Dutch Euthanasia Doctors May Now Kill Perfectly Healthy Adults

LifeSiteNews.com via WorldNetDaily ^ | 01-11-05 | Unkown

[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."

[IamConservative]

Isn't this just VERY late term abortion? Next thing you know, they won't even be born, but then again we do that to - early term abortion.

What about the hypocratic oath? "Do no harm."

Men playing God. Never a good thing.

[nmh]

Same here.

This is hideous.

[Al Simmons]

The new Dutch Surgeon General has issued a statement reading: "I am very happy that our nation will be rid of the leeches on the society's resources. We are currently exploring ways of expaning this program to liquidate the 'towelhead' immigrant problem."

[nmh]

"I wonder when they will start euthanizing convicted murderers?"

Oh no! You can't kill murderers! That would be taking a life!!!!

These people are such glaring hypocrites! They'll murder the ones that can't speak for themselves and keep alive totally evil people at the peoples expense while in prison. Just don't dare to throw money or love or compassion at someone suffering - no murder them.

So sad.

[nmh]

#17 sad story.

[elfman2]

" Can you name anything in morality that isn't religiously founded? "

There’s a 50 year old philosophy called Objectivism in which such a morality is at its foundation. In short a universal morality is extrapolated by observation and reason with man’s happiness as a rational being as its highest ideal. There are a few imperfections in Objectivism as with all religions, but probably not the ones you’d imagine. Most good Christians read up on in for about 10 minutes and label it with any of a half dozen failings that are common to other atheistic philosophies that would clearly not apply to Objectivism if it were read more carefully.

[U S Army EOD]

Well the Dutch had a lot of people join the SS in WWII, some of it must have rubbed off.

[U S Army EOD]

Apparently they are trying to cure their suicide problems. If you are going to commit suicide, they can now beat you to the draw.

[marty60]

Nay the Nazi's went for the disabled vets first. Said it was unsightly to have the memories of the lost war roaming the streets.

Can't you just see the anti-war crowd now. We can't have the disabled "war criminals", besides costing to much, they are unpleasant to look at. don't laugh. We have heard complaints that the troops are getting to good care. To many surviving. This is an ugly subject, and it will get even uglier if they aren't stopped. History's lessons.

[Polyxene]

The "final solution" for PEST. Seriously, though, what is with the Dutch to make them want to kill each other???!!! This is just sick.

[DarkSavant]

Well, I read "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" in my arrogant Teen Angst years.

In short a universal morality is extrapolated by observation and reason with man’s happiness as a rational being as its highest ideal

Like most Objectivists, you like to say reason, yet I don't really think you know what it means.

"Man's happiness" is a useless abstraction, any moral system will be at the expense of someone's happiness. If your moral system stated it was bad to kill senselessly, you are infringing on a serial killer's happiness. If you say killing is okay, some guy is not going to be happy when he gets butchered for no particular reason on the street.

You might say the serial killer above wasn't being rational but then you have to define what being rational is. Usually it boils down to, they believe what I believe. You can't reationally prove killing is wrong, just like you can't prove that killing(even yourself) is okay. If you knock yourself off rest assured there are grieving families out there, and even if not that you have no idea what awaits you once you're dead . For those who say there is no life after death it is just as dogmatic as there is life after death.

If you haven't noticed, moral systems in a society change by people who, for the most part, are trying to change moral norms so as to create an environment in which they are happier, universally at the expense of others. How do you create a universal morality out of that?

You could say the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people. Then you have to somehow quantify happiness, and, if you could manage to do that, you would realize that the this is impossible to do because greatest happiness and greatest amount of people are mutually exclusive goals and don't line up, kind of like the greatest wealth for the greatest amount of people.

As a side note, trying to find universals out of observation uses induction, a useful but fatally flawed mechanism. If you see the sun rise every day for your entire life you could think that, out of observation, the sun will always rise, though that is not true. David Hume really ripped inductive reasoning apart if you want to read his stuff.

There's my semi-coherent rant, It's times like there I really wish I was more fluid in getting across my thoughts on the subject.

Rand is a lightweight, I recommend you read Kierkegaard(Fear and Trembling) or Aquinas sometime.

[Ciexyz]

most distressing.

[zerosix]

Just as long as the subjects are Islamo-facists, he he he.

[Ryan Spock]

Mira de Vries, of the Association for Medical and Therapeutic Self-Determination, a pro-suicide group...

I'm guessing that this organization is full of members who don't actively practice what they preach (at least, not on themselves).

[evolved_rage]

Can you imagine living in a desert, riding camels, and picking flies off of a meager food ration. Such suffering. Its truly unbearable.

Paging Dr. Neutron, your needed in the Middle East.

[Plutarch]

I wonder what the CPT code is for killing someone? How would the description of euthanasia be euphemized? I wonder how much the doctor is paid for the procedure?

Publish a CPT code for something, establish a payment scheme, and it will be done.

[missanne]

ROTFLOL!!!! Kitty, kitty bump!

[FormerACLUmember]

This actually goes far beyond what the Nazis ever dreamed of.

The death rate at the socialist Dutch hospitals skyrockets on Friday mornings. The government docs kill off the really sick patients so they won't be bothered over the weekend.

[FormerACLUmember]

[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" "costing the state too much in medical care expenses." ]

Precisely. You just got down to the REAL issue here (outside of the Satanic immorality, of course).

This is a cost saving measure to the socialized medical system. Kill off the defenseless sick old folks and you just cut the biggest cost in health care.

Two Thirds of all health care expenses for US Medicare, for example, are incurred in the last two weeks of life.

[elfman2]

""Man's happiness" is a useless abstraction, any moral system will be at the expense of someone's happiness."

With all due respect, I need to stop reading you right there. You didn’t even read my last short post to you carefully. You’re making one of the common errors that most first time readers make that I referred to.

I qualified “happiness” with “as a rational being”. Maximizing that is incompatible with mankind living as serial killers and probably every other abhorrent behavior that you can imagine. I’ve taken the time to reason through this misunderstanding on FR with a couple of people, but it takes time and a committed effort on both sides. I’m not inclined to do so with the attitude in your first few sentences.

Also, one can no more understand Objectivism by reading AS and TFH than understand Christianity by seeing “Passion of the Christ” and the “Ten Commandments”. The phylosopy itself is outlined in a little 110 page book called “The Virtues of Selfishness”, but it’s so abbreviated that few catch all the qualifiers like the one that tripped you up so most still walk away with misconceptions.

Regards.

(Oh, I just read your last sentence as well before hitting the “Reply” button. With your anger, you’re not in a place to have this discussion with you. Don’t bother writing me back. I won’t read it.)