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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.
Finally, someone realizes the truth.
What changed his mind? Was it his turn?
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GOOD one.
He’s not quite dead yet.
How can that be? Our betters in the MSM, academia, and other leftist institutions mock anyone who brings up the "slippery slope" argument.
I remember her. It was a sad case of "disposable" people.
he must be getting closer to death.
I'm gettin' better!
Beat me to it.
Yep that was another case our progressive libertarian friends were on the other side for
Unfortunately too late....The genie is out of the bottle.
Aside from lowering taxes and recognizing the Second Amendment are libertarians on the side of conservatives on ANY issue?
Do you think that THEY feel/felt any remorse? I don't.
This doctor admitted to the world how wrong he was. That must have EATEN away at him all this time. Guilt and remorse, two terrible feelings to bear.
That will focus the mind!
Who knows?
From the Internet:
Libertarianism (Latin: liber, free) is a classification of political philosophies that uphold liberty as their principal objective. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association and the primacy of individual judgment.
While libertarians share a skepticism of authority, they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing political and economic systems.
Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling to restrict or even to wholly dissolve pervasive social institutions.
Rather than embodying a singular, rigid systematic theory or ideology, libertarianism has been applied as an umbrella term to a wide range of sometimes discordant political ideas through modern history.
Although some present-day libertarians advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights, such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources, others, notably libertarian socialists, seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production in favor of their common or cooperative ownership and management.
Reads like the Libertarians do NOT have a unified platform to put forth for their candidacy.
Whatever it was, God is sovereignly in every detail.
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