Posted on 07/15/2014 12:11:19 PM PDT by wagglebee
The Daily Mail UK is reporting that a former euthanasia supporter, Professor Theo Boer, has told the House of Lords in the UK not to make the same mistake as the Netherlands.
Next week, the British House of Lords will debate the Falconer assisted suicide bill. Lord Falconer is a long-time supporter of assisted suicide who is also known for writing a one-sided report calling for the legalization of assisted death in Britain.
The Daily Mail reported Dr Boer to have told the House of Lords:
‘Don’t do it Britain,’
‘Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is not likely ever to go back in again.’
According to the Daily Mail report, Dr Boer, who is an academic in the field of ethics, had argued seven years ago that a ‘good euthanasia law’ would produce relatively low numbers of deaths. But, speaking in a personal capacity he said that
he now believed that the very existence of a euthanasia law turns assisted suicide from a last resort into a normal procedure.
Dr Boer, who is a Utrecht University academic who since 2005 has been a member of a review committee that monitors euthanasia deaths stated that:
Euthanasia is now becoming so prevalent in the Netherlands, that it is ‘on the way to becoming a default mode of dying for cancer patients’.
Assisted deaths have increased by about 15 per cent every year since 2008 and the number could hit a record 6,000 this year.
campaigns for doctor-administered death to be made ever easier ‘will not rest’ until a lethal pill is made available to anyone over 70 who wishes to die.
‘Some slopes truly are slippery,’
Dr Boer said that he was concerned at the extension of killing to new classes of people, including the demented and the depressed, and the establishment of mobile death units of ‘travelling euthanasing doctors’. He admitted that:
he was ‘wrong – terribly wrong, in fact’ to have believed regulated euthanasia would work.
‘I used to be a supporter of the Dutch law. But now, with 12 years of experience, I take a very different view.
The Daily Mail article quoted Paralympian, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, said:
‘What Dr Boer says comes as no surprise.
‘An assisted dying law is playing with fire, especially when there are no safeguards in place. Lord Falconer’s bill just isn’t fit for purpose.’
The article then quoted disability rights leader, Baroness Jane Campbell who stated:
‘As happens in Holland, Lord Falconer’s bill could end up encompassing significant numbers of seriously ill people.’
The 2013 Netherlands euthanasia statistics have not yet been released but the 2012 Netherlands euthanasia report indicated that there were 4188 reported assisted deaths, which did not include the unreported assisted deaths, that according to a Lancet study released in 2012 accounted for 23% of all assisted deaths. Therefore the real number of assisted deaths in 2012 was likely more than 5100 deaths.
The expansion of euthanasia in the Netherlands has been significant. Last year a healthy woman who was going blind died by euthanasia.
In February the Dutch Health Minister, Edith Schippers admitted that in 2013 there were 45 psychiatric assisted deaths in the Netherlands which was up from 14 in 2012.
Recently one of Netherlands most famous euthanasia advocates, psychiatrist Dr Boudewijn Chabot wrote an opinion in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad that the Netherlands euthanasia law is derailed.
In his article Chabot referred to several psychiatric euthanasia deaths including:
a 54 year-old woman with a personality disorder, eating disorder and a chronic obsessive-compulsive neurosis.
a physically healthy man of 63 who was working for a government institution. He never had a relationship and the only thing he did his whole life was work. This man had been treated for a long time for depression, but the treatment didn’t work out.
I don't see a problem with that world view. Good grief, am I a liberal anarchist? I only have a PELLET gun, though.
It does keep away the crows and ravens. That's what I bought it for. My husband was able to HIT the birds, as he was a SURE SHOT. I stupidly sold all this guns when he died four years ago. He had two rifles (one was an 'over-under Air Force rifle) and eight pistols plus the pellet gun.
I used to LOVE the little Beretta he had as it fit in my hand. The target he gave me was Osama bin Laden. I got so I could NAIL that fool's beard nine out of ten times from 20 feet away. That was GOOD for me.
As for the ravens and crows, I accidentally hit one a couple of months ago. The pellet merely annoyed the bird but it did LOOK at me. NOW, when I appear at the window or out on the back deck, those crows and ravens make a BEELINE away from me.
Now, I'm beginning to see the hummingbirds again and I finally saw a robin this morning. The blackbirds like to kill and eat other birds.
Chalk one up for "Pellet Patty" and her magnum .357 pellet gun!
Yes, He is.
“What changed his mind? Was it his turn?”
Maybe; he may have also spent the last twelve years watching his country turn into a Third World settlement, and realized that this is just speeding up that process...
NHS/Obamacare + euthanasia... what is not to like for the death party...
Guilt and remorse, two terrible feelings to bear.
Nowadays a body can be kept “alive” indefinitely. There are levels of pain in which pain killers are absolutely, totally useless against. How about the people whose bodies are so damaged there is no hope whatsoever of recovery. All they do is lay in their own filth until a nurse notices they have defecated. They face nothing but 24 hour a day excruciating pain, (unrelenting torture, actually) that, with the aid of machines, can go on day after day, month after month.
Do you?
Bump
Too bad, old man. Now its in the law, and soon it will be “voluntary” (that is, “wouldn’t you rather stop the pain, old person? It doesn’t hurt a bit. It will be peaceful.”)
“Disposable” people soundly endorsed by the American people too.
I agree with you.
It’s considered humane to euthanize an animal dying in pain, but the human must endure it.
I understand the reasoning behind it but I don’t agree with it.
If that’s what you believe, fine. But what about those who don’t believe what you do. Should you impose your belief on them? To put the question another way, if I decide that I want to end my life, should my choice prevail or yours?
I thank God for opening his eyes and mind to the reality of what he formerly thought was a “good idea.”
And may he remain strong in face of the attacks that will now come from those who continue to support euthanasia.
What kind of naive idealistic liberal would believe such a thing?
In a world where people have their pets euthanized so they can go on vacation, who seriously believes that people won't have their relatives euthanized once they become inconvenient, or--worse yet--stand between them and a cushy inheritance?
Too late. Obamacare has death panels to decide if we should continue to live.
YOU ending your life is YOUR business. But, that is ONE thing you gotta do for yourself. Having a doctor there to help you makes him/her complicit.
No kidding.
Look how long it took to see the reality and the truth of this horrible idea.
Maybe if these people didn’t HATE CONSERVATIVES so much they might just listen to us and find out that just may HAVE A POINT once in a while.
Thanks for the ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.