Netherlanders are pressured into “choosing” euthanasia, reads the story. I’m not surprised. This has been true for many years. For example, in the first edition of my Forced Exit, I reported on a story in which a wife told her husband to die or be put in a nursing home.
But now, with euthanasia numbers rising–and the categories of people killed by doctors growing–more attention is being focused on people being pushed by relatives or ancillary circumstances to die. From the DutchNews.nl story, quoting Theo Boer, who studied euthanasia reports:‘What surprises me is that nobody is making any serious attempt to treat this as a problem,’ said Boer, who teaches ethics at Groningen’s Protestant Theological University. ‘It seems inarguable to me that the law has led to a rise in incidences.’
Asked how often he saw evidence of pressure from the family, he said: ‘It’s hard to say, but at a rough estimate I would say the family is a factor with one in five patients.
The doctor doesn’t want to put it in the dossier; you need to read between the lines. ‘Sometimes it’s the family who go to the doctor. Other times it’s the patient saying they don’t want their family to suffer. And you hear anecdotally of families saying: “Mum, there’s always euthanasia”.’
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Why in the world would anyone be surprised? Euthanasia World fantasists paint euthanasia as cool choices in the context of loving families and concerned doctors who revere the patient’s autonomy. But that’s not how societal interactions work in the real world of the here and now.
Oh Wesley, that’s the Netherlands. It would never happen here!
It already has happened here. According to an assisted suicide-friendly Oregonian story, Kate Cheney was allowed to be pushed by her daughter toward that “choice” of suicide–this, even though a psychiatrist had initially said no to the assisted suicide because of her dementia and family agendas.
Anyone who is surprised by people being pushed to die under euthanasia/assisted suicide regimes just doesn’t want to see.
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.
