The Netherlands has the world’s most liberal euthanasia law, which is even more radical in practice. Its doctors assist the suicides of the depressed and the grieving, a practice long since approved by the country’s Supreme Court. Some “terminate” patients “without request or consent.” Babies born with serious disabilities are subjected to eugenic infanticide. Doctors whose patients may not qualify for euthanasia refer patients to an on line “auto euthanasia” how-to-commit suicide” site. Doctors who decide it is too difficult to kill patients directly, put them into terminal sedation so they don’t do the deed directly and in person.
And now: Suicide tips for only 17.50 Euros! From the story:
No prospects for the future, tired of life or suicidal? Anyone who wants to take matters of life and death into their own hands can get plenty of information on how to end it all from the Dutch Right to Die Association (NVVE). The association has made suicide tips available on a new website. Spokesperson for the association Walburg de Jong says the website is meant to give people information so that they can end their lives in a “humane way without resorting to horrific methods like throwing themselves off a roof or in front of a train.”
But doesn’t that encourage people to commit suicide? Not according to Ms De Jong: “Firstly it is only for members, so people can only enter the site with a log-in code.” You only have access to the site if you are a member, which costs 17.50 euros per year. But this appears not to be true. This morning, a number of Radio Netherlands journalists managed to log in to the suicide instruction site without the log-in code.
Codes, shmodes: Those who encourage and support people in dying instead of living have much for which to answer morally, it seems to me. That point aside, this story again demonstrates that once suicide culture is allowed to germinate, it is never satiated, never enough.
November 13th, 2009 | 5:33 pm
Mr. Smith, you are talking complete nonsense here.
November 13th, 2009 | 7:16 pm
How so, A Dutchman?
Do you deny any of the facts listed here or in the linked article?
Or do you consider the attitude of the NVVE reasonable, i.e., that suicide is a reasonable solution to “mental suffering” (whether it results from a diagnosed mental illness or not, presumably)?
If so, in your consideration, would there be any reason at all to give medical treatment to a person suffering from paranoid schizophrenia or clinical depression? Would you consider that the best solution, both for themselves and the community, is simply to remove them from amongst us?
November 14th, 2009 | 1:10 am
Nonsense:
“The Netherlands has the world’s most liberal euthanasia law, which is even more radical in practice.”
True:
Switserland has the world’s most liberal euthanasia law (bless them), followed by Oregon.
Nonsense:
“Its doctors assist the suicides of the depressed and the grieving”
True: Only patients who are terminally ill and suffering great physical pain might (might!) be able to get assistance with euthanasia. It takes months, a minumum of three doctors, a psychologist, the patient’s spouse and the patient him/herself to decide.
Nonsense:
“Some “terminate” patients “without request or consent.””
True:
No patient was ever terminated in the Netherlands “without request or consent.”
Just to name a few…
November 14th, 2009 | 1:17 am
@ Kathleen Lundquist
In general, I just hate it when other people decide what’s “good for me”.
November 14th, 2009 | 1:22 am
[...] here: Suicide Culture: The Netherlands Shows That It's' Never Enough … Share and [...]
November 14th, 2009 | 2:24 am
ADutcjman:If you are Dutch, you are wholly ignorant of what is happening in your own country. You don’t need to be terminally ill at all to receive euthanasia. About 800 people are killed each year by doctors who have not asked to be euthanized, which is called “termination without consent or request.” You should read your own government’s studies. Infanticide under the Groningen Protocol and elsewheare has doctors killing about 8% of all infants in the Netherlands who die each year. Not legal, but in typical Dutch fashion, shrugged at. The Chabot case in the Dutch Supreme Court permits people with existential suffering but ill to receive assisted suicide.
These are undeniable facts. You may not care, but they are real, and demonstrate that the Netherlands has falled off a moral cliff.
If your country legalizes infanticide, as some plan, it will be brought up on international human rights charges.
November 14th, 2009 | 4:27 am
@ Wesley J. Smith
Your Wiki entry says that you are “prepared to bend the truth to make a point, turn a stomach, and potentially radicalize a reader.”
I think I agree.
November 14th, 2009 | 12:35 pm
So…Mr.Dutchman…
Does that mean that if Wesley Smith’s statements could be proven to be factual, that you would find that such policies would be unacceptable to you?
If so, what would you require to be convinced that his statements of Dutch policies _are_ true?
November 14th, 2009 | 1:12 pm
Dear mr. Suek,
I spent the best part of my 52 years life working as an administrator in Dutch hospitals. I don’t need Wesley Smith to tell me about euthanasia in the Netherlands.
There is absolutely nothing unethical about it and doctors don’t go around lethally injecting people here and there.
November 14th, 2009 | 2:17 pm
ADutchman,
Your argument from authority is not very convincing. If you know what you’re talking about, i.e., you’re familiar with the studies that WS refers to here, it would be wonderful if you could offer a real rebuttal based on something besides your unsubstantiated claim that you know everything there is to know in the domain in question. Also, N.B., being a hospital administrator does not qualify you even prima facie as an authority on ethical questions.
November 14th, 2009 | 5:40 pm
[...] Culture: The Netherlands Shows That It’s’ Never Enough First Things | by Wesley J. Smith | Nov. 13, [...]
November 14th, 2009 | 6:13 pm
A Dutchman,
There are none so blind, as those who will not see!
November 15th, 2009 | 10:24 am
Besides, you didn’t answer the question. If what he said could be proven as factual, would you find it unacceptable?
At present, what you’ve said is that he’s wrong – everything that is done is ethical. I have no doubt that those who perform those actions consider them ethical and it sounds as if you – as an administrator – were part of that group. Just as likely for an Imam to state that stoning of adulterous women as morally wrong….
November 15th, 2009 | 5:10 pm
Another Dutchie jumping in here. Wesley Smith is at least partially right, in that mental illness and even “suffering life” are at least formally tolerated reasons for euthanasia. It is generally considered bad practice to euthanize the mentally ill, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. (For those unfamiliar with the Dutch legal system: we have a grey limbo between legal and illegal, where a practice is officially illegal but you will not be prosecuted for it.) I think infant euthanasia with parental consent was legalized in 2006 (the Groningen protocol was first formally tolerated in 2004), but I heard about the legislation through a Canadian pro-life site two years after it passed, so it is not surprising that not every Dutchman knows. By the way, only two doctors (one of which independent) have to approve euthanasia.
As for “termination without consent or request”, what does that mean? I never heard of it. Is it where people in PVS will be dehydrated to death (in which case it happens everywhere, not jus tin the Netherlands), or do you mean something else?
With regard to the suicide tips website, however, I want to remind everyone that suicide methods have been described on websites everywhere. The one I read once happened to be hosted in the Netherlands (the last itme I checked there, it was gone, so maybe the owner deleted it), but it was in English, originally not written by the Dutchwoman who hosted it, and cross-posted to English newsgroups/forums. As for “inspiring” people: all that site did was make it damn clear that OTC drugs or other “easy-and-cheap” methods won’t work and may just give you permanent organ damage. If the NVVE actually provides the prescription-only drugs required for a “humane” death, it will likely be prosecuted, as has happened to another organization which provided a blind man uneligible for euthanasia with lethal drugs.
November 15th, 2009 | 5:45 pm
Astrid. Your comments are like a breath of fresh air. It might do us Americans well to remember that our country was settled in part by a bunch of Calvinists (the Pilgrims) whose views were so extreme that they offended even the tolerant Dutch. Alas, after nearly 400 years nothing seems to have changed in some quarters.
November 15th, 2009 | 7:45 pm
A Dutchman: “Your Wiki entry says that you are ‘prepared to bend the truth to make a point, turn a stomach, and potentially radicalize a reader.’”
Wikipedia is a minefield of cat dung with facts occasionally found there. I could write a Wiki entry about you, Dutchman, saying you once vandalized an orphanage bus and released a stink-bomb in the Louvre.
November 17th, 2009 | 5:55 am
I would have to agree with bmmg39. I considered all claims by Dutchman null when he resorted to wiki as his only source of information. I would hope that administrators of hospitals were educated enough to know not to rely on wiki. Though this could help explain why what is going on in the Netherlands and around the world is becoming more commonplace.
November 19th, 2009 | 7:34 am
A “dutchman”-you are full of it. You may not want to admit what is happening in your own country, but that doesn’t change the facts. And, if you’re getting information solely on Wikipedia, then that just shows WHY you don’t know what’s going on in your own country. Moreover, if the wikipedia entry said anything like the quote you described, that entry is in violation of Wikipedia’s “neutral perspective” policy and should be ammended. Why don’t you go and read a REAL source to back up your arguments.
November 19th, 2009 | 6:29 pm
On the other hand, Wesley, you wouldn’t want these poor terminally ills to get suicide info from some hacks who don’t know what they’re talking about (as happens here in the US). Let’s make this assisted suicide/euthanasia thing safe, legal, and rare!! (being fecicious for those who don’t have a pulse).
November 21st, 2009 | 5:54 pm
Tom: The last time the US made something legal for the purpose of making it ’safe, legal, and rare’ (abortion) we ended up with procedures that are 4 times more likely to end in maternal death than birth, 60plus% of women saying they were cohersed or forced into it, and skyrocketing rates equal to one third of the current generation killed before they were born. Anytime someone argues for making something legal so it will be ’safe, legal, and rare’ it should raise huge neon red flags, because inevitably only the ‘legal’ will be accomplished, and that only on paper.
December 1st, 2009 | 2:58 pm
Dutchman, how is it the one person I knew @FSU neurology said (not a conservative person) that her grandfather had been euthanized and they informed the family afterwards? She said they don’t need family/patient permission. The medical personnel have the full authority to decide who should be terminated.
December 3rd, 2009 | 11:40 pm
Ditto re: Wikipedia! Someone can even claim that Wesley Smith was a suspect in the Kennedy assassination, like this –
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm
December 23rd, 2009 | 6:12 pm
He was just searching for a name and found some information which he could adhere to, meaning he could use and write for himself, nothing more or nothing less. It’s not like he used wikipedia to back information, just to grasp it. I’m sure this character doesn’t have any official biographies anyway.
I believe suicide rates in NLs are lower than the USA even if they are legal and free to do by anyone.
So in essense, a (or any) dutchman can turn around and write an article about the USA as a criminalizing culture, and in fact do very well considering our current prison circumstances.
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