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| Alex Schadenberg |
A study of euthanasia in one European country gives America a hint of what is to come in states if they legalize it.
Every five years the Netherlands conducts an independent study of euthanasia deaths, comparing figures released by the government with an anonymous study in which the results are expected to be more accurate.
While the government reports there were over 5,500 assisted suicide deaths, the study revealed more than 7,200.
Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has reviewed the figures, which show 23 percent of euthanasia deaths weren't reported in 2015.
"It also showed there were 431 lethal injections, intentional killings, without request," he tells OneNewsNow.
Every five years the Netherlands conducts an independent study of euthanasia deaths, comparing figures released by the government with an anonymous study in which the results are expected to be more accurate.
While the government reports there were over 5,500 assisted suicide deaths, the study revealed more than 7,200.
Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has reviewed the figures, which show 23 percent of euthanasia deaths weren't reported in 2015.
"It also showed there were 431 lethal injections, intentional killings, without request," he tells OneNewsNow.
Netherlands study: 431 people were killed without explicit request in 2015.
Some instances, he said, involve patients with dementia who cannot consent to being injected and killed. Unreported deaths could be blamed on sloppy reporting by doctors but also by ones who lethally inject a patient in violation of the law.
According to Schadenberg, a similar problem exists in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington state. Those states do not have blind, anonymous studies as the Netherlands does and even studies that are done by the states are not completed in a manner to uncover even deaths performed outside the state laws.
"So all we know from Oregon and Washington state," he says, "is what the doctors who deliver the death tell us.”
The system is designed to protect the doctors, he warns, so if laws are violated they have no fear of recrimination.
Some instances, he said, involve patients with dementia who cannot consent to being injected and killed. Unreported deaths could be blamed on sloppy reporting by doctors but also by ones who lethally inject a patient in violation of the law.
According to Schadenberg, a similar problem exists in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington state. Those states do not have blind, anonymous studies as the Netherlands does and even studies that are done by the states are not completed in a manner to uncover even deaths performed outside the state laws.
"So all we know from Oregon and Washington state," he says, "is what the doctors who deliver the death tell us.”
The system is designed to protect the doctors, he warns, so if laws are violated they have no fear of recrimination.
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