Wednesday, December 01, 2004
EUTHANASIA
I'm not sure if this is the report at the ALL website is the one referenced by Robert Duncan in a comments box below, but it dramatizes the questionable practices and outright murder that are ushered in via euthanasia laws. (Click "Pro-Life Primer on Euthanasia" at the ALL website.)
Dr. Fenigsen brought the euthanasia program up to date in an article, "Report of the Dutch Governmental Committee on Euthanasia" in Issues in Law & Medicine, Vol. 7, No. 3 Winter 1991. He stated, "It is the first official admission that active involuntary euthanasia is regularly practiced in the Netherlands." ...
The report showed the following:
Annually there are 25,306 cases of euthanasia (19.4% of all deaths). There are 2,300 cases of active voluntary euthanasia, 400 of physician-assisted suicide. There are 1,000 cases of active involuntary euthanasia. There are 5,800 cases of life- prolonging treatment withheld or withdrawn at patient request - 4,756 died, and 25,000 cases without patient consent, of which 8,750 were done with the intent to terminate life. Of the 22,500 patients who died of an overdose of morphine, 8,100 were done with the intent to terminate life, of which 4,941 were done without consent. There were 8,750 cases of life-prolonging treatment stopped with the intent to cause death without cconsent.
There were 59% of doctors who found involuntary euthanasia "conceivable" and 27% have actually performed such acts. Fourteen percent of the patients who underwent involuntary euthanasia were competent, 11% were partially competent, 8% were demented elderly patients and the reasons cited were: low quality of life; no prospect of improvement; family couldn't take it any more. Forty-one percent were killed without family knowledge.
Medical care is expensive, especially at the end of life. We have an aging population, which means that fewer young people are going to be funding the efforts to keep the old folks alive. The temptations are going to mount to legalize euthanasia. This issue is not going away any time soon.
