The Culture of Death is voracious. Once it begins to feed, it is never satiated, the categories of the killable, never finally enough.
Another is a very long series of cases in point that I have been reporting on for nearly twenty years. The Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) now seeks to expand the meaning of “unbearable suffering” to permit even more patients, in the already very liberal Dutch euthanasia system, to qualify to for medical killing. From the Dutch Radio Worldwide story:
Until now, factors such as income or a patient’s social life played almost no role when physicians were considering a euthanasia request. However, the new guidelines will certainly change that. After almost a year of discussions, the KNMG has published a paper which says a combination of social factors and diseases and ailments that are not terminal may also qualify as unbearable and lasting suffering under the Euthanasia Act.
How can anyone say there is no slippery slope? One of those factors includes lonliness!
As people age, many suffer from a complex array of gradually worsening problems, which can include poor eyesight, deafness, fatigue, difficulty in walking and incontinence as well as loss of dignity, status, financial resources, an ever-shrinking social network and loss of social skills. Although this accumulation of ailments and diseases is not life-threatening as such, it does have a negative impact on the quality of life and make the elderly vulnerable or fragile. Vulnerability also affects the ability to recover from illnesses and can lead to unbearable and lasting suffering. Under the Euthanasia Act, a request for euthanasia may be honoured only if a patient is undergoing unbearable and lasting suffering. The KNMG now says that, if non-medical factors such as income or loneliness are to be taken into consideration, other specialists must be consulted when a patient has requested euthanasia.
This is compassion?
Since 1973, when euthanasia was quasi decriminalized, Dutch doctors have gone from euthanizing the terminally ill who ask for it, to the chronically ill who ask for it, to people with disabilities who ask for it, to the mentally anguished who ask for it–and all legal because the “guidelines” proved so elastic they had not snap back at all. And now, they want to target vulnerable and marginalized elderly people.
Even that isn’t enough. If patients don’t qualify legally for euthanasia, the KNMG says it is perfectly fine for doctors to provide their patients with how-to-commit-suicide information–known as “auto euthanasia.” And while we are on the subject, we musn’t forget the technically illegal euthanasia killings–infanticide and “termination without request or consent”–which generally go unpunished, and indeed, in the case of infanticide, is openly and respectfully discussed in medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, with the publication of the ”Groningen Protocol.”
Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
October 18th, 2011 | 7:32 am
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 18th, 2011 at 9:17 am
Yes, Imagine is coming true–with very bad consequences.
October 18th, 2011 | 11:54 am
The only possible consequences for that song.
I can’t even put my thoughts into words after reading this. The slow suicide of the West continues.
October 18th, 2011 | 4:31 pm
Isn’t that called one of the “low countries”? This fits that. Much as I love to travel, there are certain places I’ve always felt I did not want to go, and Amsterdam is one of them. Oh, wait a minute. This is where Amsterdam is, with the drugs etc. As for “Imagine,” I’m not sure why someone just posted from it, but I’m the kind of person who when I don’t like someone and I hear they died, I’m glad. John Lennon fell into that category. I always knew that the Beatles were part of the destruction of civilization. Look what’s going on now. BRING BACK ELVIS!!!
October 18th, 2011 | 6:24 pm
Death is a salesman: “Oh! You don’t qualify for the MV finance – but we really want to sell you the car! nevermind, we have another way of getting you into that new vehicle….
October 18th, 2011 | 10:22 pm
I used to like the song “Imagine,” but now that I understand the implications of the lyrics, I hate it. Paul Russell-exactly. Esp. poignant for me in that I often suffer from extreme loneliness and my finances suck AND I have clinical depression and a learning disorder. So, I now know without a doubt that I could walk into any clinic in Holland and ask to be killed-and they would do it-no questions asked. Friggin scary.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 18th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Great tune, destructive message.
October 18th, 2011 | 11:14 pm
Shall I book a flight to Amsterdam?
They’d kill me with grace, don’t you know
A blue Dutch sky above me
a grey bit of hell below.
October 18th, 2011 | 11:18 pm
Well, you’ve been talking about rational suicide for years. We are almost all the way there in Holland. What a shame considering the brave Dutch doctors who wouldn’t do euthanasia during the occupation.
October 19th, 2011 | 9:30 am
[...] it seems the Dutch Medical Association wants to include loneliness as one of the acceptable parameters for murdering their patients. Since 1973, when euthanasia was quasi decriminalized, Dutch doctors have gone from euthanizing the [...]
October 19th, 2011 | 12:08 pm
I saw this coming years ago. Thanks a whole lot, pro-choicers.
October 28th, 2011 | 3:35 pm
[...] Folks who support assisted-suicide claim they just want to stop suffering. Today’s slippery slope defines "suffering" as "loneliness" and financial troubles. [...]
October 30th, 2011 | 2:12 pm
[...] Expand Definition of “Suffering” for Euthanasia to Include “Loneliness” and Finances, în First Things. În românește la [...]
November 9th, 2011 | 12:30 pm
[...] bootstrapping of an expanded killing license, which we have seen recently with Dutch doctors adding lonliness and finances as qualifying for “unbearable suffering:” The case has serious implications for Dutch euthanasia law because it means patients who are no [...]
November 17th, 2011 | 1:23 am
[...] since the Dutch Medical Association now wants to expand the concept of suffering even further, to include things like lonliness or financial concerns, this is really about creating Dutch Final Exit Network or mobile suicide clinics capable of [...]
November 23rd, 2011 | 1:59 pm
The instinct to fight to live in the human being is very strong and has always been honored by the State who has an interest in protecting the sanctity of life.
We can see that “fiscal expediency” in the Dutch State now trumps the sanctity of life under the guise that the state is serving the “public good” –giving the people what they want.
We, in the USA, are not far behind –but the shortening of human life, without the permission of the competent human being, the patient, is still against the law.
The Hospital Chaplains, unfortunately, in the USA (who work for the hospitals) join in the process of influencing the old and ill patient to think about concerns other than pain when the hospital wants a “NO CPR” decision in order to put a DNR/DNI in the hospital chart. Perhaps, not intentionally, this works to “shame the patient” for being a burden to the family and to society.
We need a “Pray for our Hospital Chaplains” day! Also, it is one of the primary duties of all Hospitalists to influence elderly ill patients to elect NO CPR status, and we should pray for them as well.
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