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| Wesley Smith |
More than 20 years ago, the Dutch Supreme Court approved the assisted suicide of a woman in despair because her children had died. So we shouldn’t be surprised that it has now explicitly approved the forced euthanasia of patients with dementia if they asked to be killed before becoming incompetent. From Reuters:
What the Reuters story failed to mention — and apparently the Supreme Court found to be irrelevant — is that the case in question involved a woman who fought against being killed. Nor does the story mention that the doctor had drugged the woman before starting to euthanize her, and that the doctor instructed the family to hold the struggling woman down so that she could administer the lethal injection. Moreover, the patient had also stated in her instructions that she wanted to decide “when” the time for death had come — which she never did. The termination “choice” was made by the doctor and/or family in violation of the patient’s advance directive.
The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that doctors could legally carry out euthanasia on people with advanced dementia who had earlier put their wishes in writing even if they could no longer confirm them because of their illness.
The ruling is a landmark in Dutch euthanasia legislation which up to now had required patients to confirm euthanasia requests. This had not been considered possible for mentally incapacitated patients like advanced dementia sufferers.
“A doctor can carry out an (earlier) written request for euthanasia from people with advanced dementia,” the Supreme Court said in a summary of its decision.
But why would the Dutch Supreme Court let inconvenient facts get in the way of furthering the Netherlands’ ever-expanding national killing policy that already permits infanticide, joint geriatric euthanasia of married couples, termination of the mentally ill, conjoining euthanasia with organ harvesting, and the lethal injections of people with disabilities?
10 comments:
As the Canadian government is secretive about many things, I am sure they carry out some of the travesties mentioned in this article, since they are great advocates for euthanasia.
I live in Australia. There is currently a Royal Commission into Aged Care. One of the issues raised is of people in Nursing Homes who are drugged repeatedly, and to the point of utter confusion, and then claimed to be beyond help. One man went from sitting up and feeding himself to being a drooling wreck, within days. He was then unable to sit up, and just spent his days slouched in a chair. Another woman went for Respite to a Nursing Home because she had a Urinary Tract Infection. She was drugged to the point of incoherence, and it was claimed that she had dementia. When she got off the drugs, she was fine. There has been a major gvernmental overhaul of the use of such drugs, which are not used for dementia, but for behaviour control, and to keep people subdued. Technically, anyway, as we have yet to see how it pans out. But if two such people, or many such, are not really demented, then the possibilities for misuse of the law, in such cases as you report, would be huge. Someone with, say, memory problems, does not automatically qualify as a dementia patient.
Does this nation not understand the law it is enacting go against the human right to life from conception to natural death.
I have known a CLEAN moral Netherlands Society in my youth. It was a good Society, although there were obviously here and there the usual problems, but it was a Society that was clean on Christian Principles.
During the 1950's and 1960's we saw a beginning of a shift in perception of true Morality which began with a desire by topless ladies in public -- the beginning of pornography and "rock-n-roll" -- the start of "discussion" for abortion and euthanasia, resulting in later years to the obvious granting of civil legal status by "law-givers". All this came into a Society once morally clean and healthy. Unsuspected by the members of a "good" Society it was turned into a "bad" Society --- and ... when "good turns "bad", it turns good "Bad". No half measures there. Satan had won the game, slowly and surely.
What is sad is that Canada is quickly following the Netherlands. Now that the Dutch Supreme Court has made such a crazy decision, it gives an opportunity for the Canadian courts to follow.
Nobody has the right to shorten anybody's life, not even by a day. They will all be judged by their actions, while on the earth, after they die. And it will not be pretty! It is nothing else but murder. What is the difference, whether you point a gun and kill someone, or give them a needle or drugs with the same effect. Live by the ten Commandments. They have never done any harm to anybody!
I Would not be one bit surprised, Alex, if Canada does not follow suit. the Prime Moron seems to follow everyone, who has evil in mind.
Looks like we need more pandemics, if the desire of Canadian and Dutch authorities are focusing on destroying various elements of society. Pandemics could do the same chore.
And our Pro Choice and Life government will continue if we remain quiet and don't rock the boat. We must support with our voice and signature organizations like;
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition., Citizens for Life , Citizens GO, and whatever organization is willing and able to promote life, and to promote moral principles.
If we don't take action, we will be pulled down the slippery slope of legalized evil. E. Perabo, Ottawa
It is not quite correct to state that the Dutch Supreme Court approved euthanasia for patients with dementia. This possibility had been in the law ever since the law was adopted in 2001. But - somewhat surprisingly - Dutch physicians had been hesitant to make use of the opportunity provided in the law to use an explicit request for euthanasia expressed in a living will from a now incompetent person as equivalent to such a request voiced by a competent person. So the Court only confirmed in its verdict what has been legally possible since the legalization of euthanasia in The Netherlands.
So the important decision was already reached almost a decade ago when the new law was developed and then passed: Respect for patient autonomy requires to give priority to the autonomous wishes of the patient while (s)he was still competent, over those of the now incompetent patient. One can debate the soundness of that view on patient autonomy, but it is not a newly adopted view of the Supreme Court but rather the view of the majority of the Dutch parliament a decade ago. Interestingly, in its current verdict the Court actually does state that the expressions of a now incompetent patient could override the previous living will. But the Supreme Court does not find that in its adjudication of the case, the lower court failed to apply due diligence or otherwise misapplied existing law. And that makes sense. For the whole point of allowing people to write a LW in which they ask for euthanasia once demented is exactly to facilitate receiving euthanasia even when, once demented, the patient will protests or even resist euthanasia as a result of the dementia. In short, nothing really new here. I was not surprised by the Supreme Court's decision. The Netherlands crossed that bridge already 9 years ago when it adopted its new law.
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