Euthanasia now legal in Holland

CNN ^ | April 1 2002

[realpatriot71]

What's up with two libertarians debating this, there should be conservatives in here attacking both of us. What's going on? :)

Probably busy thumping their chests on the Israel threads.

[NC_Libertarian]

Yea, I don't even try to jump in on the Israel threads, these people are absolutely blind. The Israelis are pure and holy while the Palestenians are satan incarnate.

The terrorists attacks are horrible and the people who perpetrate them dispicable. Why isn't that also true for the Israeli attrocities? They are snowed if they think the Israeli's have not commited their share of henious evil (even against Americans with the U.S.S. Liberty attack).

I'm very disturbed about the amount of anti-Israel posts that are summarily deleted. I thought this was a debate forum.

But that's a topic for another thread...

[knighthawk]

Morfine injection.

[realpatriot71]

Another thing I love, is that when one tries to put some objectivity into the discussion, that person gets labeled as terrorist sympathizer, anti-semite, or both.

But you're right that a topic for another thread.

[NC_Libertarian]

Another thing I love, is that when one tries to put some objectivity into the discussion, that person gets labeled as terrorist sympathizer, anti-semite, or both.

Some friends and I were just talking about this at lunch, and mentioned that exact thing (i.e. anti-Israel = anti-semite). These friends lean pro-israel in fact, but take a balanced view rather then the childish good-bad black-white world view some "conservatives" unfortunately seem to have.

[realpatriot71]

I also consider myself to be pro-israel, in that they have a right to exist, and exist peacefully. However, I'm at least honest when it comes to what been going on in that region of the world for the last 50-60 years. Israel may have the moral high-ground here, but her hands are not completely clean of the blood of innocents.

[NC_Libertarian]

That's pretty much how I feel too. And I'm Palestenian BTW (well my Dad is, I was born American, thank goodness).

[HENRYADAMS]

Yeah! Also, Soylent Green.(Spelling!)

[Black Agnes]

A true libertarian would advocate easy and ready availablity of those drugs/methods that would enable anyone who chose to to end their life 'humanely'. Course, I can't imagine guns are readily available in Holland. Sleeping pills can probably be obtained along with any medication. This law puts the power in the hands of state employed droids (holland is socialist after all...). Are you comfortable with a state employee deciding you should go? It will come to that eventually. Already there are anecdotal stories out of holland where old people fear their trips to the doctor because of the hard sell of 'offing yourself'.

[realpatriot71]

My position is that terminal people who want to be able to "off" themselves by whatever means they wish. There are two ways to do this (1) leaglize drugs and let people choose their poison, or (2) let the docs give people perscriptions for these drugs. One way or the other.

[Black Agnes]

This law goes far beyond allowing terminal people to 'off themselves'. It allows someone *else* to off you. Assisted suicide is homicide. Not to mention euthanasia. Scary. People have *always* been able to off themselves. History books are full of suicides. History books are also full of genocide and abuses by too-powerful state authorities. I fear this will turn into the latter. Holland is dealing with an ageing population and declining birthrate. This is the first step to getting rid of those pesky expensive old people. Did you read the line about support for offing people who are simply 'tired of living'. Hardly sounds terminal to me.

[realpatriot71]

Hey if I can't put the needle in my arm, I sure as hell someone will do it for me.

But you're right the compasionate thing is to make sure these people live as long as agonizingly possible so that you feel better about the government. You're right, people can put a gun to their head, sit in a closed garage with the car running, take a razor to their wrists, or even down a bottle of tylenol with a 1/5 of vodka. Time tested and true methods for killing oneself. The question I ask you is this: who are the folks who know the most about how to die as quickly and painlessly as possible? That's right physicians. So I guess in order to stave off your own personal paranoia of the situation you would rather leave terminal people with the more gruesome means of death. Can you say "selfish"?

Of course, like I said before, if you legalize drugs, then physicians do not even have to be involved. If a terminal patient can get ahold of some morphine, KCl, and a syringe . . . I guess allowing people person liberty is too much for some folks.

[Black Agnes]

There are many perfectly 'compassionate' means of death that do not involve 'controlled substances'. If someone puts the needle in your arm, they are guilty of murder, plain and simple. If someone else puts the needle in your arm, it is no longer suicide. 'Assisted suicide' is a nice euphemism for euthanasia. It makes people feel less squeamish about what they're really doing which is legalizing doctor performed murder. How long until the doctor decides you are 'suffering unbearably' and offs you even though you might not be quite ready to die. Unless someone can come up with an *objective* definition of 'unbearable suffering' there is far too much space in here for Clintonian parsing that will allow the government to decide who is 'unbearably suffering' (read, expensive, terminal and waste of money to continue to treat...) This is far too subjective on the part of physicians who already have way too much power to drug people w/o their consent as it is.

Don't give me this crap about controlled substances being unavailable because they are illegal. Someone desperate enough to get a doctor to kill them would have no problem finding said drugs. 8th graders can find these drugs with no problem. I thought you were a libertarian. Simply making something 'illegal' doesn't make it go away. Do you think there aren't doctors and relatives doing 'assisted suicide' right now? Do we really need the STATE to tell us that doctors are allowed to do this? Don't give me crap about bottles of tylenol either. Anyone suffering terminally will have had time to think of easy and painless ways to off themself. Most terminal cancer patients aren't going to take a bottle of tylenol, but a teenage 'cry for help' suicide might. Anyone that can take a whole bottle of pills can certainly stick a needle in their arm.

I have had experience in my family with terminal cancer patients and the deciding to kill yourself for suffering reasons should never be easy. One day this individual would have a 'bad day' painwise, feel terribly depressed and want to end it all...the next day the pain would be a little better and they would enjoy being around their grandkids. Guess what, if it was *easy* to just call a doctor and say 'end it', they might have never lived to enjoy their grandkids one more day and the grandkids would never have enjoyed granny for one more day. Where are the regulations about 'length of suffering', second and even third opinions from other medical professionals, family consultations/etc. Do you really think society would be better off if there were a 1-800-2kill-me line? Did you read the scary line in the dutch article reagarding people who were 'simply tired of living'? Would this apply to someone terribly depressed due to divorce or death of child? Does this count as 'suffering enough to die' in your book? For the sake of emotionally appealing 'allow terminal cancer patients to die' (which they're already doing to themselves btw), we are going to allow suicide to become the 'accepted, medically regulated norm'. Suicide should be the last resort, not the first...the dutch want to make it easy for anyone...(at least the extreme lefty ones anyways). So take your attitude about 'extending life to suit my means' and stick it. I mean really. Anyone who values life at all, even a little bit, would want to make these sort of decisions difficult ones that only the very ill COULD be capable of making. For the sake of a few quadraplegics that want to end their lives and are physically unable to do so, we are risking giving the state horrible powers to end life when they deem it 'unbearable'. Where will the suffering be greatest? This is the same argument the gun control nazis use. For the sake of the one, the many are punished.

I am genuinely sorry for anyone that is terminally ill and physically unable to end their life on their own. HOWEVER, I greatly fear giving government the power to do it for them EVEN MORE!. I fear what they would define as 'unbearable suffering'. Do massive stroke victims count? How would you make that determination if they weren't able to communicate effectively? Maybe they can't communicate but greatly enjoy the weekly visits from the grandkids or neices/nephews. Would you allow family testimony in these cases? 'Grandpa would *never* have wanted to live like *this*'. How on earth could you determine the family were serious or merely wanting to hurry up the $100K inheritance they were due? How would you know they weren't simply tired of caring for dear old grandpa. I fear this would lead to the marginalization of the sick, the elderly and the disabled. How would you handle cases where some sick old lady was badgered by her family to call the 'feel good forever' doctor, because she was too much trouble to take care of? How many of these cases would you consider a minimun to qualify as 'suffering'? You have only to read of the latest scandal in nursing homes to see the mindset of such sick people. Nursing home patients would very much be at risk. Government is never the solution, but it is usually the problem. As I said before, if you think doctors and nurses don't do the overmedicate by accident or overprescribe sleeping pills or pain pills to the terminally ill so they *can* off themselves should they so choose...you haven't been in a hospital, or around a terminally ill patient.

[realpatriot71]

That was a long post, but I did read every bit of it. Look I'm not particularly in favor of the dutch "system" for many of the reasons you have pointed out. My position is simple either (1) let docs write perscriptions, with the threat of prosecution, for terminal patients who are in their right minds to ask or (2) legalize these drugs and eliminte the middle man.

You're right, people can get acess to drugs if they want, but why make them a criminal in the process.

I've also been around terminal people. My grandfath who was my best friend while I grew up had Alzheimer's, towards the end, in his more lucid, moments he would please ask that someone would give him some drugs that he could die while he was still himself. I wish a physician could have been able to give him those drugs or that I would have been able to aquire those drugs for him. But NO, I, and the rest of the family, got to watch him turn into "something" he was not, and finally his brain forgot to live and he thankfully passed in his sleep.

[realpatriot71]

"with" in the second lone of my last post should read "without"

They give you a preview and I still didn't get it all proof read.