Is the Netherlands refusing to treat elderly Covid-19 patients.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Salvador Aragonés published by Aleteia.org claims that the Netherlands is rationing healthcare by denying treatment to patients based on age. Aragonés also claims that the Netherlands is blaming the financial crisis in Italy and Spain as caused by their medical treatment policy. Aragonés writes (google translated);

A great scandal is caused in Europe, and not only in Europe, with the systematic attitude of the Netherlands in treating coronavirus patients in their territory by age, even before their hospitals are full. 

According to statements by Dr. Frits Rosendaal, head of clinical epidemiology at the Leiden University Medical Center, and a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and Art, with many awards and recognized merits. This well known doctor in the Netherlands is now battling the coronavirus, comments on how hospital admissions for the Covid-19 virus are followed in the Netherlands, while criticizing the way of life of Italy and Spain. 

The doctor (Rosendaal) said: “In Italy, the ICU capacity is managed very differently [from the Dutch]. They admit patients that we would not include because they are too old. The elderly have a very different position in Italian culture." He (Rosendaal) does not understand how in these southern European countries they admit “old people to the ICU”. The Netherlands does not hospitalize the weak and the elderly in order to make room for young people. He attributes it to a “cultural difference” between the Netherlands and the Latin countries.

Aragonés links the Dutch policy of not treating elderly Covid-19 patients with euthanasia. He states (google translated):

...in the Netherlands as in Belgium, euthanasia has been applied for years, according to the authorities, “voluntary”. However, in Germany, and in France, Spain and Italy, they have received elderly patients from these countries to be cured, not of coronaviruses, but of anything, because they do not trust the hospitals of their country: euthanasia is not Voluntary, they say, nor is it respected - not infrequently - the will of the person to whom euthanasia is applied.

Aragonés then states that Dutch finance minister Wopke Hoekstra is urging the European parliament to investigate "wasted finances" in Portugal and Spain related to Covid-19.

Treatment and care related to the Covid-19 has clearly affected relations between European nations.

On March 28, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a bulletin upholding the equality and human rights of people with disabilities and the elderly concerning treatment decisions and healthcare allocation.

Portuguese collect 76,000 signatures against euthanasia. Portuguese Communist Party opposes euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Last month I reported that Portugal may soon legalize doctors killing their patients by lethal injection.

On February 20, the Portuguese Parliament voted on five proposals to legalize euthanasia. All of the proposals passed, even though two years ago, similar proposals were defeated. The Portuguese government will now propose a single bill for parliament.
 
Groups opposing euthanasia started a massive signature petition campaign to urge the government to approve a Portuguese referendum on euthanasia. The Portuguese government requires 60,000 signatures before considering a referendum, but organizers have stated that they have collected more than 76,000 signatures and more are expected. The government would still need to approve the referendum.

The Portuguese Communist Party restated their opposition to euthanasia. Here is their position:

1. The debate over the legalization of the possibility of provoking an early death is not the discussion about hypothetical options or individual considerations of each person facing the circumstances of their own death. Rather, it’s a discussion of political options of reinforced complexity and with deep social, behavioral and ethical implications.

The legalization of euthanasia cannot be presented as a matter of choice or individual consideration. To inscribe in the Law the right to kill or to kill oneself is not a sign of progress but a step towards civilizational regression, with deep social, behavioral and ethical implications that question central elements of a society that is guided by humanistic and solidarity values.

The PCP rejects the idea that dignity of life is guaranteed by the legal consecration of the right to an early death.

The PCP's opposition to euthanasia has its foundation in the preservation of life, in calling for technical and scientific advances (including in medicine) to ensure the increase in life expectancy and not to shorten it, in the dignification of life while alive. It is this consideration of the intrinsic value of life that must prevail and not that of valuing human life in terms of its usefulness, economic interests or questionable standards of social dignity.

2. The invocation of extreme cases, to justify the legalization of the Right to an Early Death, presenting it as an act of dignity, is not the way of dealing with the necessary reflection. In some cases, it can express judgments motivated by its own experience, individual conceptions that must be respected, but it is also, for some of its promoters, a search of protagonism and promotional political agendas.

Today, science already has resources that, if used and accessible, allow to reduce or eliminate physical and psychological suffering. In matters that have to do with the fate of his life, each citizen now has legal instruments (of which the “living will” is an example, respecting its limits) and sovereignty in his individual decision regarding medical abstinence (no one can be forced to undergo certain treatments against their will). Medical practice guarantees no artificial extension of life, respecting death as a natural process, refusing to delay it through therapeutic obstinacy. There is a substantial difference between artificially maintaining life or deliberately anticipating death, between decreasing or eliminating suffering from illness or precipitating the end of life.

3. In a context in which the value of human life is often relativized due to criteria of social utility, economic interests, family responsibilities and costs or public spending, the legalization of the provocation of an early death would add a new dimension of problems.

It would immediately contribute to the consolidation of the political and social options that lead to this devaluation of human life and would introduce a relevant social problem resulting from the pressure of referral for the early death of all those to whom society refuses to answer and support its situation of special frailty or need. Furthermore, the legalization of this possibility would further limit the conditions for the State to promote, in the field of mental health, the fight against suicide.

4. The principle of equality implies that the same social dignity is recognized for all, and it is not legitimate to interpret that a person “with permanent injury or incurable disease” or “in extreme suffering” is diminished by such a circumstance in the dignity of his life. And even more that this same dignity is invoked to enshrine in law the right to death, based on a law of the Republic.

Life is not worthy only when (and while) it can be lived in the full use of physical and mental capacities and faculties and society must ensure the conditions for a dignified life in all stages of the human journey, from the least autonomous (be it childhood or old age) to those with greater autonomy; in the presence of healthy conditions or illness; within the framework of the full integrity of physical, motor or intellectual faculties or of a more or less profound disability, be it congenital or supervening.

What is needed is that the advancement and civilizational progress and the increase in life expectancy resulting from scientific evolution are called upon to guarantee a life with dignified material conditions in all its phases.

5. The PCP affirms its opposition to legislation that institutionalizes the provocation of an early death in whatever form it takes - at the request in the form of assisted suicide or euthanasia -, as well as possible proposals for referenda on the matter.

The PCP will continue to fight for the implementation, in a political and legislative level, of measures that respond to the full needs of users of the National Health Service, namely in the reinforcement of serious investment in palliative care, including home care; guaranteeing the right of everyone to refuse to undergo certain treatments; ensuring that medical practice does not artificially prolong life; in the development, improvement and right of access for everyone to use the resources that science can make available, in order to guarantee to everyone, up to the limit of life, the dignity due to each human being.

6. This is the profoundly humanistic conception of life that the PCP defends and that its political project of social progress embodies. A conception that does not give up on life, that fights for decent living conditions for all and demands policies that guarantee them from the start by the material conditions necessary in life, at work and in society.

Faced with the problems of human suffering, illness, disability or incapacity, the solution is not to make society less responsible by promoting the early death of people in these circumstances, but rather to social progress in order to ensure conditions for a dignified life, mobilizing all social means and capacities, science and technology to overcome suffering and disease and ensure social inclusion and family support.

The preservation of human life, and not the abandonment of life, is a heritage that integrates real humanism - and not proclaiming - that the PCP assumes in principles and in the struggle.

Portugal may soon legalize doctors lethally injecting their patients.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On February 20, the Portuguese Parliament voted on five different proposals to legalize euthanasia. All of the proposals passed, even though two years ago, similar proposals were defeated.

The Portuguese government will now propose a single bill for parliament.

A report by Barry Hutton for the Associated Press explains that Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa opposes euthanasia and may veto the bill. Hutton wrote:

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who is known to be reluctant about euthanasia, could veto the new law, but parliament can override his veto by voting a second time for approval. The Portuguese president doesn’t have executive powers. 

The head of state also could ask the Constitutional Court to review the legislation; Portugal’s Constitution states that human life is “sacrosanct,” though abortion has been legal in the country since 2007.

Based on the recent vote, it is possible that the Portuguese parliament can over-ride a veto.

Groups that oppose euthanasia are gathering signatures to demand a referendum on the issue. During the parliamentary debate on euthanasia, there were hundreds of people protesting euthanasia. One One banner said: 

“Euthanasia doesn’t end suffering, it ends life.”

Recently the Spanish parliament also voted to continue to debate euthanasia. 

As bad as this is, the debate in Portugal is not over.

Spain to debate legalizing euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Spanish Legislature

Spain's socialist government introduced a bill, last June, to legalize euthanasia. The debate on the bill is scheduled for October 25.

The Conservative - Popular Party - strongly opposes the bill and their leader has announced that it will introduce alternative legislation to provide greater support for palliative care.

Media reports are suggesting that the bill has support from the majority in the 350 member Spain legislature.

Last May, a similar bill was expected to pass in the Portugal legislature but it was defeated after the Communist Party voted against the euthanasia bill.

Euthanasia is a Declaration of 'No Confidence' in Medicine

This interview was published by Sputnik news on June 1, 2018

Portugal’s parliament has rejected four bills to legalize euthanasia by a narrow margin. Following a heated debate, half of the nation's lawmakers voted against the motion, while four members of the parliament abstained from the vote.

• Portugal rejects euthanasia.

Sputnik discussed the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide with Wesley Smith, an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism.

Sputnik: What is your take on euthanasia and assisted suicide? How justified is this practice?

Wesley Smith: I've been opposing assisted suicide and euthanasia for 20 years. I see it as a form of abandonment, when you have somebody who is suffering. To say to them: "Yes, the way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate the sufferer," is to confirm the person‘s worst fears that they are a burden, that they will be less worthy of being loved if they continue to survive, and it's almost a declaration of no confidence in medicine. On the one hand, the euthanasia movement is saying we can't trust doctors to make us comfortable and to alleviate our symptoms. On the other hand, we're saying we should allow those same doctors to kill us or prescribe lethal drugs so that they we can kill ourselves. It turns thousands of years of medical ethics on its head.

Sputnik: On the other hand people also say the need for euthanasia is for people who are suffering from pain but, surely, in our day and age, there's medication that can take away the pain and let people avoid suffering that much?

Wesley Smith: You know it's ironic that 150-100 years ago, when people actually did die in agony — if you had bone cancer 150 years ago you died in agony, if you had a burst appendix 150 years ago you died in agony — there was no discussion of so called death with dignity or euthanasia. Yet today, when we do have a tremendous potential to alleviate pain and suffering, suddenly we're talking about death with dignity as if somebody dying a natural death is not [dying] a dignified death.

It really is an odd circumstance we find ourselves in, and I think the answer is to increase our involvement with people. A lot of people say that the only way to prevent pain that can't be alleviated is to have legalized euthanasia as a safety belt, but the laws don't require that. The laws basically say that depending on the circumstance, in the United States it's usually somebody who's terminally ill, but in other countries like Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, you don't have to be terminally ill; it basically says that if the patient feels that their suffering can't be alleviated [euthanasia is an option], not that the suffering can't actually be alleviated. So in essence if the person finds themselves in the category which permits euthanasia, whether or not they can have their suffering treated doesn't matter, it becomes almost a death on demand circumstance.

Sputnik: Of course, in modern day society, aside from people who are terminally ill or suffering, or in pain, there are a lot of people who are suffering from depression and on the spur of the moment they might think that: "I'm done with life." What do you do, allow them to take their own life? Wesley

Smith: That would be the logic and the same thing is true of people who might have a terminal illness, or people who are disabled and so forth. What is actually being preached here is that the state should give its stamp of approval to some suicide. Now nobody in the euthanasia movement thinks that a teenager who is going through a broken romance, just as an example, and becomes suicidal should be given help or suicide, and they would say yes, of course, the teenager or young adult, or a mother, whose child was hit by a car should be given suicide prevention. But then they turn around and say that a person with cancer shouldn't be given suicide prevention if they want to kill themselves. Well of course they should, there's plenty of people who, when they receive a dire prognosis become suicidal and depressed, and if they're given the proper interventions weeks and months later are very happy to be alive.

If we say we're going to prevent some suicides but facilitate other suicides, what we're actually doing is saying that some lives have greater benefit and are more worthy of being lived than others, and that leads inherently to inequality, and that should be resisted at every turn.

Portugal rejects euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Portugeese Assembly

I have fabulous news.

Members of the Assembly in Portugal defeated four proposals to legalize euthanasia. The closest vote was on a bill drafted by the ruling socialist party. Reuters reported:

The bill, drafted by the ruling Socialists garnered 110 votes in the 230-seat parliament, but was outvoted by 115 opponents, with 4 abstentions, after a heated debate and a vote that required each lawmaker to declare his or her stance.

Reuters reported that protesters, opposing euthanasia, were outside of parliament with three main slogans:

“Yes to life, no to euthanasia!” and carrying placards “We demand palliative care for ALL”, or “Euthanasia is a recipe for elder abuse”

The Portugeese American Journal reported that the Medical Association opposes euthanasia:

The Portuguese Doctors’ Association opposed the bill, saying it violated their professional principles. A petition by the Portuguese Federation for Life a few collected more than 14,000 signatures opposing the bill on the principle that society and the state have a duty to protect human life.

The Morning Star online reported why the Communist party opposed euthanasia:

Communist MP Antonio Filipe explained that the party saw euthanasia “not as a sign of progress but a step towards civilisational retrogression with profound social, behavioural and ethical implications. 

“In a context in which the value of human life is frequently made conditional on criteria of social utility, economic interest, family responsibilities and burdens or public spending, legalisation of early death would add a new dimension of problems,” he told parliament. 

“Faced with human suffering, the solution is not to divest society of responsibility by promoting early death but to ensure conditions for a dignified life.”

In the past month, euthanasia bills have been defeated in Finland, Guernsey (UK), and the courts have declared that the California assisted suicide law is unconstitutional.