From LifeSite News:
UTRECHT, Netherlands, October 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has released new guidelines for interpreting the 2002 Euthanasia Act that now includes “mental and psychosocial ailments” such as “loss of function, loneliness and loss of autonomy” as acceptable criteria for euthanasia. The guidelines also allow doctors to connect a patient’s lack of “social skills, financial resources and a social network” to “unbearable and lasting suffering,” opening the door to legal assisted death based on “psychosocial” factors, not terminal illness.
The June 2011 position paper, titled “The Role of the Physician in the Voluntary Termination of Life” concludes that the “concept of suffering” is “broader” than its “interpretation and application by many physicians today.”
Included in a broader interpretation of suffering would be “disorders affecting vision, hearing and mobility, falls, confinement to bed, fatigue, exhaustion and loss of fitness,” according to the authors.
“The patient perceives the suffering as interminable, his existence as meaningless and—though not directly in danger of dying from these complaints—neither wishes to experience them nor, insofar as his history and own values permit, to derive meaning from them,” explains the KNMG position paper.
“In the KNMG’s view, such cases are sufficiently linked to the medical domain to permit a physician to act within the confines of the Euthanasia Law.”
“It doesn’t always have to be a physical ailment, it could be the onset of dementia or chronic psychological problems, it’s still unbearable and lasting suffering. It doesn’t always have to be a terminal disease,” said Dr. Nieuwenhuijzen Kruseman, Chairman of KNMG to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
Read the rest here.
This is an absolute descent into madness. We doctors of science and medicine spend close to twenty years of our adult lives in training, and for what? This???
This represents moral and intellectual bankruptcy, the collapse of reason and sanity, of love for our patients and experimental subjects. In the Netherlands, medicine no longer seeks to better the human condition. It makes the problems go away by killing the patients.
We don’t need extensive education for this anymore.
We simply need executioners.
This is what many in this country are pushing for. And this is what national healthcare will deliver.
It’s time for this nation to have a serious family talk.
Coming Home 
[…] blogger Gerard Nadal also responded to the […]
We’ve been talking about the slippery slope for years now – the one that doesn’t exist…… PAH. Looks like the next NAZI Germany will be the NETHERLANDS
This has got to be one of the worst examples of “slippery slope” ever. When I was a Hospice Nurse, I marveled at the evolution that took place within the life of the caregiver…they went from a “I cant do this, or this, or this, nor this” to “maybe I can do just this but not that” to “wow, I did it, Im proud of myself”. Euthanasia doesn’t just kill the patient, it kills the entire developmental process of the person who would have been the caregiver.
I will never say that being a hospice caregiver is easy, quite the contrary, but going onto the next task having surpassed your expectations of yourself and feeling accomplished is a FAR cry from “they had to off my wife because I was too weak to care for her.” I cant imagine the defeat in that…where does one go from there?
If people have good pain and symptom control, they dont want euthanasia. They dont have to submit to pointless burdensome treatment, but there is a place for natural life and natural death – lived in a way to that a person can prepare themselves and their loved ones for the process in a way that honors their creator. It is the real “dignity” in the “death with dignity” argument, not a fear ridden rush to a premature end.
What? So, if you are alone and have no finances, you can be killed?
How about “bored”?
[…] Medicine, with the publication of the ”Groningen Protocol.” LifeNews blogger Gerard Nadal also responded to the news. “This is an absolute descent into madness. We doctors of science and medicine spend […]
It’s a way to not have to pay for depression. If one is depressed, they can go to the doctor and request to be killed – and as it is cheaper than actually diagnosing and correcting the problem……..
You need some opposing views for balance, and honesty.
Most commenters seem to have missed the highly relevant fact that the patient has to be actively requestiong euthanasia. There is no slippery slope here, and talk of “NAZI Germnay” is dishonest alarmism and scare mongering of the worst sort.
It is true that suffering can ennoble, both the sufferer herself and those committed to helping as much as humanely possible; however, there can be no moral justification for not offering the sufferer an opportunity to chose a different end of their choice, one that avoids much indignity, pain and humiliation for herself as well as those around her. Helping teh starving poverty stricken is also a very good thing for both, but it would be morally abominable to argue that starvation and poverty are therefore good things and that they should not be ended!
Human beings have a right as autonomous, dignified and rational agents to make such ultimate choices, and whether others approve of or would make the same choices in the same situation is not and cannot be a just reason to deny that right.
This further move by The Royal Dutch Medical Association is exactly right. It is to move furhter in the direction of justice, reason and respect for human beings as persons.
Thank you for publishing my somewhat contrary opinion and arguments.
I think it is important for both sides to acknowledge and address the opposing arguments – my own opinions are of little worth if they are not tested against the facts and arguments of those who strongly disagree with me.
Felix,
Properly cared for, a person living a full natural death need not suffer pain, indignity or humiliation. If we end lives because we’re disinclined to learn how to properly care for the dying then what type of people are we?
If a society decided that euthanasia is an acceptable possibility then what of a person who has lost capacity for prudent decisions…would they qualify? Who would decide?
I am a nurse and have done end of life care for adults, children and neonates where euthanasia was simply NOT and option. I cared for my dying pet knowing that the option of euthanasia was an ever-present possibility. Juxtaposing those experiences, I cant imagine any situation more misery provoking than doing end of life care on humans with the spectre of euthanasia hovering about.
When people are depressed – don’t they wish to die….. and you accept this? and depression is not fixable?
I wonder if the Dutch doctors had to create thses guidelines because the rates of depression in the Netherlands are astronomical, otherwise why would they need some sort of ruling on this – as an aside – I also wonder if it relates to the high rates of abortions…… what are the depression rates in the USA since 1973?
Also – a whole country has been braiwashed to believe that the cost benefits of euthanasia are better than helping those with depression live…… makes me wonder what kind of morals those schools teach….. NONE…. which, while I’m on my soapbox, is why they outlaw homeschooling.
By the way – the Netherlands…. had to create guidelines for euthanasia, because the doctors were euthanizing so many babies that THEY felt weren’t worthy of life – without telling the parents. They also had a live broadcast of euthanasia – which outraged the REST of the world……
You are so right, and the Netherlands is so wrong. It’s enough to make the depressed even more depressed.
Loneliness and fatigue? Huh, guess I should be making an appointment then, I had planned for more sleep, exercise, etc, but….
Well in the Netherlands – it would be called exercising your right to take a dirt nap.
Human beings have a right as autonomous, dignified and rational agents to make such ultimate choices, and whether others approve of or would make the same choices in the same situation is not and cannot be a just reason to deny that right.
No. Because at the heart of euthanasia is making everyone around this autonomous human an accomplice to evil. Either by direct means, formal support, or support through silence. Clearly, if someone wants to off themselves, the can. But the moment they want someone to help them do it, or at least sit on their hands while they do it, is unacceptable. There is no such thing as right to help to commit suicide.
AMC @ November 3, 2011 at 8:03 AM,
Yes, depression is a treatable disease. Yes, many people have temporary periods when they wish to die. The proposal and Dutch law is not about someone feeling depressed, walking into a clinic and being killed. That is not permitted and no one has ever suggested it should be.
However, in the case of long-term depression which is not yielding to treatment, the sufferer might well decide that on balance she would prefer the nothingness of death to the constant pain of life, pain for which there might well no realistic hope of cure in any reasonable period. Modern drugs like Prozac can help in many cases, but not all.
These are the people these proposals are intended to help so that they can make informed decisions about their own lives, rather than having self-serving care givers rob them of every last vestige of human dignity by taking over and controlling every aspect of their lives.
Scott W. @ November 3, 2011 at 3:29 PM,
No. If humans have the right to commit suicide, then that is not evil; therefore, euthansia is providing valuable assistance to a more dignified, gracious and humane end, and logically cannot “[make] everyone around this autonomous human an accomplice to evil.”
You can’t be an accomplice to evil where there is no evil to be an accomplice to.
My apologies if this appears twice – please delete one.
Tammy @ November 3, 2011 at 6:44 AM,
“If we end lives because we’re disinclined to learn how to properly care for the dying then what type of people are we? ”
The we here are the care givers providing a service that has been requested over a period of time and that is the decision of a rational person. The care givers might feel that the life is of worth and not suffering, but they are not the ones who can know what the person who made the decision is feeling. It sounds as though you think that the care givers should make the decisions and control the person’s life because they are incompetent and not to be listened to – and that is the perfection of an insulting stripping of dignity and humanity from the person in care merely to make the care givers feel better about themselves! That is wrong.
The question of whether or not those in a coma or otherwise incapable of making a decision is not what is under discussion here. It is a totally different question, although some relevant points will intersect.
In the matter being discussed here, it is important to keep clear that euthanasia is something being offered to people who are capable of making a decision for themselves, capable of judging what degree or dignity, meaning and value their current lives have, and whether the sum is positive or negative.
Too many commentators have (deliberately?) confused the issue by speaking as if this were a proposal to involuntarily kill people. It is not. It is a discussion about complying with the express wish of rational persons.
Felix,
I believe that you have not been following developments closely. In the Netherlands, all it takes is two physicians to determine that a patient is suffering and they can agree to the termination of the patient without that patient’s knowledge or consent. That is what it has devolved into.
All that is new are the new criteria to be added to that list of suffering. We are well past informed consent and patient autonomy.
Gerald,
Could you give me a link or two to follow this up? It’s certainly news to me that we are not discussing patient requested assistance to commit suicide.
Gerald,
I quote from your own source ( http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/slippery-slope-loneliness-fatigue-now-criteria-for-euthanasia-in-netherland ):
“Since 1973, when euthanasia was quasi decriminalized, Dutch doctors have gone from euthanizing the terminally ill who ask for it, to the chronically ill who ask for it, to people with disabilities who ask for it, to the mentally anguished who ask for it…”
The repeated words are “who ask for it” – there is nothing, absolutely nothing, about assisted suicide for those who do not ask for it.
Gerald,
I just did some research: the Dutch physicians report that is the basis for the source you responded to is “Position paper: The role of the physician in the voluntary termination of life (2011)”
Note the words “in the voluntary termination of life”.
Your source was discussing “the voluntary termination of life”.
There is no question anywhere, in any cited source, that anyone has suggested that two physicians might get together and decide to kill someone who was depressed without that person’s explicit consent and active request for euthanasia.
The Dutch physician’s report is available at http://knmg.artsennet.nl/Diensten/knmgpublicaties/KNMGpublicatie/Position-paper-The-role-of-the-physician-in-the-voluntary-termination-of-life-2011.htm
The question of whether or not those in a coma or otherwise incapable of making a decision is not what is under discussion here. It is a totally different question, although some relevant points will intersect.
In the matter being discussed here, it is important to keep clear that euthanasia is something being offered to people who are capable of making a decision for themselves, capable of judging what degree or dignity, meaning and value their current lives have, and whether the sum is positive or negative.
Too many commentators have (deliberately?) confused the issue by speaking as if this were a proposal to involuntarily kill people. It is not. It is a discussion about complying with the express wish of rational persons.
Felix – I’d like to think you aren’t that naive.
AGAIN – The reason they had to pass the law in the first place was that they had gone so far as to have a live broadcast of a eunathansia killing. Then they also had to provide guidelines on children – because too many doctors “were” (and reports show that they still are) taking matters into their own hands and euthanizing (killing) babies they deemed unfit for a healthy life – you know, the ones they didn’t kill during an abortion. Down syndrome, spina bifida, who knows what else……
Felix,
My Name isn’t GeraLd. It’s GeraRd.
Next, I’m pretty busy right now and not able to chase down all references for you for at least a week. However, I offer the following:
I’m glad to see that you are doing research. You need to begin at the beginning. There was a book called, Seduced by Death, written by Herbert Hendin a New York Psychiatrist who was in favor of PAS and went to study the Dutch system. What he saw horrified and converted him. Get the book here:
Here are some reports, all footnoted, which document involuntary euthanasia:
http://www.christianliferesources.com/?news/view.php&newsid=560
http://www.bioethics.org.au/Resources/Online%20Articles/Other%20Articles/Euthanasia%20the%20netherlands%20and%20slippery%20slopes.pdf
http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/holland-background/
In my earlier post I said, “Clearly, if someone wants to off themselves, they can.” That may have got misread to say that people have a right to commit suicide. That’s not what I meant. What I meant that realistically, if someone is determined to kill themselves, they will find a way and wait when no one is watching. Which is exactly my point, when you see someone about to commit suicide, you act to prevent them rather than act like a monster and just sit on your hands or make some rationalization that he knows what he is doing. Suicide is evil. Being an accomplice to suicide is evil.
2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.
2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Okay, the “cat”–so to speak–is finally out of the bag. Humanity really is being besieged. It is “open season” now on humans at every level (beginning, intermediate, and ending) for any reason (see your article), and except the Lord intervene, those malevolent forces will see to it that not one person survives.
Scott W. @ November 4, 2011 at 10:58 AM
No, Suicide is not intrinsically evil. Like most human acts, it can be evil, if done with malicious intent to cause harm to others. For example, if an angry spouse deliberately kills himself to inflict guilt and perhaps more substantial suffering on his partner in a fit of anger, that suicide is morally wrong.
However, in the case of voluntary euthanasia, that is typicially not the case. Indeed, the intentions are the opposite: to selflessly spare loved ones emotional, financial and other suffering, and those intentions are noble. Of course mere nobility of intent is no guarantee that the resulting action is also good, is morally right. However, in the typical voluntary euthansia case, the action is morally good: it does help those loved ones whom the agent selflessly wishes to help, as well as helping the suffering agent by ending his suffering.
Your entire argument depends on the false premisses that: 1) there exists a god; 2) that that god owns us; and 3) that that god deliberately wants us to suffer for no good reason.
None of these premisses has any sound support whatsoever. I don’t mean “very little” support, I mean “none whatsoever”. You are of course free to believe whatever you like for whatever reasons; however, if you wish to use the force of the state to force others to follow the consequences of your beliefs, you have both an epistemological and moral obligation to provide some very solid support for those beliefs, which you have not done and which you cannot do. I suspect you know you cannot provide any such support, and agian, this is fine provided you do not seek to force others to comply with the dictates of your personal beliefs. Once you start on the road of denying people the right to self-determination as free, rational agents, you have a moral obligation to provide sound grounds for your premisses, and “it’s in the bible (or Koran, or book of Mormon or whatever)” won’t cut it.
You might also consider that your premisses 2) and 3) above must cast grave doubts on the moral status of your unsubstantiated god in 1).
Suicide is in many cases choice which is both rational and moral, and assisting in such an act is morally right. Such assistance comports with respect for persons as morally responsible agents capable of free will and self-determination.
Gerard,
My apologies for getting your name wrong.
Thank you for the initial references.
AMC, @ November 4, 2011 at 6:05 AM
It sounds as though you are now supporting my position, that assisted suicide, under careful legal regulation, is a good thing since, amongst other benefits, it makes it clear what is and is not acceptable behaviour.
No one, least of all myself, is arguing here for non-voluntary euthansia of the sorts you describe, and which take place in every country. Teh law that has been passed and which we are discussing regulates the assisted euthanasia of people who ask to be killed.
Should there be live broadcasts of such killings? It certainly sounds a bit distasteful, but I’m not sure that that gut reaction is a sound basis for any answer. Perhaps, like the calls to force pregnant women to watch an ultrascan before allowing a legal abortion, it would in fact be a good idea so that the reality was publicly and widely known. What do you think?
You don’t have to believe in God to know that the deliberate destruction of innocent human life is evil in and of itself. Your whole “you can’t prove God exists” is much ado about nothing.
I’m nearsighted, suffer from recurrent kidney stones, and have OCD. Yikes. Better never visit the Netherlands.
Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?…Mark 12:24
Support your position Felix?????? Where in my response does it state that I support your position.
What it states is that (followed by Dr. Nadal’s comments) there is no controlling it – It’s the Dutch Doctor’s who put guidelines in place, as the Dutch can’t seem to control themselves with killing…… Do you not get it……. once they put so-called “guidelines” in place, doctors start doing their own thing……
Anyway, based on how you read my statements – I kind of get the feeling that you are a eugenist at heart…… that you feel that people lives are nothing more than a statistic and the economics of medicine is a more important contribution then the life of a human being…….
By the way – having doctors who know nothing about treating depression (as noted by Dr. Nadal’s links) making guidelines or decisions on what’s best for people with depression……. is kind of sick.
Scott W. @ November 7, 2011 at 7:59 AM,
Your argument @ November 4, 2011 at 10:58 AM depended on the idea that human beings are NOT masters of themselves, that they do NOT own themselves, but that we are, on the contrary, the property of a god who is our rightful master. Hence, the existence of that god is crucial for your comments there.
If you would now like to retract that line of reasoning, I would agree that that is a sound move. It is a particularly bad argument because it turns the god involved into a literal slave owner – the owner and master of human beings with greater rights over the lives of those persons than they themselves have. Since you were copying and pasting from a standard Catholic Catechism, we must assume, with deep regret, that the views expressed there are in fact the way Catholics think of their god. It is not a nice way to think of that being.
And that leads to my argument. Human beings are not the slave of any god, not least because there is no sound reason whatsoever to credit the existence of any such being, but even if such a being did exist, reducing human beings to the status of slaves, whether they love or hate that status, would be a grave injustice to human beings and a fundamental denial of the most basic demands of respect to human beings as persons.
Human beings are self-determining agents, with the right to decide for themselves how they live, however badly they might choose. And we are also responsble for our choices. You blithely asserted “that the deliberate destruction of innocent human life is evil in and of itself”. But this is wrong.
It is certainly wrong to kill others against their will, but we are discussing suicide here, the deliberate decision to die, to kill oneself, and that is not wrong if human beings are free agents with rights over themselves, rather than the slave property of some other person or thing. And since freely chosen, deliberate suicide is choice we have a right to make, it is not intrinsically evil or wrong; although it might be ill-considered, reckless and in some cases wrong, it is normally morally acceptable. And since that decision and actions harmless to others to carry it out are not wrong, any explicitly requested assistance to carry out that self-killing is also morally acceptable and consistent with respect for the human dignity of persons.
Dr. Nadal,
It is God Himself who moves us (His “slaves”) to speak on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 24:11-12). The enemy has always said, “Hath God said…?”, and now he dares to say, “Yea, does God exist?” We know the answer. But to ignore these statements is to say, “No, He didn’t say anything” in answer to the first question, and to say, “No, He doesn’t exist” in answer to the second. In either case then, it doesn’t matter what we do, how we do it, or to whom or what it is done. Independence from a Holy God is evil in its purest form.
To remain silent when this argument is used as an excuse to exercise “rights” that destroy others is itself evil. This is not an argument for God’s existence…He fends for Himself. But it is a reminder to and an encouragement for those who do believe in God to speak up on behalf of those who, even in their pain, are being drawn to their deaths, and may not be able to speak for themselves.
Thank you for the forum.
LS, @ November 9, 2011 at 7:45 PM,
But the point is that the people in question very definitely can “speak for themselves”, and they are asking to die with dignity on their own terms.
For example, the very sane and down to earth example of kate Caro in Australia – http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/i-want-to-go-my-own-way-20111112-1nctj.html
This legislation is NOT about killing people who do not want to die.
It is about allowing doctors to assist with a clearly and consistently expressed wish, but people who can and are speaking for themselves.
Dr. Nadal,
Life issues seem to boil down to one word: authority. For those who [really mean it when they] call God “Lord”, there is no question regarding His authority. He said that man is to “do no murder” [not talking here about what happens in war, or what God directed the children of Israel to do prior to the first Advent]: not others, not yourself, no exceptions. For those who believe in God and live to obey Him, suffering, dementia, disablement, and other “horrors” are no excuse. He has another way of viewing these and other situations…it is the duty–and privilege–of the follower/child to discover His way and join Him.
For those who do not believe in God, or those whose god places humanity in a place of dishonor (on the same level of all natural creation), the authority resides elsewhere.
For the true believer, any activity that diminishes, degrades, dishonors, and destroys human life is unthinkable because the source of this clear and consistent assault is Satan. The believer’s decision, or “choice”, is therefore easy and–yes–safe.
However, when the authority is more capricious (not God), the decision-making can be mind-bending and soul-wrenching. Anyone wanting to “weigh-in” on this issue should remember that, for now, legislation appears to have one intent, and assumptions are being made that some sort of “safeguard” would be enacted to keep people from being surreptitiously ushered out against their consent. But the thread of wickedness that runs through the heart of fallen humanity provides clear and consistent proof that, in matters of human life and death, legislation is not to be trusted on the side for life.
Sadly, for those who refuse to believe in the God Who sent His Son, He refuses to exist for them, and they do not get His greatest benefit: life, now and forever. (John 17:1-3) Of course, because His invitation yet stands before His Son returns, this changes whenever their hearts turn toward Him…yet another reason not to hurry the death angel…