Australia’s Philip Nitschke is the euthanasia movement’s most candid advocate.
While most euthanasia/assisted suicide promoters pretend the movement is mostly about ending the suffering of those with terminal illnesses–a demonstrably fake limitation to get people to swallow the cultural hemlock of “death with dignity”–Nitschke bluntly states euthanasia should be available to all without regard to cause.
Indeed, in 2001, he told Kathryn Jean Lopez, he would like to make suicide pills available in supermarkets, including to “troubled teens:”
So all people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge, or resources to find out how to “give away” their life. And someone needs to provide this knowledge, training, or recourse necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, [and] the troubled teen.
If we are to remain consistent and we believe that the individual has the right to dispose of their life, we should not erect artificial barriers in the way of sub-groups who don’t meet our criteria.
Fast forward fifteen years, and Nitschke’s tune hasn’t changed. Now, he’s starting an advocacy group that candidly will call for death on demand. From The Guardian story:
Exit Action said it would take “a militant pro-euthanasia position” to coordinate direct action strategies and force legislative change.
“Exit Action is critical of the ‘medical model’ that sees voluntary euthanasia as a privilege given to the very sick by the medical profession,” the organisation said.
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“The standard approach for years has been to get the very sick to tell their stories of suffering to the public and politicians, in the hope that politicians might take pity and change the law.”
“Exit Action believes that a peaceful death, and access to the best euthanasia drugs, is a right of all competent adults, regardless of sickness or permission from the medical profession.”
Please understand, Nitschke is not an euthanasia outlaw disdained by his fellow travelers. Indeed, he enjoys something of a cult status among euthanasia camp followers.
Nitschke has often been a featured speaker at international pro-euthanasia symposia, His only sin, in the eyes of movement leaders, is excess candor. For political reasons, they want to pretend that euthanasia will remain a limited option rather than the wide-open death agenda we see developing already.
I have crossed advocacy swords with N for many years, and I am proud to say that in 2001, I helped create sufficient political problems for him in Australia that he was forced to move base of operations offshore.
He’s a nihilistic ghoul. But he’s also honest about the ultimate consequence of legalizing euthanasia–as the recent lethal jab as a “treatment” for alcoholism in the Netherlands demonstrates.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
