Dutch politicians push to debate last will pill again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Assisted suicide is not the answer!

According to an NL Times article by Janene Pieters, a recent study concerning the "completed life" has led Dutch politicians once again to demand a debate on the "last-will-pill". Pieters reports:

The D66 has been advocating for euthanasia at the end of a full life for some time, but the two Christian parties in the coalition CDA and ChristenUnie are dead set against it. The VVD also has its doubts. The D66 already announced that it will submit a proposal for assisted suicide for people who are tired of life within a few weeks.

The "last-will-pill" or "completed life" debate concerns the legal right for physicians to assist the suicide of an otherwise healthy person who claims that their life is complete.

According to Pieters, a recent study indicates that thousands of elderly Dutch people would consider suicide, even when they are healthy, but the study also indicates that the last-will-pill should never become legal because the wish to die fluctuates. The article states:

The researchers found that the wish to die, as it emerged in the study, is not an established fact. This desire can diminish or even disappear if the person concerned's physical, financial, or living situation improves, or if they feel less lonely or dependent on others. The study also showed that this group of older people with a wish to die is "certainly not a healthy group". It mainly concerns people who have physical- as well as mental health problems, but are not seriously ill.

The committee, led by Els van Wijngaarden of the University for Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, interviewed over 21 thousand people over the age of 55 and 1,600 general practitioners. They also studied over 200 euthanasia requests, both rejected and executed. The committee's goal was not to make recommendations, but to determine the composition and size of the group of people who are not seriously ill, but who want their lives to end.

Studies by Canadian psychiatrist and researcher, Harvey Chochinov, found that the will to live fluctuates. Chochinov developed a tool known as Dignity Therapy which is being successful used to help people find purpose or meaning in living and not dying by lethal drugs.

Public Prosecutor drops investigation into Dutch assisted suicide group supplying 'suicide powder' in teen's death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In the United States the assisted suicide lobby is trying to convince people that suicide is different than assisted suicide while in the Netherlands the assisted suicide lobby may have been promoting a 'suicide powder.'

Ximena Knol

The DutchNews.NL reported that the Public Prosecutor closed the investigation into the Netherlands assisted suicide group, the Final Wish Cooperative, in the suicide death of Ximena Knol, a 19 year-old who died last January.

In March, the assisted suicide group made headlines when it was reported that Ximena died by suicide with the alleged involvement of the group. According to Reuters:

Prosecutors had been looking at the Final Wish cooperative since September... 

Final Wish made headlines last week when the father of 19-year-old Ximena Knol said on television the group should be shut down after his daughter’s suicide using a powder believed to be the same “Substance X” the association promotes.

Last April the assisted suicide lobby group delayed the launch of the suicide drug known as Substance X after a 19-year-old died. Reuters reported

Cooperative Last Will scrapped its plan for Substance X after prosecutors launched an investigation into the group following the suicide of a 19-year-old woman. Her parents blamed Last Will on the grounds that its announcement made her aware of the existence of the chemicals she used to kill herself.

The DutchNewsNL is stating that the public prosecutor could not prove that the Final Wish Cooperative had provided the 'suicide powder' in Ximena's death.

The public prosecution department has closed its investigation into the Last Will co-operative, which had been planning to distribute a ‘suicide powder’ in the Netherlands. 

The department said in a statement that it could not prove the cooperative was guilty of helping people to commit suicide or other infringements of the law.

The Netherlands public prosecutor is also investigating abuse of the euthanasia law in 4 assisted deaths in 2017. 

• Dutch prosecutor investigating assisted suicide group after 19-year-old dies.
• What is the difference between euthanasia and suicide?
• Why is anyone surprised by the rise in US suicides. Advertising works.

Assisted suicide lobby group delays launch of suicide drug.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Reuters reported that the assisted suicide lobby group, Cooperative Last Will has delayed the launch of the lethal suicide drug known as Substance X after a 19-year-old died by lethal drugs:

Cooperative Last Will scrapped its plan for Substance X after prosecutors launched an investigation into the group following the suicide of a 19-year-old woman. Her parents blamed Last Will on the grounds that its announcement made her aware of the existence of the chemicals she used to kill herself. 

The assisted suicide group made headlines when a 19-year-old woman died by assisted suicide with the alleged involvement of this group. According to Reuters:

Prosecutors had been looking at the Final Wish cooperative since September...  

Final Wish made headlines ...when the father of 19-year-old Ximena Knol said on television the group should be shut down after his daughter’s suicide using a powder believed to be the same “Substance X” the association promotes.

The 2017 Netherlands euthanasia report indicated that there were 6585 reported assisted deaths, up 8% from 2016 with 252 of the assisted deaths done for dementia or psychiatric reasons, up by 25% since 2016.

In January 2017, a Netherlands euthanasia review committee decided that the death of a woman with dementia, who died by euthanasia against her will, was done in "good faith." The woman was held down while the doctor lethally injected her. On January 1, 2018, Berna van Baarsen, a euthanasia assessor for 10 years, resigned over the acceptance of euthanasia for dementia in the Netherlands. On January 26, 2018 a 29-year-old woman died by euthanasia for psychiatric reasons.

Reuters reported that the recent furor over the death of 19-year-old Ximena Knol has led to new calls to review the Netherlands euthanasia law.

Euthanasia lobby confirms elder abuse risk – but doesn’t seem to care

This article was published by Mercatornet on September 5, 2017

Paul Russell

By Paul Russell - The director of HOPE Australia

The Netherlands legalised both euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2002. The data shows an overwhelming preference for euthanasia. In 2015, there were 6672 euthanasia deaths and only 150 assisted suicide deaths; the total comprising at least 4.5% of all deaths.

In recent years the discussion about ‘life ending actions’ has turned to assisted suicide for ‘completed life’; where a person over a certain age may declare that they wish to end their lives even though they may have no serious medical issues.

Debate has raged back and forth on this new development for some years. An expert committee recommended that changes to the law not proceed, but there remains support from within government and some of the minor parties.

Reports in 2016 suggested that the government had drafted legislation. Health Minister, Edith Schippers, has said that "because the wish for a self-chosen end of life primarily occurs in the elderly, the new system will be limited to them”. The lower age limit is rather arbitrary with debate ranging from 60 to 70 years of age.

Legislation is expected to be introduced in late 2017. It is expected to take the form of a new law rather than an amendment. This seems to be because the existing provisions require medical opinion and support whereas this new form of assisted suicide may have more in common with the mail or online order system made notorious by the Australian activist Dr Philip Nitschke and his organisation, Exit International.

But this is not the first time that such a move has been put forward. As with all of these debates, there’s a long lead-in time while the discussion of the agenda looks to forge a beachhead of public opinion.

In 1991, Dutch Supreme Court Judge, Huib Drion, argued for “The self-chosen end for old people,” over the age of 75. He suggested a two-stage process where a person would self-administer a substance that would have no immediate effect that could be followed up later by the second stage substance that would react with the first and bring about death by suicide. The idea became known as “the Drion Pill” though no such pill was ever developed.

The publication of his paper in a newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, in 1991, sparked a significant controversy with letters of support for many weeks and Drion receiving a great deal of public attention.

The World Federation of Right to Die Societies (WFRTDS) also picked up on the idea as did its Dutch counterpart the Dutch Right to Die society (NVVE) and the former Dutch health minister Els Borst who was instrumental in the introduction of the 2002 euthanasia law.

In 2003, the WFRTDS adopted a name change to their policy support for Drion’s idea, calling it, instead, “The Last Will Pill” and noting that the resonance of the use of Drion’s name limited the association of the idea to the elderly. WFRTDS sees its application more broadly than that.

Both Drion and the WFRTDS are clear in the distinction between the practice of euthanasia in Holland and this new proposal.

The rhetoric is eerily similar to Nitschke and Exit: current euthanasia and assisted suicide laws are medical models that only partially give voice to autonomy. As NVVE chief executive officer Rob Jonquière, pointed out: 

“People want the right to choose to end their life independent of doctors or illness.”

This independence from any medical model has implications. As observed already, there are similarities in the proposals to the modus operandi of Exit and Philip Nitschke.

Another Dutch right-to-die club, The Co-operative Last Will, are also pushing this barrow. They seem willing to sail close to the edges of the law in advocacy and information in a similar way to Exit. They are promoting “a new drug” but refuse to identify it.

“The stuff is legally available and deadly in pure form. It has already been used by people who wanted to commit self-exploitation. There have also been several murders committed by the means.”

This is dangerous talk. As we have seen with the Nitschke methods, people who are not otherwise ill and people who suffered depressive illnesses have been caught up in the hype with devastating personal and family consequences. The reference to murders is chilling: clearly people have been tricked into consuming the drug.

Again, like Nitschke (who once said: “There will be some casualties…”), The Co-operative Last Will organisation is frank about the possible collateral damage:

“The Cooperative Last Will and its members (3,500 people) point out the existence and functioning of the new drug. The club realizes that it involves the risks. An extreme consequence could be that children give the means to their old and wealthy parents because they want to claim their inheritance.

"That kind of criticism is to be expected. But the sale of rope is also not forbidden, and so people rob themselves of life, "says a spokeswoman.” (Emphasis added)

A glib retort and hardly apposite. Robbing oneself of life is suicide – elder abuse to death is murder. But who would ever know.

But collateral damage it will be. Far from stopping Dutch “right-to-die” types in their tracks, such an acknowledgement seems more about deflecting criticism than it is about protecting Dutch citizens from abuse.

One wonders if the Zeitgeist had not been infected this past 20 years and more with the Dutch strain of the euthanasia virus if there might have been more pause for thought. Given that Drion’s infamous idea predates Dutch euthanasia by a full decade; perhaps not!

Paul Russell is director of HOPE: preventing euthanasia & assisted suicide, which is based in Australia.

Euthanasia activist demands euthanasia without restrictions.

Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Euthanasia activist, Philip Nitschke, has established a political action group to pressure governments to legalize euthanasia without restrictions.

Nitschke does not support the "medical model" of euthanasia legislation and has decided to take direct action to legalize euthanasia. According to the Guardian report:

Exit Action said it would take “a militant pro-euthanasia position” to coordinate direct action strategies and force legislative change. 

“Exit Action is critical of the ‘medical model’ that sees voluntary euthanasia as a privilege given to the very sick by the medical profession,” the organisation said. 

“The standard approach for years has been to get the very sick to tell their stories of suffering to the public and politicians, in the hope that politicians might take pity and change the law.”

Nitschke is pushing for the final strategy of the euthanasia lobby. The mainstream euthanasia lobby agrees with Nitschke, but they are committed to incremental strategies.

Several years ago I attended the World Federation of Right to Die Societies conference in Toronto. One of the debates, during the conference, was whether activists, like Nitschke, are hindering the euthanasia lobby from achieving their incremental goals. One of the goals, as expressed by the Netherlands euthanasia lobby was the acceptance of the "last will pill." 

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) produced the Euthanasia Deception documentary to make known stories of people with direct personal experience with euthanasia. Order the Euthanasia Deception documentary today.

Sadly, it didn't surprise me when the Dutch government recently announced that they will expand the euthanasia law to include people who are not sick or dying, but have lived a "completed life."

Nitschke is simply pushing for the final strategy. 

Netherlands euthanasia lobby pushes kill pill.

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Netherlands euthanasia lobby (NVVE) has renewed their push for a kill pill that would be made available, free of charge and upon request, to people who are 70 or older. 

In 2010, the Netherlands euthanasia lobby collected signatures supporting the "last will pill" for people over 70. According to a report in the Dutch News:

The NVVE now wants to discuss its ideas for an experiment with the health and justice ministries and with the Dutch doctors’ association KNMG. 

‘We see that society wants such a pill, particularly among the babyboom generation which is not afraid to speak its mind,’ NVVE director Robert Schurink told the NRC. ‘They want control over the end of their lives.’ 

At the moment, the NVVE helps people who do not want to live any longer access foreign suppliers who can help them buy the pills to do the job, the paper said.

The concept of the kill pill comes from a few "academics" who philosophically believe that death is the ultimate freedom. They really don't care that their philosophy threatens the lives of the many so a few academics can say - "I am free."

What about people who are living with situational depression, or for example someone who is grieving a lost spouse. Is it freedom to assist the suicide of someone who is living through the dark time of their life? No it is a form of social abandonment and the ultimate form of elder abuse.

It is bad enough that the Netherlands allow euthanasia, but to simply say - "Oh by the way I am tired of living, give me the kill pill" is a dangerous and callous response.

The Dutch euthanasia lobby makes plans to compete with Dignitas

An article published in the Dutch news explains that the Dutch association Right to Die (NVVE) is investigating opening an assisted suicide clinic for people who do not currently qualify under the Dutch euthanasia law.

The article states:

NVVE director Petra de Jong told the Volkskrant, 'but one that misses out patients with dementia or chronic psychiatric problems with a serious wish to die.'

Around 500 of these patients request assisted suicide each year and only eight are helped to die.

In other words, the new clinic would focus on people with dementia or chronic psychiatric problems, and possibly other difficult situations.

But why would NVVE need to establish a suicide clinic for these difficult cases?

First: Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas has proven that there is incredible profit in running a suicide clinic. Link to my previous blog comment on this fact: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/06/dignitas-founder-ludwig-minelli-is-now.html

Second: In 2006 at the World Federation of Right to Die Societies conference in Toronto, the then leader of the NVVE stated that their final goal was the legalization of the "last-will-pill". This is would be a suicide drug that could be taken by people who have decided that they have had enough of life.

I think that this clinic would be used for situations, including people who are "tired of living".

In other words, the clinic would be very profitable and it would allow the NVVE to push the thin boundaries of the law and possibly gain acceptance for the "last-will-pill".

The clinic would also enable NVVE to maintain a stronger membership base. Dignitas sells memberships with the membership fee giving them the right to use the clinic. If NVVE followed the same system they would increase their membership fee and ensure that people renewed their membership on a yearly basis.

Finally, if euthanasia and assisted suicide is about choice, then why would the NVVE be so concerned about arranging the deaths of people who are not capable of choosing?

This is obviously not an issue of choice. This is an issue of how society agrees to kill or cause the death of people based on whether society or the individual deems their life as not worth living.

Link to the original article: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/08/suicide_clinic_a_possibility.php

Nitschke launches online euthanasia manual

Philip Nitschke, Australia's Dr. Death, has done it again.

He is now launching an online version of his peacepill pill handbook in order to get around the fact that many nations, including Australia, have declared his book to be illegal to import.

The text of the ebook are also connected to detailed video of how to effectively kill oneself. Methods include use of the drug Nembutal that is obtained from veternary clinics in Mexico and the use of the plastic bag commonly known as an Exit Bag.

Nitschke is moving forward with his online suicide service while at the same time the UK, Japan, South Korea and other nations are attempting to block internet suicide sites due to an increase in suicide rates related to internet suicide promotion.

Nitscke was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying:

"(The book) will finally make it possible for many elderly people in Australia too frail and elderly to attend an end of life workshop to obtain the material directly and in the privacy of their own home."

Nitschke, who is the maverick Australian leader of Exit International promoted the peaceful pill that allegedly could be available to anyone at anytime.

Several years ago Wesley Smith reported comments by Nitschke in an article titled "Noxious Nitschke" stating that the "peaceful pill" could be available to troubled teens.
Link to article on national review online:
http://www.nationalreview.com/smithw/smith200411150826.asp

I have been stating for a long-time that all western nations need to ban suicide promotion websites in the way we are banning child-pornography websites. Suicide promotion websites, such as the site sponsored by Nitscke, directly threaten the lives of vulnerable people who are often depressed or experiencing mental health issues.

Remember, even though Nitschke is a maverick in the euthanasia lobby he does not represent a different philosophy than that held by the mainstream. The final goal for Dying with Dignity in the Netherlands is the approval of the "Last-Will-Pill".

The only difference between Nitschke and the mainstream euthanasia lobby is the fact that Nitschke will publicly go outside of the law in order to achieve his final goal.

Link to article on Nitschke online euthanasia manual:
http://www.abc.net.au:80/news/stories/2008/10/13/2389521.htm

Links to other articles about Philip Nitschke:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/08/grieving-family-wants-suicide-book.html

Link to article about the Japanese suicide problem:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/06/japan-gripped-by-suicide-epidemic.html

Mum steps up war on suicide sites:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/04/mum-steps-up-war-on-suicide-sites.html

Bioethics Blog Defends Warnock's Call for Killing of People with Dementia

Stephen Drake, the masterful research director for Not Dead Yet discovered that the blog for the American Journal of Bioethics featured an entry by Summer Johnson Ph.D., who came out supporting Warnock's call to euthanize people with dementia.

Link to the Not Dead Yet blog:
http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com/2008/09/bioethics-blog-defends-warnocks-call.html

On September 19, I reported on this blog that Baroness Warnock(84), a leading ethicist in the UK was suggesting that people with dementia had a duty to die.
Link to my blog entry:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/09/dementia-sufferers-may-have-duty-to-die.html

Many people reacted by thinking these were just a few comments by a demented old woman, but in fact these are mainstream views among the euthanasia lobby who are busy planning for a day where they can obtain the "last-will-pill" or the "peaceful pill" and help mother out-of-her misery.

In case you think that Summer Johnson (pictured above) is possibly another thinker that is part of an extreme fringe, then just look at her bio:

Summer Johnson Ph.D. is the director of the Ethics in Novel Technologies, Research, and Innovation (ENTRI) program of the Alden March Bioethics Institute and a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Medicine. She is also the Director of Graduate Studies at AMBI at Albany Medical School.

Her bio goes on and is very impressive.

Thank you Summer Johnson for proving that Warnock is not alone.

The real question is: What are we going to do about this?

Dementia sufferers may have a 'duty to die'

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Baroness Warnock

Baroness Warnock (84), a veteran UK government advisor and one of Britains leading moral philosophers recently stated in a interview with the Church of Scotland's magazine - Life and Work that:

Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the National Health System (NHS) and their families.

Warnock said:

Pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted that there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

She hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

The article in the Telegraph stated that:

Recent figures show there are 700,000 people with degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's in Britain. By 2026 experts predict there will be one million dementia sufferers in the country, costing the NHS an estimated 35 billion pounds a year.

The article also stated that:

Last year the Mental Capacity Act came into effect (UK) that gives legal force to "living wills", so patients can appoint an "attorney" to tell doctors when their food and water should be removed.

Warnock also stated that:

"I'm absolutely, fully in agreement that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they should be allowed to die."

"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty tod Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."

"If you've an advance directive, appointing someone else to act on your behalf, if you become incapacitated, then I think there is a hope that your advocate may say that you would not wish to live in this condition so please try to help her die."

The article quoted Neil Hunt, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, who said:

"I am shocked and amazed that Baroness Warnock could disregard the value of the lives of people with dementia so callously.

With the right care, a person can have good quality of life very late in to dementia. To suggest that people with dementia shouldn't be entitled to that quality of life or that they should feel that they have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric."

The euthanasia lobby has always sold their goals within the framework of suffering, terminally ill people who make a free choice to die. They are a movement that rarely reveal their real goals.

Dr. Philip Nitschke - Australia's Dr. Death, hopes to distribute a "peaceful pill" that would be available to anyone who is tired of living. Nitschke stated several years agon in an interview with the National Review that the "peaceful pill" would be available to troubled teens.

Previous blog entry:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/05/alleged-suicide-job-shocks-campaigners.html

Dying With Dignity in the Netherlands (NVVE) has made it very clear in their newsletters that their final goal is the "last will pill" that could be taken by anyone who is tired of living.

At the World Federation of Right to Die conference in September 2006 in Toronto, Dr. Rob Jonquiére, the CEO of the NVVE stated that the actions of the radical side of the right to die movement was holding politicians back from supporting the "last will pill".

The NVVE is also working on establishing euthanasia as a human right.

A previous blog entry
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/search/label/Last-will-pill

The next time you are affected by the sales pitch by the euthanasia lobby remember. The end game will be a universal right to die for the competent, a duty to die for the incompetent, and a social pressure on people with disabilities and the elderly to take the "last will/peaceful pill".

The voters in Washington State need to read the comments by Baroness Warnock, Philip Nitscke, the NVVE in the Netherlands and Ludwig Minelli in Switzerland. They need to understand that assisted suicide will not stop with the Initiative 1000 campaign, even Booth Gardner has stated that the I-1000 initiative is only the beginning because voters will not accept more at this time.

Link to the article in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/uknews/2983652/Baroness-Warnock-Dementia-sufferers-may-have-a-duty-to-die.html

Long term priorities for the Dutch right to die lobby

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The NVVE (Dutch euthanasia lobby) are currently debating the long-term direction of the euthanasia movement in the Netherlands. Full legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands is simply not enough for the euthanasia lobby. I have always stated that their final goal is to make the right to die - a human right.

The recent debate about the long-term future directions of the NVVE were published in the Relevant, which is the magazine of the NVVE.

Dr. Rob Jonquiére, the CEO of the NVVE explained that the NVVE has sought input from public meetings, experts and other organizations. From the consultations they identified several areas of concern.

The framework of their memorandum has been written in individual parts. They have identified the dilemma of euthanasia for people with dementia, assisted suicide in cases of chronic psychiatric suffering, and finally the possibility of legalizing the last-will-pill for those people who think that their life is complete.

The renewed objective of the NVVE is that everyone has the right to make their own decision about death. The questions of when, where and how are decisions that the individual should have the right to make. The spectrum of end-of-life decisions include stopping life-prolonging treatment to palliative sedation, from assisted suicide to euthanasia and everything in between.

The long-term goals of the NVVE will be implemented as projects that will be carried out by project managers who will build teams that will be composed of volunteers, committee members and experts.

They are hoping to establish priorities for approval by their 2009 meeting with full implementation by 2015.

The Right to Die lobby is busy establishing its priorities for the future. Are we ready to dispel their lies to the world?

Euthanasia trends in Europe

Recently there have been some disturbing trends in Europe towards fewer restrictions on euthanasia and assisted suicide and pressures that appear to be establishing a “right” to be killed.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized in the Netherlands and Belgium in 2002. The Netherlands had effectively legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide by the decree of the courts in 1984 with the 2002 legalization simply codifying accepted practice into law.

Recently the country of Luxembourg moved closer to legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide with legislation passing second reading and going into hearings. It is widely expected that Luxembourg will be the third European nation to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Switzerland has tolerated assisted suicide for many years. Suicide groups have been assisting suicide within Switzerland based on a legal interpretation of their 1918 suicide law. In other words, Switzerland never legalized assisted suicide but tolerates the practise based on a legal interpretation. The Dignitas Suicide clinic is probably the best known of these groups.

In 2003 a group of “ethicists” at the Groningen University Hospital began looking at the question of infant euthanasia in the Netherlands. The 2002 law allowed euthanasia of consenting adults over the age of 12. The problem that the committee at Groningen University were attempting to solve is: what should be done with the newborns that are born with anomalies?

The Groningen Protocol was promulgated in 2005 and established a set of guidelines to be followed for the purpose of euthanizing infants in the Netherlands. The Groningen Protocol was based on the reports from Dutch physicians concerning the deaths of 22 infants who were born with spina bifida. Dutch physicians were not being prosecuted when they ended the life of newborns with spina bifida based on the Prins case in 1997. Prins was a physician who escaped prosecution after he killed an infant with spina bifida.

The Groningen Protocol allows euthanasia of infants when the parents give consent and when the child is considered to lack an “acceptable” quality of life. These decisions are made based on quality of life judgements that are connected to the new eugenics ideology that is promoted by Peter Singer of Princeton University and becoming more prevalent in our current culture.

At the World Federation of Right to Die Societies Conference in Toronto - September 2006 - Dr. Rob Jonquiére, the President of NVVE the leading euthanasia lobby group in the Netherlands explained that their goal was the legalization of the “last-will pill”. This is a prescription that would be given to healthy individuals (usually elderly or people with disabilities) who were tired of living.

In March, legislators in Belgium announced their intention to change the euthanasia law in their country to include infants, teenagers, and people with dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

The euthanasia law in Belgium was based on the Netherlands statute. It is recognized that the (so-called) safeguards in the Netherlands and Belgium laws were based on court precedents and political compromise. Now that the law has been in place for several years, there is an interest in changing the law towards gaining a universal “right” to die.

In Switzerland, the Dignitas suicide clinic has now changed its suicide technique from the use of a prescription to that of the plastic bag with helium (Exit bag). The Dignitas clinic is known for its encouragement of suicide tourists who go to Switzerland to die. It is estimated that 2 out of 3 people who die at their suicide clinic are suicide tourists.

Ludwig Minelli, the founder and director of Dignitas stated that they have changed their technique to using the plastic bag with helium method to eliminate the need for a physician to agree to assisting the death. Even physicians who support assisted suicide would often refuse to write lethal prescriptions for people who weren’t dying or suffering.

In France the case of Chantal Sébire, a woman who had tumors in her head that had caused her to become significantly deformed, and who had lost her sense of smell, her hearing and her sight. Sébire requested that she be allowed to have assistance with suicide. Her case was so emotionally compelling that 87% of the French population supported her request for assisted suicide.

After the courts refused Sébire, she committed suicide. We now know that Sébire had refused effective medical treatment for her condition from the very beginning. Her physicians explained that she could have had treatment in 2002 that would most likely have returned her to full health. She also refused pain management help that would have effectively relieved her pain and symptoms.

In Germany, Roger Kusch, a former German government minister, announced that he was planning to loan-out suicide machines to people who wished to die. This is not a new concept. When Jack Kevorkian first began his campaign in Michigan he was using a simple contraption to allow the person to commit suicide.

In Europe the Euthanasia lobby is becoming bolder and more extreme. They have let go of their traditional anthems of voluntary euthanasia for the competent and suffering; now they use language that would lead to euthanasia as a human right.

Remember, the issue of euthanasia is not about terminal illness, compassion for the dying, or ending suffering. Euthanasia is about having someone end your life at the time of your choosing or for society to allow someone to end the lives of incompetent vulnerable people who are unable to realize that they are better off dead.

Death for hire - suicide machine lets you push final button

Comment by Alex Schadenberg

From American euthanasia crusader Jack Kevorkian to Roger Kusch the promoter of the suicide machine in Germany, the concept of causing death has become the new social problem to be solved by a technological innovation.

Kevorkian began his campaign with the death-machine, therefore it is nothing new to notice that Kusch is beginning his death campaign by copying Kevorkian. Nothing new.

Meanwhile Dignitas in Switzerland has decided to use the Plastic Bag and Helium method to assist the suicides of their death tourists. In case that isn’t enough for Ludwig Minelli, the director of Dignitas, Minelli has written a book on how to commit suicide. The advantage to the plastic bag method is that it doesn't require a physician to prescribe death drugs and therefore is free of any regulations.

The general public is constantly told that euthanasia needs to be legalized to allow people to die with dignity. Since when did dying by donning a plastic bag over one’s head become a dignified death? Since when did a suicide machine become a social innovation?

Society needs to recognize that the death purveyors are becoming desperate to gain acceptance for killing. They claim to be concerned about "compassion" and "mercy" but are really looking for death on demand.

They are willing to accept laws that legalize euthanasia with a veneer of safeguards in order to create societal acceptance for killing people at the most vulnerable time in their life.

But as Dr. Rob Jonquiére, the chief executive officer of NVVE - the Right to Die Society in the Netherlands stated at the World Federation of Right to Die Society conference in Toronto in 2006, the final goal of their organization is to gain approval for the "last-will-pill" that would be available for people who are not suffering but who are "tired of living".

The death culture also likes to juxtapose itself to "religious fundamentalism". The reality is that people with disabilities, who are the strongest opponents to euthanasia, tend not to be religious fundamentalists. This is just another ploy to label the opposition of the culture of death.

Whether it be a last-will-pill, a suicide machine, a suicide bag, the death movement has become a radical ideology that worships death.

Remember, this is not about terminal illness, it is not about compassion for the dying, this is not about ending suffering. This is about having someone end your life at the time of your choosing or to for society to allow someone to end the lives of vulnerable people who do not realize that they are better off dead.

End of comment


March 29, 2008
Death for hire - suicide machine lets you push final button
Roger Boyes in Berlin
From The Times
Find this article at

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3641866.ece