Friday, August 9, 2013

Responding to Gifford-Jones tirade on euthanasia

Alex Schadenberg
By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Gifford-Jones in his recent tirade on "assisted death" attacks people who oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide as do-gooders offering "howling and irrational fears".

Yet Gifford-Jones is the one who howls when he states that in places where euthanasia and assisted suicide are permitted: "The blunt fact is that history shows there have been no abuses."

Were the researchers who published the 5 year meta-analysis of the Dutch euthanasia law in 2012 irrational when they found that 23% of all assisted deaths were not reported? How irrational were the researchers who published findings that 47% of all assisted deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium were not reported?

Is it only the do-gooders who are concerned by the 2010 study that found that 32% of assisted deaths in Belgium were done without request?

I guess that Gifford-Jones would like us to turn a blind eye when an Italian man, with a botched diagnosis is killed by assisted death in Switzerland or when the Netherlands approves euthanasia for newborns with disabilities.

The only irrational howling I have heard is from Gifford-Jones.

Links to:

- Belgium is moving closer to allowing euthanasia of children.
- Euthanasia is out-of-control in the Netherlands.

3 comments:

  1. Is it your position that assisted dying is never an option for anyone under any circumstances? If so how do you sleep at night?

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    Replies
    1. Have not read that anywhere Tony. No need for any sleep to be lost.

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  2. 32% without request? That figure is almost certainly less than the quantity of deaths without request in Canada (where no safeguards exist).

    If we include the cases of terminal sedation without consent (which I argue we should, since hastening death and causing death are one and the same), the incidence of non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia would be far higher.

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