Euthanasia isn’t about using medical means to end suffering. Rather, activists ultimately believe that there is a fundamental right to suicide, including using any method the self-destructive person desires to exercise the choice to end all choices.
Suicide activists, most of whom are not known for their candor, seek to shield their ultimate agenda by harnessing the authority of doctors in the killing decision. Also, requiring at least some physician involvement gives false assurance to a wary public that there will be limits and control.
But after years of grappling with this issue, I am convinced that the “medical model” as it is sometimes called, is merely a way station on the way to something even more radical–any adult being able to assist any (adult) suicide, for any reason.
Evidence for this can be found in the Netherlands, which has a very few functional limits on euthanasia. There is one restraint that is enforced: Only doctors can kill.
That’s too much for Netherlands Right to Die (NVVE). It is agitating for a complete decriminalization of assisted suicide. From the Relevant Magazine of Right to Die-NL (NVVE) Volume 39, nr. 4, October 2013:
September 2, one day before the process against Albert Heringa, the campaign ‘Assisting is no crime’ has started in The Hague. NVVE members came together to discuss the strategy of this day: how to coordinate this day’s demonstration ‘Assisting is no crime’ on the square, right before the building of the Lower Chamber; and how to bring the debate later on to the members of the Lower Chamber.
An elderly couple complains that their doctor will not perform a joint euthanasia–(as is now being done in Belgium), and thus they want open access to suicide drugs (Drion):
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
From all over the country NVVE members took part in the demonstration…A married couple of 80 years tells why they are here. ‘We have been waiting for the ‘Pill of Drion’ – in vain. Our general practitioner has been retired and the new physician does not want to cooperate with euthanasia.
At-will assisted suicide. The death zealots will never be satisfied until they reach their ultimate objective.
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.
