Luxembourg reports 71 euthanasia deaths in 10 years. The euthanasia lobby want more death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

RTL News reported that Luxembourg has had 71 euthanasia deaths in the past 10 years, but the euthanasia lobby want more.

According to RTL news, a recent survey found that only 40% of the people in Luxembourg know that euthanasia is legal. The response by the euthanaia lobby is to promote more euthanasia.

The legalization of euthanasia in Luxembourg resulted in a constitutional crisis. Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg refused to sign the bill into law forcing the Duchy of Luxembourg to change its constitution by removing the power of the Grand Duke to sign legislation before it becomes the law of the land.

Grand Duke Henri

Grand Duke Henri argued that the legalization of euthanasia was unnecessary because the fear of suffering for people with terminal conditions can be effectively treated by palliative care. He further argued that it was unjust to legalize the practise of killing people and that his conscience could not permit him to sign such a bill into law.

Grand Duke Henri was a Hero. Very few world leaders have had the strength to stand up for justice and oppose euthanasia. Even though the Grand Duke could not stop the legalisation of euthanasia, he forced the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies to change the constitution before it could enact into law the direct and intentional killing of its most vulnerable citizens by euthanasia.

Dr Mark Komrad: Why psychiatrists should oppose euthanasia.

Dr Mark Komrad, MD is a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, who speaks to the Anscombe Bioethics Centre about why psychiatrists should oppose euthanasia.

The following text is a paraphrase, of the video interview produced by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre. (Alex Schadenberg)

The situation concerning euthanasia or assisted suicide for psychiatric reasons.

Since 2002, the Netherlands and Belgium (Luxembourg in 2009) legalized euthanasia without a distinction between terminal and non-terminal conditions. These laws allowed for euthanasia for physical and psychiatric reasons.

This has led to some patients receiving suicide assistance rather than suicide prevention.

As a psychiatrist, I disagree with these developments based on my Hippocratic tradition of medical ethics which is based on the value of not killing. The mighty tree of medicine grew from the Hippocratic tradition.

My concerns as a psychiatrist relate to the core values of psychiatry which focus on helping people in despair, helping people who are demoralized, helping people who cannot see their way cognitively and emotionally to a better future, helping to mitigate suffering, taking the journey of suffering with them, listening to them intently, to help find meaning in suffering and to fundamentally prevent suicide.

Preventing suicide is core to the individual and social mission of a psychiatrist.

• Mark Komrad: Psychiatrists prevent suicide not provide it.

Euthanasia takes this mission of ours and stands it on its head. To be involved with causing death is an anathema and inversion of the fundamental ethos of psychiatry.

Euthanasia affects mental health care since our patients generally experience a lack of access to resources. Once you begin to make euthanasia an alternate path my fear is that the advocacy to treatment may disappear.

All of the work we are doing to open access to mental health care is threatened when short circuited by euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Euthanasia affects attitudes towards life because once the concept takes hold the lives of people with disabilities or certain mental or medical conditions are seen as somehow not as worth living.

I have a colleague in Belgium, whose father has a chronic condition and has chosen not to have euthanasia. I am told, when his father complains about his symptoms that some of his friends will say - you chose not to have euthanasia.

The sympathy that normally people would have had, now they are explicit that he doesn't deserve their sympathy.

The subtle changes to the collective psyche as we begin to open to these things leads us to accelerate down the slippery slope to the point where the train ends up going off the rails.

• American Psychiatric Association position on euthanasia.

American Psychiatric Association position on euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In the current edition of the Psychiatric Times, Dr Mark Komrad outlines the position of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide. Dr Komrad explains:

Early in December 2016, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Board of Trustees passed an historic Position Statement that originated in the Assembly and was unanimously supported by the APA Ethics Committee: 

The APA, in concert with the American Medical Association’s position on Medical Euthanasia, holds that a psychiatrist should not prescribe or administer any intervention to a non-terminally ill person for the purpose of causing death.

Some might be concerned that the position only prohibits euthanasia and assisted suicide for people who are not terminally ill. In fact, the APA statement has caused a stir in countries where euthanasia and/or assisted suicide have become legal. Dr Komrad states:

People with non-terminal illnesses have been legally euthanized at their own request in several countries for nearly 15 years. This has included certain eligible patients who have only psychiatric disorders. 

In 2002, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg removed any distinctions between “terminal” and “non-terminal” conditions, and between physical suffering and mental suffering, for legally permitted PAS/E. That was when patients with psychiatric disorders became eligible for this “right” in these countries. Independent consultants have to declare their condition “untreatable,” and the patient needs to declare it to be “insufferable.”

Dr Mark Konrad

Dr Komrad then explains how people with non-terminal psychiatric conditions are approved for euthanasia in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, for example, for psychiatric-only cases, at least 1 consultant is required, but 3 are suggested. At least one should be a psychiatrist but does not have to be. 

However, the patient can weigh in regarding the “untreatable” criterion as well. It is not based solely on what physicians have to offer, but on what the patient wishes to accept. For example, though potentially effective treatments may be offered, such as ECT, MAOIs, residential treatment, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and vagus nerve stimulation, “competent” patients may refuse these offers. That choice could make their case “untreatable.” So patients can rule on both the “untreatable” and “insufferable” axes; physicians can only opine on the former. 

In the Netherlands, lethal injections are the most commonly used method to fulfill an approved patient’s death wish. This is often administered by the patient’s treating psychiatrist at home, in the office, or in specialized Levenseinde Klinieks (End of Life Clinics). Between 2008 and 2014, more than 200 psychiatric patients were euthanized by their own request in the Netherlands (1% of all euthanasia in that country): 52% had a diagnosis of personality disorder, 56% refused one or more offered treatments, and 20% had never even had an inpatient stay (one indication of previous treatment intensity). When asked the primary reason for seeking PAS/E, 66% cited “social isolation and loneliness.” Despite the legal requirement for agreement between outside consultants, for 24% of psychiatric patients euthanized, at least one outside consultant disagreed. 

Some remarkable stories have been profiled in the Dutch media. For example, a woman was granted euthanasia for chronic PTSD due to childhood sexual abuse. The arguments based on personal autonomy to justify such access to PAS/E are being pushed even further in the Netherlands. Ministers of Health and Justice have proposed to their Parliament that criteria not be limited to medical conditions, but be extended to average citizens who feel they have lived “completed lives.”

Dr Komrad then comments on euthanasia for psychiatric conditions in Belgium:

From 2014 to 2015, 124 patients in Belgium were euthanized at their own request for psychiatric disorders. These patients had a wide range of psychiatric disorders: 4% had schizophrenia; 6%, bipolar; 4%, autism; 23%, dementia; 31%, depression; and 32%, personality disorders (half of which were borderline disorder). In one Belgian series that covered 2007 to 2011, diagnoses also included substance abuse, autistic spectrum disorder, OCD, ADHD, dissociative disorder, and “complicated grief.” 

Prominent cases profiled in the Belgian media include a pair of deaf twins euthanized on request because they were going blind, a man with gender identity disorder who was unhappy with surgical results, and another man who sought euthanasia for ego-dystonic homosexuality.

Dr Komrad then comments on the new Canadian law that permits euthanasia for psychiatric conditions.

In the spring of 2016, at the instructions of their Supreme Court, the Canadian Parliament followed the course of these European countries. Physician-assisted suicide was legalized nationally, and terminal/non-terminal and physical/mental suffering distinctions were effaced. As in Europe, Canadian patients can refuse treatments that might forestall death —and still be eligible. However, thanks to the influence of the Prime Minister, Parliament stopped short of enacting its original intention to allow this for people with only psychiatric disorders. 

Not surprisingly, several cases of psychiatric patients are working their way through the Canadian courts, demanding that there be no such discrimination for psychiatric patients. One case that received particular attention was a woman with chronic conversion disorder, who successfully fought in the courts to overrule the proscription on PAS/E for psychiatric disorders in her case. Several psychiatrists supported her pursuit of this action. So that legal precedent is now in place in Canada.

Dr Komrad then explains how the new California assisted suicide regulations open the door to assisted suicide for psychiatric conditions.

Even with current laws, there are emerging regulations that directly affect psychiatric patients in those states that allow assisted suicide. The California Department of Mental Health has adopted a regulation that requires state psychiatric hospitals to provide assisted suicide services to committed patients, if terminally ill. Under this regulation, a court hearing must be held to determine whether the patient is qualified for release to obtain physician-assisted death, even over clinically based objections of the treating psychiatrist. If a patient is deemed eligible, and no outside physicians can be located, the facility must provide fatal care itself, within the hospital. Unlike refusing treatment for mental disorders, committed inpatients’ competent refusal of treatment for medical disorders (eg, diabetes) cannot be overridden, even if refusal may result in death —thus rendering their condition “terminal.”

Dr Komrad then explains how the APA position may lead effect euthanasia and assisted suicide statutes world-wide.

The APA position implies that, even where legal for the non-terminally ill, it is neither the duty of a psychiatrist to fulfill that right, nor is it ethically appropriate to do so. Some (in the Belgian press) have argued that an American association does not have a place in the discussion of medical and psychiatric practices, which make most sense when seen in the context of different cultures. However, there is an understanding in the domain of medical ethics that there are some principles that transcend cultures. 

The Ethics Committee of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) has crafted a position similar to that of the APA, which will be submitted for a membership vote at the 2017 World Congress in Berlin. If endorsed, the WPA would be acknowledging that, on this particular issue, the ethical proscription against helping psychiatric patients to commit suicide may be so antithetical to the fundamental ethos of psychiatry that it should indeed be applied worldwide.

There was a significant reaction in the Belgian and Netherlands media after the publication of the APA position. Further to that, in Canada there is significant debate as to whether euthanasia should be permitted for psychiatric reasons alone.

Finally, the APA position protects psychiatrists who do not agree with killing their depressed or mentally ill patients. Thank you to the APA for creating a path that may lead to the end of killing people with psychiatric conditions. 

Links to articles concerning this topic:

• Netherlands: euthanasia for alcoholism.
• Belgium: Euthanizing the mentally ill.
• Mentally ill OK'd for assisted suicide in California hospitals.
• Killing the mentally ill in the Netherlands.
• 74% of Belgian assisted deaths for mental suffering are women.
• Study uncovers concern with the practise of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Summary of Liz Carr's speech at Not Dead Yet - UK rally.

The summary of Liz Carr's speech was published by Dr Peter Saunders on his blog.

Not Dead Yet assembled at 10 Downing St.

People with disabilites descended on Westminster today in droves to lobby MPs on Rob Marris’s Assisted Dying (no 2) Bill.

Marris's assisted suicide bill is due for its second reading on 11 September.

Stand-up comedian and actress Liz Carr addressed the gathering and was introduced by former Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson.

They later visited 10 Downing Street to hand a letter to the Prime Minister.

The following is a summary by Dr Peter Saunders of Liz Carr’s speech. This is based on his (not fully legible) handwritten notes and does no justice to Liz's sense of humor and eloquence but at least it will give you the general gist. The talk was recorded so I will post a link to the video here once it has been produced. Any errors in transcription are his alone:

Liz Carr as Clarissa Mullery in Silent Witness.

Summary of Liz Carr's speech

We shouldn’t be fooled by the term ‘assisted dying’. This is assisted suicide. So let’s call it what it actually is. It’s about people having help to kill themselves.

The former name of Dignity in Dying (DID), the organisation pushing this bill, is the ‘Voluntary Euthanasia Society’. They will use any euphemism to distort the facts and disguise their wider agenda.

Their main weapons are misinformation, emotion and fear – fear about pain, dependence and disability. So we have to fight this fear with facts and truth.

Is there anyone in this room who wouldn’t prefer a pain free death with dignity? Of course not. We all want that. But this law is not the way to achieve it.

Assisted suicide is not about having a painless and pleasant death either. The drugs are unpleasant and they often do not work quickly. Far better to be in the hands of a doctor trained in good palliative care who can relieve your symptoms properly.

We are being cast as uncompassionate for opposing this bill. But we are not the people who lack compassion. We understand what it is like to suffer and to have limited options.

I’m able to speak here today because I am loud, articulate and have been on telly. But I speak on behalf of many who are unable to speak in their own defence – vulnerable and disabled people who don’t have access to the drugs, housing , social care, support and choice they would like.

Tanni Grey-Thompson

DID talk about having choice, but I speak for people who do not have a real choice. The proponents of this bill are offering a very narrow choice indeed to a very limited number of people.

If DID really believe in compassion then why don’t they use some of their millions of pounds of resources to ensure that everyone who is vulnerable or dying has good care and support rather than being steered toward suicide?

Anyone can have worth and dignity if they have proper care and support.

The term ‘right to die’ is rubbish. We are all going to die. What is really being talked about here is the right to be killed, something altogether different.

Suicide is already legal and everyone who is serious enough about it is already able to kill themselves. But this bill is about people who want someone else to do it for them. It’s about socially approved suicide. It’s about making suicide socially acceptable when it is actually something we should be trying to prevent.

Anyone can already kill themselves without assistance – by simply stopping eating, taking an overdose or even driving their wheelchair down the stairs. I’m using these examples to make a point – not suggesting that anyone do it. But the point is, why then do we need to change the law to allow people to be assisted to do what they can already do without assistance?

This bill wouldn’t actually help the tiny number of people like Tony Nicklinson who are unable to kill themselves. We will then be told that it is cruel to discriminate against these people and that we should legalise euthanasia as well.

We hear a lot about the term ‘slippery slope’. I don’t use this term because this widening of the law we see in every country that has legalised it is not a passive process. It’s much more accurate to call it ‘incremental extension’.

Let’s have no illusions about the wider agenda. I was in Luxembourg just after they changed the law. The MPs who were pushing for it wanted it for children and elderly people with dementia as well. But they knew they wouldn’t get it so they went for the softer target of the terminally ill.

It is no different here. DID say it is only for mentally competent adults with less than six months to live but think about the people they are using to make their case – Tony Nicklinson, Debbie Purdy, Jeffrey Spector, Paul Lamb, Terry Pratchett. Not one of them actually fits with their definition. None of them are actually terminally ill.

But through these cases they are softening up public opinion for a much bigger legal change.

They say they only want suicide for people with terminal illnesses. And yet they also say they want to prevent vulnerable people – say with mental illnesses – from committing suicide. But many people with terminal illnesses are not desperate to die and many people without terminal illnesses are.

So why do we have one law for one group and another law for the other? This is really just discrimination. It’s saying that it is good for people who are terminally ill to kill themselves – but bad for younger people with mental illness to do so.

But we can’t on the one hand push for suicide prevention for one group of people and encourage suicide for another group. This is a dangerous and confusing mixed message.

And just how workable will this law be in practice? Two doctors are supposed to assess whether a given patient has mental capacity, is terminally ill and has not been coerced. Think of how busy your own GP is and how well they know you. How can they possibly be expected to make an objective judgement about these things?

When I did my euthanasia tour I talked to people involved in the group Compassion and Choices – the equivalent of DID in the US. Their strategy was very clear – push for 10-15 years with stories of desperate cases and eventually public opinion will change and the law will follow.

DID are using the same techniques here and lining up all their celebrities to endorse it. They have all the money and all the media support. But we have no money and our only celebrities are me and the Pope!

I am terrified by this bill. I am terrified because as a disabled person I have experienced first-hand how poorly our society values disabled people. It's the same with elderly people.

I’m always been told, ‘If I was like you I’d kill myself’. ‘If I was like you I’d want to die.’ There are people who sincerely believe that people like me are better off dead.

But I don’t want to die. And to talk about choice when so many vulnerable and disabled people do not have a choice about basic care, housing and support is to put us in a very dangerous position indeed.

This is really serious. It’s about life and death. If this bill becomes law some disabled and vulnerable people will be subjected to exploitation and abuse and will die as a result.

The very reason we don’t allow capital punishment in this society is because the best police investigation and the best judges can come to the wrong conclusion and execute an innocent person.

This bill if passed will also mean that innocent people get killed. The current law protects people against this kind of abuse. It does not need changing.

I appeal to you to join me on 11 September in opposing this bill.

Luxembourg euthanasia report.

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Luxembourg euthanasia commission has released its semi-annual report stating that 15 people died by euthanasia in 2013 - 2014, which was a slight increase from 14 people who died by euthanasia in 2011 - 2012.

Luxembourg is a small European country, with a population of 537,000 and approximately 3850 people deaths each year.

The media article states that no abuse of the euthanasia law occurred but the system of reporting euthanasia deaths, in Luxembourg, is not designed to uncover abuse.

In Luxembourg euthanasia reports are sent to the commission by the doctor who lethally injected the person, after the person has died. Since doctors are unlikely to self-report abuse of the law, therefore it is impossible to determine whether or not abuse has occurred.

A recent death study from the Flanders region of Belgium was published in the NEJM on March 19, 2015 found that 1.7% of all deaths in 2013 were intentionally hastened without explicit request and almost half of the assisted deaths were unreported in 2013. A similar study from 2007 found that 1.8% of all deaths were hastened without explicit request and almost half of the assisted deaths went unreported.

The Belgian death study was done by sending questionnaires to the doctors who certified the death certificates in 6188 deaths in the first half of 2013. The researchers received 3751 responses. Since the researchers are third-party researchers who investigated all deaths, they were able to uncover abuse of the Belgian euthanasia law.

In 2008, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg refused to sign the euthanasia bill into law. The Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies reacted by removing his constitutional power.

• Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is a hero.
• More than 1000 Belgian deaths were hastened without explicit request in 2013.

BBC World Service – Liz Carr Presents Part 1 of “Euthanasia Road Trip” Documentary

Liz Carr, the incredibly thought provoking, usually funny and always intellectual disability rights leader from the UK produced a program for the BBC entitled: When Assisted Death is Legal. 

The following is the commentary by Stephen Drake from Not Dead Yet concerning Episode 1 of: When Assisted Death is Legal - Episode 1.

Stephen Drake

By Stephen Drake, Not Dead Yet - February 19, 2013

Unlike most people, who manage to be good at one or two things, Liz Carr is a broadcaster, actor, international disability rights activist, stand-up comedian and writer. Her latest acting gig is as forensic examiner Clarissa Mullery on the popular BBC One show Silent Witness.

We can now add documentarian to the list.

Liz Carr

Carr is presenting a 2-episode documentary on BBC World Service titled “Euthanasia Road Trip.”  Episode 1 has aired and is available to listen to on the BBC World Service site. Here’s how the site describes the documentary:

The debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia is a passionate one. But as the discussions continue to rage around the world, there are a few places where assisted death is already legal. Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Oregon and Washington States in the US all have laws permitting assisted suicide or euthanasia in some form.

In this two-part documentary for the BBC World Service, actress and broadcaster Liz Carr goes on a personal journey to all six places to see how it works. As a long-standing campaigner against assisted suicide legislation in the UK, she wants to find out what assisted death means in practice – and whether she’s right to be concerned.

In part one, Carr travels to Switzerland, where she visits the rooms where volunteers help people die, and finds out why the Swiss law on assisted suicide goes back to the 19th Century. In Belgium she meets a doctor who admits to performing euthanasia before it was legal; and in Luxembourg, she finds out why the law on assisted suicide nearly caused a constitutional crisis. Carr questions whether it is possible to balance the right of the individual who wants to die with the responsibility of society to protect those who don’t.

I’ve listened to it twice through – and it’s excellent so far. Carr talks to family members of people who have died through assisted suicide or euthanasia, promoters of the legislation, physicians and disability activists. It’s far more even-handed than the pro-euthanasia documentary makers have produced. You’ll also learn more about the history of legislation and practice than you’ll ever read in a mainstream press article.

Carr’s interviews are great, and often revealing. Most interesting, so far, are her own reflections about her own opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia even as she engages with people who are completely comfortable with the practice(s).

After talking to two main advocates of euthanasia in Luxembourg who are obviously dissatisfied with the current parameters of the law (they would like to expand them), Liz Carr shares this  this terrific articulation of the slippery slope:

To me, this is what’s alarming about assisted death legislation; how easily a law can be changed once it’s introduced. The Luxembourg campaigners pushed for a law with strict limits and safeguards, which seems reasonable to most. But then the next step is to extend it to less straightforward groups like under-eighteens or people with dementia. Campaigners against assisted suicide like me often talk about the slippery slope. And I think this is what it means; Once a law’s in it’s unlikely ever to go away and when it gets extended it’s without all the debate and discussion that we have when it first goes through. It hasn’t happened in Luxembourg yet, they’ve only had five cases so far. But the way the people who pushed it through talk about the law makes me worried about the future.

Having listened to both parts of the “Euthanasia Road Trip” documentary at least 3 time through, I appreciate Carr’s work more than every. She had barely 50 minutes to work with – 50 minutes in which she covered 3 European countries and 2 American states.  All that and she managed to make it engaging and informative – I don’t think there’s a wasted minute. It’s a fantastic piece and can’t recommend it enough.

Links:

• When Assisted Death is Legal – Episode 1
• When Assisted Death is Legal – Episode 2

France considers law to legalize euthanasia

The Connexion news from France is reporting that French Senators took a first step towards legalizing assisted suicide. The Senate's social affairs committee voted 25 to 19 in favour of the euthanasia bill. The bill will be debated in the Senate on January 25.

The news article stated that this is the first time that the Senate in France has considered a Euthanasia bill. The bill would allow a person to die by a lethal dose if they are:

"a mature person, in the advanced or terminal phase of a accidental or pathological affliction that is grave or incurable, causing physical or psychological suffering that cannot be relieved, can request to receive medical assistance to die".

The Dutch, Belgium and Luxembourg legislation is also similar in the fact that it encourages euthanasia for people with disabilities who are not otherwise dying.

The news article suggested that the passage of the bill is unlikely and stated:

a group of UMP senators said in a joint statement that the law was "regrettable" and went against existing legislation that "aims to protect the weakest and most vulnerable and offer help to those who are in a dangerous situation".

The French government needs to improve the way it cares and it needs to reject legalizing the killing of its vulnerable citizens.

Luxembourg palliative care guidelines promote euthanasia

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The recent legalization of euthanasia in Luxembourg has already resulted in a change to the role of palliative care in the tiny European nation.

Under the title: New Guide for Palliative care in Luxembourg, the information states:

A booklet has just been produced in Luxembourg explaining the new law that was passed on March 16th, relating to palliative care and end of life support, which is renowned from the law on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Information and documentation are being produced under the leadership of the National Commission on audit and evaluation set up to oversee the implementation of the law on euthanasia and assisted suicide of terminal or serious and incurable diseases.

The role of palliative care has been changed in the new guide to include: The provision of a substance to end life.

Grand Duke Henri

The legalization of euthanasia in Luxembourg resulted in a constitutional crisis because Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg refused to sign the bill into law forcing the Duchy of Luxembourg to change its constitution by removing the power of the Grand Duke to sign legislation before it becomes the law of the land.

Grand Duke Henri argued that the legalization of euthanasia was unnecessary because the fear of suffering for people with terminal conditions can be effectively treated by palliative care. He further argued that it was unjust to legalize the practise of killing people and that his conscience could not permit him to sign such a bill into law.

The newsreport went on to say that:

The aim of this "Guide to Palliative Care" is to explain the basic principles and key provisions of the law relating to palliative care, the advance directive and support purposes only. It also summarises the various possibilities that already exist or are under development.

To obtain the booklet or for more information, contact Omega 90 (Association luxembourgeoise de soins palliatifs et d‘accompagnement de personnes en fin de vie et en deuil)

138, rue Adolphe Fischer
L-1521 Luxembourg
Tel: 29 77 89-1
Email: omega90@pt.lu

Link to the news article: http://station.lu/newsDetails.cfm?id=23929

'Hero' unable to stop legalized killing

Charlie Butts from OneNewsHour called me the other day after I posted my blog comment on Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg who is our Hero for refusing to sign the legislation to legalize euthanasia in Luxembourg into law. In fact the Grand Duke was willing to give up his historical monarchial power in order to conscientiously object to the legalization of euthanasia in his tiny nation.

Since then I have received a plethora of emails from people wishing to thank the Grand Duke for his courage.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has decided to formally thank the Grand Duke for his fortitude and strength by sending him an official acknowledgment of his courage and by including with our official acknowledgement the comments by the many supporters who have sent us their comments.

Please send your comments thanking our Hero, the Grand Duke, for his fortitude and courage and his willingness to stand up against the direct and intentional killing of the most vulnerable by euthanasia.

You can do this by emailing the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: info@epcc.ca or mailing us at: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Box 25033, London Ontario Canada, N6C 6A8.

To link to the original blog comment about the Grand Duke Henri:

http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2009/03/grand-duke-henri-of-luxembourg-hero.html

The following is the text from OneNewsHour:

Luxembourg has become the third nation to legalize doctor-assisted suicide. While that isn't good news to pro-lifers, there is a pro-life hero in the story.

The vote on the bill was 30-26, but it was stalled for some time. Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition explains. "The fact is that they've now gone to extreme measures even to carry this out because the Grand Duke of Luxembourg originally refused to sign the bill into law," he says.

That forced Parliament to take drastic action to make it legal. "They went as far as to change their constitution in order to make sure that he didn't need to sign the bill into law for it to become law," says the pro-life activist.

Schadenberg believes Grand Duke Henri deserves recognition for standing his ground.

"I think the Grand Duke is a hero," Schadenberg shares. "And we've been thinking a lot about this and we've been discussing maybe we should be instituting a 'Grand Duke award' that would be awarded yearly to the person who has done their greatest effort to try and stop further promotion of euthanasia/assisted suicide on a worldwide basis."

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition provides information for people who want to send a communication directly to the Grand Duke for taking such a strong moral stand.

Link to the original article:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=458380

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg - Hero

Grand Duke Henri

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is a Hero. Very few world leaders have had the fortitude and personal strength to stand up for justice and oppose euthanasia. Even though the Grand Duke could not stop the legalisation of euthanasia in his nation, he did take a courageous stand by forcing the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies to change the constitution before it could enact into law the direct and intentional killing of its most vulnerable citizens by euthanasia.

In his December statement to the people of Luxembourg the Grand Duke said:

Nevertheless, in an issue dealing with life’s end, I made use of my right to freedom of conscience. To answer a fundamental question “en âme et conscience" basically means passing judgement on oneself. In this I sought only to stay true to myself.

The response that this brings is in no way a judgement on citizens who harbour a different opinion, on people who have other feelings or on those who have had other life experiences.

Above all I deeply sympathise with those who are facing the end of their lives and who are undergoing great suffering.

Nobody can accept this, especially since the means for avoiding it are indeed available.

For those who wish to congratulate Grand Duke Henri please write or email to the following contact address:
Maréchalat de la Cour - Palais grand-ducal
17, rue du Marché-aux-herbes, L-1728 Luxembourg
Adresse postale : B.P. 331 L-2013 Luxembourg
Service Communication : service.presse@gdl.etat.lu

You can link the the website for the Luxembourg Royal Family at:
http://www.monarchie.lu/fr/

To complain to Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Minister of State
Adresse: 4, rue de la Congrégation, L - 1352 Luxembourg Europe
Adresse électronique: Ministere.Etat@me.etat.lu

On March 13, 2009, the tiny european nation of Luxembourg amended section 34 of its Constitution to remove the historical power of the monarch. According to the Luxembourg constitution, the Grand Duke was required to sign a bill before it became law.

On 2 December 2008 Grand Duke Henri announced that he would refuse to sign into law the act on euthanasia that had been voted on earlier in the year by the Chamber of Deputies. The vote to legalise euthanasia in Luxembourg passed by a (30 to 26) margin. After the final vote the signature of the Grand Duke would have been necessary to approve and enact the law. The Minister of State Jean-Claude Juncker decided to amend the Constitution, whereby the signature of the Monarch would no longer be necessary for a law to take effect. The Luxembourg royal house has tried to block a decision by parliament only once before, when the Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide refused to sign an education bill in 1912. (With information from Wikipedia)

Link to the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri,_Grand_Duke_of_Luxembourg
On March 17, 2009 the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies declared that the Euthanasia law had now passed making Luxembourg the third european nation to legalize euthanasia.

It is a very sad day for Luxembourg. The nation of Luxembourg has now approved the direct and intentional killing of its citizens at the most vulnerable time of their life. Whatever good intentions that may be related to the elimination of suffering, cannot justify the removal of the basic protection of a citizen to be free from lethal coercion, and the protection of life.

After many years of euthanasia in the Netherlands, it has now become very apparent that the euthanasia experiment is a failure. Children born with disabilities can be killed if the doctors and the family follow the Groningen Protocol. People with chronic depression can be killed and in the last government report in 2005 it stated that 550 people were killed by euthanasia without consent.

Now Luxembourg is following the path of the Netherlands. I lament the decision and I hope that other national leaders will have the fortitude, like the Grand Duke, to oppose the direct and intentional killing by euthanasia of their vulnerable citizens.

Link to the Luxembourg constitution:
http://www.legilux.public.lu/leg/textescoordonnes/recueils/constitution_droits_de_lhomme/CONST1.pdf

Luxembourg legalises euthanasia

Luxembourg has become the third European country to legalise euthanasia. I have included in this email the article from the AFP Press and two articles from the Luxembourg media explaining the constitutional crisis that was created by legalising euthanasia.

Luxembourg's Grand Duke Henri refused to sign the bill into law. His actions held up the bill which had passed in the Luxembourg parliament by a vote of 30 to 26.

The result was that the Luxembourg parliament unanimously voted to remove the power of the Grand Duke by changing article 34 of their constitution.

We are saddened that Luxembourg has decided to legalise the direct and intentional killing of its residents through euthanasia, but we are thankful that the Grand Duke had the fortitude to stand his ground and temporarily hold off the legalisation in his nation.

The Grand Duke has lost all his constitutional power because he attempted to stop an unjust law in his country.

For further comments contact Alex Schadenberg at the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: 1-877-439-3348.

Link to the article: Luxembourg becomes third EU country to legalise euthanasia
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i0yQDSE_oKIBOFwmvPlw1o347tww

Link to the article on March 17 - Bill Enacted on Euthanasia
http://station.lu/newsDetails.cfmid=23167

Link to the article on March 13 - Article 34 of state constitution changed:
http://station.lu/newsDetails.cfm?id=23127

Luxembourg parliament backs euthanasia bill

Deputies in the Luxembourg parliament have approved the first reading of a bill to legalize euthanasia by a vote of 31 to 26. Last February the Luxembourg parliament approved the first reading of a different euthanasia bill that was significantly revised into the current bill.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg has stated that he opposed euthanasia and he would not sign the euthanasia bill into law based. The Luxembourg parliament has responded by planning to change the constitution, removing the power of the monarchy to veto legislation that has been approved by parliament.

If Luxembourg legalizes euthanasia, it will become the third European nation to legalize the intentional killing of dying people or otherwise vulnerable people in Luxembourg.

When examining the experience of euthanasia in the Netherlands it is clear that their continues to be a significant number of people who die by euthanasia, who neither requested it or indicated a wish to die. The last study in the Netherlands indicated that 550 people died by euthanasia in 2005 without request.

The vanderlee study in 2005 in the Netherlands found that people with cancer who were depressed were 44% more likely to die by euthanasia than people with cancer who were not depressed.

In Belgium the government has indicated that they recognize that there is a problem with under-reporting.

A recently published Ganzini study in the state of Oregon found that 26% of those who had requested assisted suicide and participated in the study were depressed and 17% of those who died by assisted suicide had been depressed.

Luxembourg should be looking to improve their end-of-life care while recognizing the innate dignity of every human person.

They should be promoting care options and not killing.

The bill will go to final reading sometime around March. If approved Luxembourg will become the third country to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide and make all of the Benelux countries places where vulnerable people can be killed by euthanasia.
Link to the article:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hG23vs1nQzkNR-vr6ZxS4tVsQneg

Pope Decries Advance Toward Euthanasia in Luxembourg

This is a reprint of the article from Zenit.
Link to the article on Zenit: http://www.zenit.org/article-24615?l=english

Pope tells Luxembourg Envoy That Taking Innocent Life Is Wrong

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 18, 2008 (Zenit.org)
Benedict XVI is expressing his "deep concern" for the advance of euthanasia legislation in Luxembourg, saying that politicians should remember that taking innocent human life is always wrong.

The Pope's words came today as the Luxembourg Parliament was reaching an initial narrow approval of euthanasia legislation after a five-hour debate. The vote was 31 in favor and 26 against, with three abstentions. The bill might still be defeated, keeping Luxembourg from becoming the third European Union nation to approve euthanasia, after Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Holy Father, meanwhile, was receiving the new Luxembourg ambassador to the Holy See, Paul Duh, and in his address to him, the Pontiff took the occasion to speak out against euthanasia.

Benedict XVI expressed his "most deep concern about the text of the law on euthanasia and assisted suicide."

He noted that the bill is accompanied by legislation that itself contradicts the text, foreseeing regulations to develop palliative care so as to make suffering more endurable in the final stage of illness and to favor appropriate human support of the patient.

Nevertheless the bill, the Pope lamented, "concretely legitimizes the possibility of ending life."

"Political leaders, whose duty is to serve the good of man, as well as doctors and families, must remember that the deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always bad from the moral point of view, and can never be licit," he continued. "Love and true compassion embark on another path.

"The request that arises from the heart of man in his supreme confrontation with suffering and death, especially when he feels the temptation to let himself be overcome by desperation, and feels lost to the point of wanting to disappear, is above all a petition for someone to accompany him and a call to greater solidarity and support in this test.

"This call can seem demanding, but it is the only one worthy of the human being, and it opens to new and deeper solidarity, which enriches and fortifies family and social bonds."

Addressing the people of Luxembourg, Benedict XVI appealed to their "Christian and humanistic roots," and asked them to reaffirm the "greatness and the inviolable character of human life."

Today's Parliament approval was the first reading of the bill, which was significantly modified since an earlier version was approved. Another reading will most likely be scheduled.

Furthermore, the chief of state, Grand Duke Henri, has said that he will not approve the legislation. His position has brought a call to amend the Constitution, stripping the monarch of his power to approve laws, and giving the position a purely ceremonial rule. Such a Constitutional amendment would be necessary before the euthanasia legislation could become effective.

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.