Culture Of Life 101 . . . “The Second Time Around: Euthanasia In The Netherlands”

By BRIAN CLOWES

Part 3

As the previous articles have described, the practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands has expanded relentlessly and inevitably. It began with a focus on what the individual person perceived was best for himself, and has devolved to where the focus is what is best for the State. The State’s desires are carried out by its medical corps, which is no longer compelled to take the desires of the person into consideration when making its decisions.
“Living Wills” Mean Nothing. Patient statements about a desire to live or receive certain treatments, in documents similar in nature to U.S. “Living Wills” and Durable Powers of Attorney (DPAs) mean absolutely nothing in the Netherlands.
Physicians often perform involuntary euthanasia on patients who have chronic diabetes, rheumatism, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, or bronchitis, and upon older accident victims, regardless of their prognosis.
Many Dutch citizens, in self-defense, now carry a “Declaration of a Will to Live” (issued by the Dutch Patients Association, a disability rights group, and the aptly named Sanctuary Society, or Schuilplaats), which states that they do not want to be euthanized without their knowledge.
These documents are also called Life Passports, or “Don’t Kill Me” cards. These cards, which are distributed by pro-life groups throughout Holland, carry the words:
“I request that no medical treatment be withheld on the grounds that the future quality of my life will be diminished, because I believe that this is not something that human beings can judge. I request that under no circumstances a life-ending treatment be administered because I am of the opinion that people do not have the right to end life.”
Predictably, these declarations carry very little weight with the same doctors who introduced, promoted — and then ignored — the so-called “Living Will” in Holland.
Patients Are Pressured. If a person 60 years of age or older cannot avoid entering a Dutch hospital, doctors and nurses will repeatedly suggest euthanasia to him, even if he has not asked for it, and even if he is suffering from only a minor illness.
Dr. Pieter Michels, director of a Dutch hospital for terminal patients, said only nine of 3,000 dying people passing through his hospital had asked for euthanasia over 20 years, and most of these requests came because of pressure from their families. One doctor admitted to killing a number of people because the sight of their suffering upset him!
Dutch cardiologist Richard Fenigsen noted as far back as 1990 that “the burden of justifying his existence is now placed upon the patient.”
And Dutch Attorney General T.M. Schalken said: “Elderly people begin to consider themselves a burden to the society, and feel under an obligation to start conversations on euthanasia, or even to request it.”
All of this leads to a chronic fear among elderly Dutch people that they will be put to death if they encounter health professionals in any context. A comprehensive 1987 poll showed that 68 percent of all elderly Dutch citizens feared that they would be killed without their consent or even their knowledge. And 93 percent of those living in the few remaining Dutch nursing homes are “strongly opposed” to euthanasia — and for good reason!
To be fair, this phenomenon is certainly not restricted to the nation of Holland. The sick elderly deeply distrust the medical establishment in every country that has fallen under the lethal thrall of socialized medicine. In England, Richard Lamerton, medical director of a large hospice, said:
“Every time euthanasia was discussed on television I had old people in my general practice refusing admission to hospital for fear of being ‘put down.’ And the fear that I was gently poisoning them stopped some of my dying patients from taking their pain drugs.”
The number of nursing homes in the Netherlands has decreased more than 80 percent in the last 20 years, and the life expectancy of the few elderly people who remain in such homes is becoming shorter all the time.
In some cases, it can be measured in hours.
A survey showed that most elderly people in Dutch nursing homes will only drink water from faucets and will touch no other liquid because they believe that their orange juice or milk may be spiked with deadly poison.
Doctors and others commit involuntary euthanasia on even non-terminally ill patients in Dutch nursing homes or those who require intensive home care, including those with multiple sclerosis and even blindness. In fact, the Dutch Medical Disciplinary Board has reprimanded pro-life doctors for refusing to kill their patients. This is in keeping with the coercive nature of the anti-life mentality, which has no respect for the consciences of anyone who does not agree with it, and is to be expected.
Even young children are not safe from the “new abortionists.” In 1987, Dr. P.A. Voute told the daily newspaper Het Parool that he had given a poison pill to a 14-year-old boy. He also asserted that, since 1980, he had given poison pills to many teenagers who have suffered from cancer, even when the disease was non-terminal.
Accountability is nonexistent regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide. Technically, a doctor must report every case to a coroner. Then the case is reviewed by one of the three-member Euthanasia Committees, which is rather counterproductive since the patient is already dead.
Of the thousands of illegal euthanasias committed every year under the loose Dutch laws, the Euthanasia Committees find only an average of only five in violation of the law. As of 2015, not a single case has ever been prosecuted.
No Prosecution for Mass Killings. It is a central strategy of all of the anti-life movements to simply ignore laws that its members do not approve of, and to completely disregard moral rules that they consider “inconvenient.” After all, when one commits the ultimate crime — killing — and gets away scot free, what other laws can possibly be of consequence?
The logic behind the pro-euthanasia strategy of ignoring the law is solid. If a law is ignored widely enough — even a law against killing — it becomes a joke. People get used to the idea, and everyone can eventually break the law with impunity.
As Alan Guttmacher, former medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, claimed, “A law which good citizens contrive to fracture, and usually without penalty, is a bad law.” On the other hand, if the law is enforced, the pro-euthanasia movement benefits from a propaganda coup by portraying the government as heartless for forcing poor, helpless people to suffer.
Pro-euthanasia activists founded the Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society in April 1973, and it grew rapidly. In 1978, 20 of the 150 members of Parliament attended its annual meeting. By 1980, a large parliamentary majority favored the legalization of euthanasia.
When a society allows killing for only the “hard cases,” however, it always expands to encompass convenience cases as well. The following examples show how meaningless even the most carefully written laws with “exceptions” are, because anti-lifers all over the world simply ignore laws that do not suit them;
MA doctor embarked on a crusade to “clean out” DeTerp Nursing Home and killed 20 residents without their consent or knowledge. Prosecutors charged him with five murders. Despite the fact that he pleaded guilty, a Dutch court cleared him of all counts — then awarded him $150,000 for “having his name maligned”!
Four nurses at an Amsterdam hospital admitted killing dozens of unconscious patients by injecting them with fatal doses of insulin without their consent or knowledge. The hospital’s employee council wholeheartedly supported the nurses and excused the murders because of “humane considerations.” The district courts agreed with this reasoning and lodged no charges against the nurses.
During a revolting media propaganda show, the children of some of the victims hugged the nurses and thanked them. But the children of other victims objected to the killings — and were completely ignored, because their stories did not fit the narrative the media wanted to present.
In the Netherlands, doctors kill patients and help patients kill themselves for the most trivial of reasons, and in total violation of the loose Dutch laws. For example, people have been directly euthanized because they have autism, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), or are perfectly healthy and are just “tired of living.”
Every nation in the world is burdened by the menace of pro-euthanasia activists who kill for the most trivial of reasons. For example, Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza of Brazil led a ring of physicians who murdered some 300 patients over a period of seven years in order to “free up hospital beds” and to “clear up the clutter” that patients were causing. Due to Brazil’s corrupt and grossly inefficient legal system, de Souza is still free as of mid-2016.
These examples give vivid support to the warning by atheist Dutch doctor I. Van der Sluis: “Life is not a quality; death is not a right, and it is not realistic to expect that euthanasia will remain voluntary. Euthanasia doctors will kill you with your consent if they can get it; and without your consent if they cannot. Euthanasia is not a right. It is the abolition of all rights.”
German pro-euthanasia activist Dr. Julius Hackethal confirmed Dr. Van der Sluis’ fears that not only are flagrant abuses inevitable under the current legal system in the Netherlands, they are happening right now on a wide scale:
“I know — based on my 40 years of experience in five hospitals —12 years I spent in university hospitals — that killing by applying death shots to a hopelessly ill patient against his will or at least without his definite wish, happens much more often than is made public.”
All of these examples prove what pro-life activists have been saying all along: Pro-euthanasia activists will continue to ignore even the loosest laws in their mad drive to eliminate as many people as they possibly can.