Posted on 02/26/2012 11:08:00 AM PST by wagglebee
The latest report from the Netherlands on euthanasia practice includes a case study of a woman killed by her psychiatrist solely due to mental illness, specifically, depression. From the Regional Committees Annual Report 2010:
More than four years before the patient died she was diagnosed with vital depression. Her medical history reveals recurring episodes of depression, which were difficult to treat, from 1980 onwards. Apart from a period of several months, she was in hospital from 2005 until she died. Since her depression failed to respond to the various treatments, a psychiatrist working at a teaching hospital was asked for a second opinion. He examined the patient himself, and on his advice she was given treatment based on anti-depressant medication, assistance in finding ways to keep her mind occupied during the day, assistance in keeping her as independent as possible and use of physiotherapy to improve her mobility. Lack of energy and initiative, and despondency made it very difficult for her to cooperate with the treatment. She found it distressing, and seemed constantly unable to cope. When it became clear that this treatment was as unsuccessful as the rest, the medication was phased out and all further treatment terminated (in consultation with the psychiatrist). It was decided to prevent or treat the patient’s physical symptoms as far as possible.
Following the logic of euthanasia, her mental suffering was considered grounds to be killed:
The independent physician’s report stated that the patient was in a wheelchair because she had difficulty in walking. Her appetite was poor, causing her to lose weight. She was sleeping badly. She was lucid, and the physician was able to communicate with her, and eventually to establish a degree of rapport. His first impression was that she was severely depressed. Her thinking was not abnormal, nor did she have serious cognitive problems. The physician was able to draw and keep her attention, and her observation was intact. Her mood was depressive, but not psychotic. She was emotionally unstable, crying all the time and constantly talking about how miserable she felt and how empty, hopeless and unbearable her life was. She had had enough of phasing in new medication and then phasing it out again. She no longer enjoyed anything, she had no energy or feelings left and she had not laughed for four years. She had considered suicide, but did not know how to go about it. She stated that she could no longer cope with reality, since she no longer felt part of it.
Once you accept killing as an acceptable answer to suffering, cases such as this become inevitable via the sheer force of human logic.
Had the Dutch been told in the 1970s when euthanasia began there under color of law–at first decriminalized and later legalized if guidelines are followed, which they often aren’t–that it would lead to killing people who are terribly depressed, I have little doubt they would have been appalled. But the corrosive effect of euthanasia changes mindsets to the point that the killing of a depressed woman by her psychiatrist seems justified and normal.
Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
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I wonder if they tried electroshock with her..very helpful in difficult cases...probably would have cost too much.
I wonder if they tried electroshock with her..very helpful in difficult cases...probably would have cost too much.
that’s why the Obama rush on ‘end of life “ discussions mandated.
The “Judge’s Trial” held at Nueremburg depicted in the film
with Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster...
Is there a point where a person so despondent cannot be saved? Personally, I think some bible study and high praise worship is better than drugs and psycho-babble BS.
...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Isaiah 61:3
No he’s not.
Amen! I have no doubt that the reason we are seeing so much depression these past several years is directly related to the filth people are ingesting into their minds and hearts and their lack of worship with the one TRUE God and fellowship with other believers. We are there to encourage and lift each other up! That’s why God says not to forsake the assembling of ourselves. God knows human nature and our need for one another. We need God, but we need people, too.
WaPo headline, “Muslims affected the most.”
There was a documentary on euthanasia in the Netherlands at least seventeen years ago. One of the people who was killed was a a young woman suffering from anorexia, only in her early twenties, who appeared to have been treated primarily and unsuccessfully by her family physician, and he was the one who put her to death. And there was a woman in her sixties whose two sons had died, and she no longer wanted to live.
Killing the mentally ill there has been going on for decades now.
Then you get into the fast and loose definition of what is a mental illness - not having the correct political views. That happened in the Soviet Union with the special hospitals, pushed by Yuri Andropov when he was head of the KGB. And now the far left moonbat talkers (the ones shilling for the current Regime) are spewing that anyone who does not drink the kool-aid is stupid, mentally ill, retarded.....(Go to YouTube and look up a video where Sam Seder, formerly of Air America Radio, goes into a rant).
Here we go again...Yes,bible study and fellowship support helps.
But this is the twentieth century. a clinical depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain...it requires medical help.That’s why God gave us psychiatrists and medicine. Try telling a diabetic or someone with High Blood pressure to pray real hard and it will be cured.
why don’t we just try blood-letting and see how that works?
If we did that in this country, over half the democrats would be elimnated.
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