‘His end was so peaceful,’ recalls his daughter Bregje, 37, a writer. ‘Once my father had decided on euthanasia, he was relieved. He was looking forward to the date he would die. In the last few days he was able to say goodbye to his family, his friends, to talk about old times.’
Andre was not a campaigner or activist for mercy killings. But he knew that, in his home country, he could seize the option which the law gave him and choose to die if he wished.Hurrah! Right?
If campaigners have their way, the law will be changed here, too, to allow those who wish to end their life to do so at a time of their choosing. For opponents of euthanasia, this raises grave moral questions, as well as concerns that unscrupulous relatives might take advantage of elderly family members — whose estates they might covet — by encouraging them to end their lives.Oh, pft! These people are just standing in the way of choice!
Even physically healthy people suffering from depression have been killed by doctors under Holland’s right-to-die laws.
And a 54-year-old woman with personality and eating disorders is reported to have received lethal injections at a ‘Life End’ clinic in Amsterdam. Indeed, according to Holland’s health minister, several right-to-die deaths have involved psychiatric patients.Hmmm...
Shockingly, in Holland I also spoke to the family of a 47-year-old woman with tinnitus, a persistent ringing in the ears, who ended her life last March with the help of an ‘Life End’ clinic.
Gaby Olthuis, a divorcee, was a brilliant clarinet player, but said she suffered ‘24-hour noise’ in her head, ‘like a train screeching or someone scratching their nails on a chalk board’. She explained: ‘I look healthy from the outside, but inside I am being tortured.’
To end her suffering, she was given a lethal potion to drink by one of the clinic’s doctors at her home. Shockingly, she left behind two teenagers, a boy of 13 and girl of 15.OK, still keen on euthanasia?
Because I was in favour. Who can argue with allowing this for people like Andre? But in today's climate of selfish insistence on 'rights' and disregard of responsibilities, can we really prevent people like Gaby from taking up the option?
And remember - the people cheering this would be the first to screech 'hate speech!' if you suggested mentally-ill killers be put down like mad dogs....
21 comments:
I'm still in favour. There will always be a number of dumb people who will do things at the extreme edge of these things. I'm sure the IQ points for the planet didn't go down any when they popped off.
However, here we talking about specific illness where life is not worth living or would be too painful. I would hope that people don't just use it because they are fed up of something minor and non life threatening but if they do I really don't care as long as they are not forced into it and have followed the rules. The sun will still shine.
I dunno. You can't legislate against people committing suicide, can you?
Better look at the wording on my power of attorney again! terrifying stuff!
Mission creep has definitely set in.
This used to be about helping people to commit suicide who were physically incapable of doing so themselves. The one in a million that could not move their arms or legs, were dying and wanted to speed it up. Hard to argue with, I suppose, although I still disagree with it, but then again, I am not Ill.
But, now it is turning into a freaky eugenics program, and, as the first comment shows, with the approval of the gullible. If a depressed person wants to end it, why make someone else a killer in the process? And why sanitise it with men in white coats, who always know best.
There is absolutely no doubt that this will go exactly the same way as abortion, supposedly just a handful of cases, the difficult ones, had turned into almost 250,000 a year, and euthanasia, or more rightly eugenics, will be cranked up to full scale production within a few years.
'Voluntarily' at first. And then?
As long as they do not use poisons to kill themselves, I'm OK with it - I don't want my Soylent Green adulterated.
Seriously though, I agree with Lord T's comment above.
As with all progressive developments the first step is to get us accustomed to new ideas. The next step is to take us closer to the real aim. In this case I shudder to thinkwhat it could be. Mission creep indeed.
Generalising, I've always been against euthanasia, although I do see the point of going down the "Do not resuscitate" or " Turn off the damned machine" road.
I can even see the sense in "Over medicating" someone who's at deaths door. But I believe that if assisted suicide is brought on to the statute books, there'll be quite a lot of "Look Granny, you live in this huge house, we're having trouble paying the mortgage, and the school fees for young Jonty and Jacinta are due at the end of the month. You've had a good long life, so do the decent old girl...".
Slippery slopes and all that...
I'm still in favour. That some will abuse a system is going to always be the case in any system you choose to name. That is not a reason not to do something - or in this case specifically, to force someone to live until the bitter end in suffering and pain against their wishes.
Our lives belong to us. We should always have the freedom to end it as we wish, not because of the morality or religious beliefs of others.
Safeguards to protect the vulnerable are not beyond the wit of man.
Longrider said:
'Safeguards to protect the vulnerable are not beyond the wit of man'.
Nor are the tricks to subvert them.
The abortion laws in this country mean that a woman cannot turn up at the doc's and request an abortion, and receive it. The child has to be 'defective' or the mother's health needs to be at risk with continued pregnancy. We'll leave aside the fact that pregnancy always presents a risk to the mother's health.
The way around it is by saying that continuing the pregnancy is risking the mother's mental health - voila!
More than 93% of UK abortions in 2013 were for non-medical reasons, if we exclude the 'mental well-being of the mother'.
The same people who are 'safeguarding' unborn children are those who will 'safeguard' you as they shove you over the cliff, for your own good mind, he would have wanted it that way, better than suffering.
Bunny
I wonder how many of these people would be so happy if the End of Life centres gave the suicidal a revolver and one round and told them to get on with it? You want Great Aunt Carol to end it, here you are, shoot her, a bit more immediate and a bit more shocking.
Lord T - you nailed it.
People in the sad position of wanting to die - with a little dignity and control - shouldn't be prevented (by those of us lucky enough not to be in their position) from doing so.
I see that my old straw man friend, abortion, is being wheeled out. We're debating the conscious ending of one's own life - not that of another's.
It's about 40 years since the prescription of barbiturates wound down - and with it (as the opiates went just after WWI) the last surefire way of ending it all. It is far more complex now, and can get messy.
If I become terminally ill, I defy anybody's right to interfere with what I put into my body. It shows how much you care about yourself, and how little you care about me.
I am still in favour and hope the law is changed if I need it, having had cancer once. Sure you can take your own life but you have to die alone to make sure your children are not implicated. Also if you can get the drugs how do you know how much you need? it seems to work in some States where you can get the prescription if the Dr. estimates you have six months to live and collect it when you feel the time is right. Pain relief doesn't always work, I have seen two people die screaming from cancer though others manage it peacefully.
There is the much advertised way of euthanasia
Get in a car - drive at great speed into an unyielding object.
The police are forever telling us that speed kills.
Suicide is no longer a crime, so you lot can top yourselves in any way you see fit. The issue here is you're wanting someone else to do the deed for you.
So no Rothmans, it isn't a debate about consciously ending ones life at all.
No, it's about asking someone else to assist -in the form of a prescription and help with administering, if necessary. And yes, life will always have people trying to subvert safeguards. That is no excuse for insisting that people die in agony. Debbie Purdey ended up having to starve herself to death because our law is inhumane. The only person who should have the final say is the individual concerned, it is not up to you or anyone else to have dominion over how someone chooses to end their life - and it certainly is not up to the state. Ultimately, I don't care what you think because it isn't your life, it is that of the individual, so your opinions on the matter are irrelevant. You decide for you and no one else.
The abortion argument is a non sequitur and has nothing to do with this discussion.
The debate engenders a lot of strong sentiments and rightly so. I am pro assisted dying. I agree with Longrider that everyone should have the right to terminate their existence, when that existence becomes intolerable. As an atheist I am unfettered by any religious strictures on suicide. I tend to be pragmatic about life and death. I do believe that people are entitled to dignity in the way they live their life and how they die. Should the process be left to the individual, loved ones or medical professionals? If possible, the individual should take the drug, if this is not possible, then the medical practitioner should administer death. Only as a last resort, should a family member, friend or loved one do the deed, for obvious reasons. I do not consider this route for those with depression or because they are bored with life. But no one should die in pain. I watched my father die of cancer over a period of 6 months. Even with modern pain management, he was often in excruciating agony. I vowed I would not go this way. At the end, my father was a shell. He never asked for help to ease him out of this life. It wasn't as if we didn't have the drugs. There was enough morphine to kill a rhino.
Budvar is right about the issue of abuse. Will granny be hounded to die? Perhaps. I do suspect this will not occur very often. And surely safeguards can be placed to ameliorate the problem. I say, ameliorate rather than prevent because, human nature being what it is, and being inventive and cruel, unscrupulous individuals will have their way. But not many are so endowed.
Anyways, I have no ambition to repeat my father's dance with death. Luckily I have the means and knowledge to slide into oblivion when I choose. I don't expect to abuse my privilege and when it comes it will be after much thoughtful contemplation.
@Budvar
I do see your point. It is the extrapolation of the fear of abuse of assisted suicide to _everyone_ - with which I take issue.
The slippery slope to which you refer is more likely to be finding new and interesting things to ban and control.
Suicide is no longer a crime, so you lot can top yourselves in any way you see fit.
Glad to hear it. I'm off down the road to buy some pentobarbitone and pavulon.
"The same people who are 'safeguarding' unborn children are those who will 'safeguard' you..."
Therein is the relevance of abortion to the argument about euthanasia.
What I would like to know is, what's all this "Yebbut, we can't lay our hands on the drugs, the Dr wont give us a prescription" bollocks?
Local druggies round here have been dropping like flies of late, seems there's a batch of particularly pure heroin about...
I do get the "It's my life, and I'll top myself if I want to" thing, that's your right. You can do that now, we don't need government approval, and it shouldn't be given.
Blind eyes are given to assisted suicide already, ok it's for the long term terminally ill, and the only people who ever get investigated are those who can't keep their trap shut and make a big thing of telling all and sundry.
Well, because at least this death "cult" is promoting only death by consent of the deceased whereas the other death cult chooses its victims largely at random. And agree we can argue around the fringes of psychiatric cases, but those are the people that go throw themselves under trains anyway.
Plus, as a tinnitus sufferer for several years (fortunately mild but it never goes away), while I've no intention of topping myself for it I can understand why other people might get driven there.
"You can't legislate against people committing suicide, can you?"
We used to. Didn't we prosecute the unsuccessful?
"Mission creep has definitely set in."
It always does. It would be a mistake to think every campaigner for this was doing it out of compassion.
"That some will abuse a system is going to always be the case in any system you choose to name."
True enough. But there's no second chances with this one. Do we really want to open that door?
"I see that my old straw man friend, abortion, is being wheeled out. We're debating the conscious ending of one's own life - not that of another's."
Until the relatives get involved....
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