Thread by me.
Opponents also regularly point to 1,000 deaths in the Netherlands each year being a hastened death without a current request for assistance to die, and say that voluntary euthanasia laws promote this kind of behaviour. They offer this as evidence of the slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia but they ignore the facts.
First, the data they refer to - contained in the Remmelink report was collected in 1990. The Netherlands didnt enact a euthanasia law until 2002.
Two threads by me.
This is a real hoot. Apparently OZ PM Julia Gillard has stated that she doesnt see a way to create a euthanasia legalization system with safeguards that really protect. A Belgian professorDown Under for a convention of the World Federation of Right to Die Societiesclaims that she should look to Belgium to learn how it is done. From the story:
A PIONEER of Belgiums voluntary euthanasia law has rebuffed Prime Minister Julia Gillards statement that it could be almost impossible to find appropriate safeguards for such a law in Australia. Professor Jan Bernheim, a cancer specialist who was instrumental in creating Belgiums voluntary euthanasia law in 2002, said Australia could learn a lot from his country about how to create a safe system. Last week, Ms Gillard said she found it difficult to conceive how there could be appropriate safeguards for such a law, but Professor Bernheim said Belgiums safeguards had worked very well for the past eight years. Ms Gillard obviously hasnt looked at the data, Professor Bernheim said. I think Belgium has a system that is well worth considering.
Belgium???? Abuses abound! Consider these stories covered by SHS and elsewhere:
I would say that Professor Bernheim is the one who hasnt actually looked at the facts. PM Gillard is absolutely correct. Guidelines do notand cannot-protect against abuse.
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Euthanasia guidelines dont work as advertised. Weve seen that truth evidenced againin the Netherlandsand againin Switzerlandand againin Belgiumand againin Oregon. A new study published in the British Medical Journal shows that in Flanders, Belgium, only half of the euthanasia deaths are reported as required by the law. From the study:
The reporting rate for euthanasia in Flanders in 2007 is estimated to be 52.8%. This means that only one out of two cases of actual euthanasia is reported to and reviewed by the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee, and one in two is not. The most important reason given by physicians for not reporting a case to the review committee was that the physician did not perceive the act to be euthanasia (76.7%).Alarge majority of the unreported cases (92.2%) were in fact acts of euthanasia as defined in our study but were not perceived or labelled as euthanasia by the physician involved. Unreported cases of euthanasia were generally dealt with less carefully than reported cases: a written request for euthanasia was absent more often; other physicians and care givers specialised in palliative care were consulted less often; the life ending act was more often performed with opioids, sedatives, or both; and the life ending drugs were more often administered by a nurse instead of a physician.
Not only is it against the law for nurses to kill patients, as we discussed here before, a study by the Canadian Medical Association found that nearly half of nurse administered euthanasia deaths in Belgium are without request or consent.
I also dont buy that doctors dont know when they are taking direct action to terminate a patient. But be that as it may, this study demonstratesagainthat euthanasia cannot be controlled by doctor administered death regulations. Once you let the vampire out of the coffin, it goes where it will. Guidelines are primarily there to give a comforting illusion of control.