Posted on 01/13/2005 7:06:20 AM PST by Houmatt
The Royal Dutch Medical Association has concluded, after a three-year investigation, that Dutch doctors ought to be able to kill patients who are not ill but who are judged to be "suffering through living."
The decision contradicts the Dutch Supreme Court that ruled in 2002 that patients may only request euthanasia if they have a "classifiable physical or mental condition," and not if they are merely "tired of life." The law however, does not require a medical condition, but only that a patient must be "suffering hopelessly and unbearably." Pro-life activists have warned that such ambiguous language is an open door for new interpretations that would make the law a license to kill.
The new report says many Dutch doctors believe some cases of "suffering through living" could be judged "unbearable and hopeless."
Jos Dijkhuis, the emeritus professor of clinical psychology who led the study said, "In more than half of cases we considered, doctors were not confronted with a classifiable disease. In practice the medical domain of doctors is far broader … We see a doctor's task is to reduce suffering, therefore we can't exclude these cases in advance. We must now look further to see if we can draw a line and if so where."
Mira de Vries, of the Association for Medical and Therapeutic Self-Determination, a pro-suicide group, pointed out that the law exists only to protect doctors from prosecution for homicide. She commented on the British Medical Journal's forum page, "By claiming that the medical domain of doctors is far broader, and includes the reduction of suffering unrelated to classifiable and measurable somatic illness, physicians are proposing to redefine medicine, and vastly expand its already inflated territory."
Henk Jochemsen, director of the anti-euthanasia Lindeboom Institute for Medical Ethics, said the report gave the message that, "we as a society should say to people who feel their life has lost meaning: right you had better go away."
I fifty years the elderly ethnic Dutch population of childless pensioners will be judged to be suffering unbearably by the young Muslim majority because they do not take to heart the teachings of Allah...
Precisely, I expect France to surrender to the Royal Dutch Medical Association any day now.
Sounds like this category covers democrats.......
When the state is responsible for the excess expense of keeping you alive, the state is going to want you dead. It's just business, nothing personal...
I was thinking perzackly the same thing as you, then I saw your kitty pix. Took me ten minutes to recover from laughing so hard.
Humor aside, these folks are demented. Perhaps the doctors might take their own medicine since they too, seem to suffer from such "sad, meaningless lives".
I have to wonder what is in the Dutch psyche that leads to this kind of twisted thinking.
Brave new world...
I think that’s the most reasonable policy, and a no assisted suicide under any conditions policy is purely religiously founded, unsupportable by reason beyond wild speculation and is not consistent with the US Constitution.
Next step: kill the unemployed.
Add Democrats!
To be honest, I also checked to see when you joined in case you were trolling.
This would be a prime opportunity to appoing Tom "Deeply Saddened" Daschle as Ambassador to Holland...
...reading.
No hope. No revulsion at the thought of lost life. No desire to aid in a better future. Sounds like clinical depression is the norm with these doctors, too. When you lose God, you lose everything.
Will this become a medical specialty?
Bingo. This is the logical destination of socialized medicine.
I understand.
The inexorable logic was there, but I have a hard time believing this myself. We keep sinking further and further.
Do you think maybe that seriously ill people will be reluctant to seek medical treatment?
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