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The Dutch have given the world a preview of what kind of destruction euthanasia brings.

Two thread by me.

Dutch Euthanasia Deaths Up Significantly to 2,500, Number Still Underreported

Amsterdam, (LifeNews.com) -- The number of euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands rose significantly in 2009 compared with 2008. There were reportedly 200 more deaths under the law, but pro-life advocates say those numbers are likely lowball estimates given the underreporting in the Dutch system.

The Dutch News indicates approximately 2,500 people died via euthanasia in 2009, but the actual number is unknown because the government estimates about 20 percent of cases are not reported.

The new government figures also include six registered cases of euthanasia on elderly patients with senile dementia, all of whom were supposedly in the early stages and able to make their wishes to die known.

In Holland, patients wanting to be killed must be in unbearable pain, the physician must sign off on the patient making an informed choice, and a second physician must certify the doctor's findings.

Alex Schadenberg of the Canada-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, discussed the new numbers.

He says the number of people dying in the Netherlands is higher because assisted suicide figures are not included. If they are included, another 500 people should be added to the 2,500 who were killed last year via euthanasia.

He also says deaths without explicit consent are not included and pointed to the most recent government report from 2005 showing 550 deaths are directly and intentionally caused by the physician but not reported as euthanasia because they lacked consent.

Schadenberg also notes that, as of 2007, approximately 10% of all deaths in the Netherlands were connected to the practice of terminal sedation.

"Many of those deaths were caused by dehydration, due to the physician sedating the patient and then withholding hydration until death occurs, which usually takes 10 - 14 days," he said.

Meanwhile, the Dutch News report "acknowledged that people with dementia are dying by euthanasia in the Netherlands, but the article didn't mention how many infants died by euthanasia in 2009," he pointed out.

"The Groningen Protocol allows infants who are born with disabilities to die by euthanasia based on the request of the parents and the agreement of the physician," he said.

Schadenberg said he is "concerned that since the Netherlands does not collect information concerning the euthanasia of people with disabilities, we therefore ask the question, how many people with disabilities are coerced into death by euthanasia based on a false concept that living with a disability is a life of suffering."

American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith also commented on the new numbers.

He says he has seen studies showing as many as 50 percent of all euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands going unreported -- meaning the lowball figures Schadenberg says are higher could be higher still.

Smith says he finds it "amazing" that the "number of euthanasia deaths are under-reported because non voluntary and involuntary euthanasia don't count as euthanasia because the patient didn't consent."

"And that isn't all. As Alex notes, these statistics don't include the unduly high numbers of terminal sedation deaths–palliative sedation used not as a legitimate pain control technique but as back door euthanasia," Smith continued.

"I would also point out that Dutch doctors refer patients they don't want to euthanize with how-to-commit-suicide information," Smith added.

For Smith, "Here’s the bottom line: The Dutch prove that once euthanasia consciousness is accepted, there is ultimately no real control."

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Dr. Mark Mostert: Gotta Love the Dutch, Those Merciful Killers!

Let’s open the New Year as we left the old year, shall we?

You know - that part about how we are now becoming quite accustomed to killing people because somebody has decided they are not worth keeping alive.

All in the decedents’ best interests, of course.

Media in the Netherlands reports that there was an increase in the number of people euthanized in 2009 – including people in the early stages of dementia. No surprise there, but I think it’s instructive to look at what is reported, and the subtle subtexts that are nevertheless coercive in slanting a favorable impression of medicalized killing.

Sidebar: I’m not suggesting that the reporter deliberately thought this through, but I think it’s obvious that things in the Netherlands are so pro-euthanasia that the article’s bias is assumed to be “balanced coverage,” which it’s not.

From a piece DutchNews entitled More Cases of Euthanasia in 2009.

First, the obvious is reported, that there were more 200 more cases of euthanasia in the Netherlands last year than 2008, where the killing total was 2,500.

Then:

It is not known how many cases of mercy killing there actually are in the Netherlands, but in 2007 experts said around 80% of instances are registered with the monitoring body.

Well, mercy for whom, exactly? What exactly is the nature of this “mercy?” How can we be assured that the “mercy’ is not for those left behind who found the patient too much of a burden? What about the survivors benefitting from such “mercy” as they inherit goodies from the person they coaxed to assume a duty to die? No way to tell, of course.

“Merciful” because people are in unbearable pain and suffering? Not exactly, because many people who are euthanized are not in pain, and because, in the Netherlands, you can request euthanasia for just about any reason at all, pain or no pain.

Also, after all the fanfare in the Netherlands about making euthanasia legal so that it could be officially controlled, what do we find? Well, it’s not controllable.

Remember, too, that the registering “monitoring body” (sounds so nice, certain, and transparent) is a review panel that examines the circumstances of the killing AFTER it has occurred.

Now, here's the next snippet that contradicts the whole pain-and-suffering angle.

There were also six registered cases of euthanasia on elderly patients with senile dementia, all of whom were in the early stages and able to make their wishes known.

Ah, I see. Where to begin? Dementia, though tragic and unfortunate, is not physically painful (originally, at the top of the slippery slope, euthanasia was ONLY for untreatable physical pain among the terminally ill). Psychologically painful? Clearly, for persons who are aware that their faculties are diminishing, but how do other people make this determination? (Those with dementia don’t euthanize themselves, after all). Where is the bright clear line between someone with early dementia who requests euthanasia (in their right mind, so to speak) and someone who’s condition is more far advanced and is judged not competent to request euthanasia?

Don’t worry, the Dutch doctors have a solution for this latter group – they kill them too. The explanation? Had these people been in their right mind, they would have requested euthanasia anyway.

On we go:

The law states a number of criteria, which must be met before euthanasia can be administered. For example, the patient must be suffering unbearable pain and the doctor must be convinced the patient is making an informed choice. The opinion of a second doctor is also required.

More shooting fish in barrels here: Where’s the “unbearable pain” in dementia? How can a doctor ever possibly be sure that, knowing a diagnosis of dementia has already been made, calibrate that the dementia is not affecting the request for euthanasia?

Short answer, I’m afraid: All the contortions of logic and single-mindedness betray, with increasing smugness, that in many places we have decided who should live and who should die.

First those who are terminally ill and in untreatable pain. Then people who are not terminally ill but who might have physical or psychological pain. Then people who are judged to never be able to have a better quality of life. First adults. Then children.

Who’s next?

FReeper Balt has written a fantastic piece on the evils of euthanasia and the evil that was inflicted upon Terri Schiavo.

The "right to die"—and the best grounds for an annulment ever.

It’s been a number of years now since Pope John Paul II issued his important clarification regarding the so-called Persistent Vegetative State, to wit, that food and water are always to be cosidered Ordinary Means regardless of how they are administered, and may not be withheld from any patient, even if requested by the family or indicated in a “living will.” His statement, which was issued, in his words, “with the full weight of my authority” (the "full weight" of the Pope's authority being infallibility), didn’t make much news at the time, since the Terri Schiavo case had already passed out of the news cycle.

This story is old (from November 23rd, 2009), but is important for obvious reasons. It’s authored by Allen Hall, and was posted on the web site of The UK Daily Mail. It speaks for itself.

A car crash victim diagnosed as being in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time. Rom Houben was paralysed but had no way of letting doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying. "I dreamed myself away," said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. He added: "I screamed, but there was nothing to hear."

Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (picture posed by model). Doctors used a range of coma tests before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was "extinct". But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally. Mr Houben described the moment as "my second birth". Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen. Mr Houben said: "All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt."

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who "saved" him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys. "Medical advances caught up with him," said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world. The disclosure will also renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious. Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983.

Doctors in Zolder, Belgium, used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly. Only a re-evaluation of his case at the University of Liege discovered that he had lost control of his body but was still fully aware of what was happening. He is never likely to leave hospital, but as well as his computer he now has a special device above his bed which lets him read books while lying down. Mr Houben said: "I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me—it was my second birth.... I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead."

Dr Laureys's new study claims that patients classed as in a vegetative state are often misdiagnosed. "Anyone who bears the stamp of 'unconscious' just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again," he said. The doctor, who leads the Coma Science Group and Department of Neurology at Liege University Hospital, found Mr Houben's brain was still working by using state-of-the-art imaging. He plans to use the case to highlight what he considers may be similar examples around the world. Dr Laureys said: "In Germany alone each year some 100,000 people suffer from severe traumatic brain injury. About 20,000 are followed by a coma of three weeks or longer. Some of them die, others regain health. But an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people a year remain trapped in an intermediate stage—they go on living without ever coming back again."

Supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide argue that people who have lain in persistent vegetative states for years should be given the opportunity to have crucial medical support withdrawn because of the "indignity" of their condition. But there have been several cases in which people judged to be in vegetative states or deep comas have recovered. Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year, took small amounts of food by mouth and engaged in conversation. Only days before her recovery, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of the feeding tube which had been keeping her alive. In the UK in 1993, doctors switched off the life support system keeping alive Tony Bland, a 22-year-old who had been in a coma for three years following the Hillsborough disaster.

Dr Laureys was not available for comment yesterday and it is not clear why he thought Mr Houben should have the hi-tech screening when so many years had passed.

I thought the last line of Mr. Hall's article was interesting: he seems to be somewhat indignant that Dr. Laureys would interfere in this way. As for the assisted suicide crowd, I would suggest that the "indignity" of someone's supposed "vegetative state" doesn’t compare to the indignity of death. Just ask Mr. Houben. He seems expressive enough now to comment on the situation. Perhaps that’s why this story was so long in making it onto the page of any newspaper.

So, what's your guess? Is this new, expensive high-tech screening—available three years ago but only now being revealed to the public—going to be available in the Obama plan? One thing Dr. Laureys said sticks in my mind: "Anyone who bears the stamp of 'unconscious' just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again." Is this the road we are now traveling? that being uncoscious is now a stigma—like being black in Alabama in 1930—that can get you killed if you're not lucky?

But there's something else that this story brought to mind: a question that's been bothering your PP for some time now. Back when Terri Schiavo's life was being debated (and she was not unconscious, by the way), her husband, who had been in court trying to kill her, was already "keeping house" with a girlfriend whom he married in the Catholic Church within weeks of his wife's death. Yet, the Code of Canon Law clearly states:

Can. 1090 §1 One who, with a view to entering marriage with a particular person, has killed that person's spouse, or his or her own spouse, invalidly attempts this marriage.

§2 They also invalidly attempt marriage with each other who, by mutual physical or moral action, brought about the death of either's spouse.

The bishop of Palm Springs said a lot of stupid things leading up to Mrs. Schiavo's murder, then bolted to Sri Lanka during Holy Week, probably at the demand of the Holy See before he got anyone else killed. But I'm surprised he let this marriage take place. Oh well.... Should the marriage not work out, Mr. Schiavo and his new bride will have ample grounds for that annulment.

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."