The Netherlands vividly illustrates how euthanasia/assisted suicide cannot logically be limited to the restricted category of people diagnosed with a terminal illness. Since euthanasia began there under official sanction–first decriminalization and then formal legalization–the Dutch have fallen off a moral cliff in which all kinds of people are killed by doctors or assisted in suicide–including disabled infants and people who haven’t asked to die. Had you told the Dutch that their “limited” license, under oh, so strict “guidelines” would lead to baby killing, I wonder whether it would have gone forward.
But that is water under Suicide Bridge. I have long believed that once killing is accepted as an acceptable answer to human suffering, the culture changes to the point that life itself ceases to matter if the person in question is perceived as “suffering.” Now, Dutch citizens have rushed to put a measure before the Parliament that would allow people age 70 and older who are “tired of life,” to have access to assisted suicide–even if they aren’t sick or disabled. From the story:
A lobby group hoping to win support for assisted suicide for the over 70s has raised the necessary 40,000 signatures to force a parliamentary debate on the issue.The organisation, which is supported by tv personalities and academics, says thousands of elderly people have had enough of life and would like professional help to commit suicide. The campaign was launched last week.
Unbelievable, but entirely logical. Once you start down this road, it is never enough. And why limit it to people age 70 and over? Surely 68 year olds who are tired of life deserve “choice.” And in fact, why not just anybody sufficiently depressed to want to die for longer than two weeks? Yup, that is already happening–officially approved by the Dutch Supreme Court.
As Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne once wrote so succinctly:
A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.
That seems to be the cliff of of which the Dutch have fallen. Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
February 17th, 2010 | 10:47 am
Lawyer Eugène Sutorius says in the Volkskrant there is no reason to assume assisted suicide for the elderly would be abused. ‘People said it would happen with the current euthanasia law, but it has not happened,’ he said.
Sotorius is the chairman of Nvve, the Netherland association for euthanasia. I think he is lying, and he knows that he’s lying! What about Groningen Protocol? What about the numbers growing up (+10% of official euthanasia cases every year)? What about the SVL (Volountary Life Foundation in Netherland) chairman arrested in 2007 (http://badnewsfromthenetherlands.blogspot.com/2007/11/chairman-of-euthanasia-club-arrested.html)?
What is the exact meaning of “abuse” for Sotorius?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 11:13 am
I have met and interviewed Sotorious. He never thinks there will be abuses, because whatever is done–e.g. his client psychiatrist Chabot assisting the suicide of a woman who wanted to die because of despair over the death of her sons–isn’t abuse. He believes in process and bureaucratic rules, but not in their rigorous enforcement.
February 17th, 2010 | 2:09 pm
[...] Wesley Smith notes attempts in the Netherlands to expand the legalization of assisted suicide to individuals who are over 70 and “tired of life”: I have long believed that once killing is accepted as an acceptable answer to human suffering, the culture changes to the point that life itself ceases to matter if the person in question is perceived as “suffering.” … [...]
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