Dutch Euthanasia Advocates Proposing Swiss-Style Suicide Clinics for Everyone
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 10, 2010
Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) — Euthanasia advocates in the Netherlands are proposing establishing new suicide clinics similar to the ones the pro-euthanasia group Dignitas runs in Switzerland that have generated so much controversy. The Dutch pressure group Right to Die NL (NVVE) is investigating the idea.
The RNW news service indicates the group wants to establish facilities where they can engage in euthanasia and assisting suicides for those who want to die.
They do not want to limit the killing "services" to merely those who are terminally ill, but plan to extend it to anyone who wishes to end their life regardless of their age or medical condition.
Others who could be targeted, RNW indicates, are those who have chronic psychiatric problems, with Alzheimer’s or dementia and people who feel they have “completed” their life — people who need mental health support rather than death.
Euthanasia is available in most Dutch hospices but those people suffering from those certain mental health conditions don’t meet the hospice requirements for death.
The Dutch news agency says the NVVE group wants its “life’s end” clinic to be seen as a normal medical facility in the same manner as a hospital or nursing home.
Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and attorney in the Unite States who combats euthanasia, responded to the news.
"There is no denying the evidence that euthanasia consciousness leads to a broader culture of death that eventually accepts all comers," he said, adding that the Netherlands "probably has the most liberal legalized euthanasia law in the world."
"Perhaps they are trying to catch up with Switzerland’s suicide clinics," he added. "Regardless, their logic is impeccable. Once killing is considered an acceptable answer to human suffering, nihilism is unleashed and the “what” that causes “suffering” ceases to matter."
The news comes several months after Dignitas drew strong condemnation from the Swiss people and government officials after it was discovered it dumped 300 urns of remains of victims into Lake Zurich. Police have launched an investigation after the urns were found at the bottom of the lake.
The large rusty orange colored urns were lying in a "big heap" officials said and the bore the mark of the cremation service Dignitas employs, the London Daily Mail newspaper reported.
Divers from a rescue service discovered the urns by chance while looking for a piece of their boat that fell into the lake and reported them to police.
Swiss law makes it illegal to dispose of a large number of urns without a commercial disposal license. The newspaper indicates offenders face fines up to 50,000 Swiss Francs (almost $46,000 US) and a prison sentence of up to three years.
"It is against the law to dump in this quantity. We have filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons for disturbance of the dead," Environment Agency spokesman Bollack said, according to the Daily Mail. "The retrieved urns are now with the police and are being kept in a place respecting their dignity."
Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli would not issue a comment in response to the newspaper’s request for one.
But former Dignitas employee Soraya Wernli, who has exposed the suicide tourism group to the media before, admitted Minelli used to dump the urns in the lake himself and then began asking family members, friends and staff to do it.
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