that have brain damage and cannot express if they are uncomfortable. As an aid, I have to imagine myself lying in bed and if the position I put them in would be uncomfortable to me.

The physical therapy department makes us put splints and braces on some of them to prevent further contraction. These things are hot, hard and I resent having to make a resident sleep with them on and they can't tell me they hurt.

I've gone on and on too long and I'm forgetting my point.

Suffice to say, if you have elderly parents who can still get around and function, it's hard to imagine that there are some don't want to live anymore. I'm OK with living wills, but euthenasia (sp?) is a very complicated issue and not one I'm ready to see applied willy-nilly in society.

And yet I imagine that the ones being kept alive in a vegetative state, lying in bed day after day, month after month, year after year, are using that time praying to God to please release them from this life on earth.

Our medical advances have kept alive people who God would've taken home long before, but have not improved the quality of their lives. Imagine not being able to dress yourself, to get to the bathroom when you want, to have to have someone clean you after you defecate and urinate. To not be able to scratch an itch or feed yourself. To be thirsty and not be able to get some water till an overworked aid can pour you a small glass. To be woken up every 2 hours during the night to get change the pads you urinated on. To be dependent on laxatives every 3 days because the food is not conducive to healthy bowel elimination and the medicines keep you constipated.

No, I do not want this for me when I get old. When I write my living will, I plan to specify that if I end up in a nursing home, all I want is painkillers, a handful of anti-depressants every day and about 4 ounces of Drambuie every night to sleep.

I'm scared of getting old now and would rather go in my sixties then have to endure my body's breakdown and being kept alive for years in my 70's and on.

56 posted on 09/09/2003 11:41:23 AM PDT by 3catsanadog (When anything goes, everything will.)
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To: The Other Harry
Abortion is nothing more than legal premediatated murder of a defenseless baby. The female makes the appointment in advance as to when she would like the doctor to murder her unborn child. It's legal murder. The baby has no say or defense. Aren't you glad your mother didn't murder you?

"A viable fetus is one thing. Someone who is terminally ill and who is suffering and is going to die soon and who consciously asks to die now rather than later is different."

A viable unborn baby is no different. How do you justify speeding up their death? Are you god? Aren't you playing god? Who are YOU to determine when is it right for another person to die? When people are that ill they are NOT in their right mind.

57 posted on 09/09/2003 11:41:41 AM PDT by nmh
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To: browardchad
"except for "seven year-olds," because, of course, they can't yet publicly foster the idea of euthanasia for defective children -- but give them time to keep shaving the limits."

Yes they have! In France, couples were suing the docs for the birth of a defective child! If they had known he would be defective, they would have aborted him. I'm sure it was posted on FR...just don't know where. Rush talked at it also...
58 posted on 09/09/2003 11:44:07 AM PDT by =Intervention= (RINO guide to success: When in doubt, sell out!)
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To: The Louiswu
"If the church does not want to follow governments rules, then they should be forced to shut down operations until they comply fully with the rules of the states."

That is insane. Screw conscience, huh? Bow down to the almighty power of the state?
59 posted on 09/09/2003 11:49:26 AM PDT by =Intervention= (RINO guide to success: When in doubt, sell out!)
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To: MarMema
bump
60 posted on 09/09/2003 12:47:41 PM PDT by Steve0113
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