“Whatever its motives or means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Euthanasia is thus an act or an omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering, constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his creator.The error of judgement into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded"(Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2277).
As the Church has always taught, it is a sin against the Fifth Commandment (Ex. 20:13).Euthanasia is defined as any intentional act on the part of a third party that brings about the death of a person in order to eliminate his suffering. Euthanasia is commonly referred to as “assisted suicide.” Not only does an individual wrongly seeks his death, but he is assisted by another party in doing so.
Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, (n. 15), stated: "Nor can we remain silent in the face of other more furtive, but no less serious and real, forms of euthanasia. These could occur for example when, in order to increase the availability of organs for transplants, organs are removed without respecting objective and adequate criteria which verify the death of the donor."
"It is morally inadmissable directly to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons." CCC 2296

Active Euthanasia is purposefully administering any death-inducing substance to a person who is suffering from a terminal or debilitating illness .
Passive euthanasia includes those intentional omissions of care that result in the death of a patient. One who is caring for the terminally ill is obliged to provide the patient with basic, ordinary care (Catechism, nos. 2278-79). Nutrition (food) and hydration (water) constitute ordinary care, even when they must be administered to the patient through a tube so long as doing so does not cause unnecessary hardship to the patient.Withdrawal of nutrition and hydration for days on end is euthanasia because it is the slow painful starvation and dehydration that causes death. If death is “imminent”and providing the patient with food will cause greater hardship than relief, those caring for the patient may forego such care. "Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome [for the patient] can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "overzealous treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted." (CCC 2278)
Comments were made by the Pope late in April 2004 that health care providers are morally obligated to provide food and water to disabled patients or those in a persistent vegetative state.  Expanding on the Catholic Church's pro-life policies on assisted suicide and euthanasia, the Pope said removing the feeding tubeof a disabled patient is immoral and amounts to "euthanasia by omission."Pope John Paul II also said that the lexicon used to describe such patients -- as being in a "vegetative state" was degrading and inhuman.In such a state, patients are awake but not aware of themselves or their environment. The condition is different from a coma, in which the patient is neither awake nor aware. Both, however, are states in which the patient is devoid of consciousness. Providing food and water to such patients should be considered natural, ordinary and proportional care, not artificial medical intervention, the Pope told members of the conference, which was organized by the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/doc/doc_33vegetativestate.html

AUSTRALIA
Our population is ageing, and will become top-heavy with old people (beginning with the baby boomers!). How will the economy sustain us when the workforce is depleted due to population control/contraception all these years? This is where the issue of euthanasia could become a chilling reality!! Students now studying this issue - you will be making decisions in the future which will reflect your values about life. Society may decide that the burden of old and disabled people on the economy and health systems requires that euthanasia be legalised. Those deemed 'useless' will be under pressure to choose death. Christians cannot agree with such a pragmatic "culture of death".

LATEST NEWS:
Holland 2005 A Dutch hospital that made international headlines earlier this month by revealing that it established guidelines for doctors to euthanize newborn babies it considered too sick to live claims the practice is widespread.The Groningen Academic Hospital says the practice of killing infants that are deemed to physically deformed or too ill to survive very long on their own is already happening across the globe.
"The 2001 law made euthanasia legal only for consenting persons above the age of 12 and for children under 12 with parental consent," Schadenberg pointed out. What is new is the proposal to eliminate an age restriction and the need for consent for persons who are unconscious or unable to make the decision for themselves. "The reason it is eugenic euthanasia, is because these babies are being killed not because they are going to die, but because they are going to live."

USA 2005
With few legal remedies available to them to save their daughter, Bob and Mary Schindler are asking Terri Schiavo's estranged husband Michael to divorce her.David Gibbs, one of their attorneys, is asking Michael to "please, please, please let them keep their daughter and just walk away."Though legally married to Terri, Michael has been living with Jodi Centonze for ten years and has had two children with her. He has refused the Schindlers' requests that he divorce Terri and allow them to care for her. Terri Schiavo, who is not in a PVS state, could find her disabled condition improved if she were given proper medical care and rehabilitative treatment. Though she requires no artificial respiration to help her breathe, Terri relies on a gastric tube to receive food and water. Michael Schiavo wants her feeding tube removed so that she can starve to death, saying that this would be her wishes. Michael's lead attorney, euthanasia advocate George Felos, would not predict when Michael would be able to remove the feeding tube, a process which will cause Terri a one-two week long painful starvation death.

United Kingdom 2005 Suing for the Right to Live
A little noticed litigation in the United Kingdom could be a harbinger of medical woes to come. Leslie Burke, age 44, is suing for the right to stay alive. Burke, who has a terminal neurological disease, is deathly afraid that doctors will refuse to provide him wanted food and water when his condition deteriorates to the point that has to receive nourishment through a feeding tube.

Burke' fears are, quite rationally, based on current international legal and bioethical trends. Futile Care Theory, the bioethical maxim that gives doctors the right to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment based on their perception of the quality of their patient's life, has imbedded itself like barbed hook into British medical ethics and law. Indeed, current British Medical Association ethical guidelines permit doctors to stop tube-supplied nutrition and hydration if they believe the patient's quality of life is poor, leading to eventual death. In such cases, patients' or relatives' views on the matter must succumb to the medical and bioethical consensus. Making matters worse for Burke, British courts previously stamped their imprimatur upon Futile Care Theory, bringing with it the terrifying prospect that Burke will be denied wanted life-sustaining treatment. Indeed, a previous lawsuit involving a disabled child already granted doctors the final say as to whether the boy lives or is abandoned to death through the denial of resuscitating treatment. The case involved David Glass, who in 1998 at age 12 suffered respiratory failure. His parents rushed him to St. Mary'sHospital in Portsmouth, only to have doctors refuse to save his life. Not only that, they sought to inject David with a palliative agent that would have further suppressed his respiration. Their reasoning: David's profound development and physical disabilities made his life not worth living. Amazingly, David's folks were able to resuscitate him after the doctors turned their backs. Then, outraged at the medical discrimination imposed against their son, they sued to prevent doctors from refusing to save David again if he suffers another medical emergency. Shockingly, the trial and appellate courts supported the doctors, ruling that in the United Kingdom, doctors--not patients or parents--have the final say as to who should live and who should die.
Read Wesley J Smith's article at:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/836zeecs.asp

Australian Court to Hear Key Euthanasia Case
Source:   Cybercast News Service; May 19, 2003

Canberra, Australia -- The attorney-general of an Australian state is intervening in a historic euthanasia case, following an earlier legal ruling which pro-lifers said could lay the groundwork for vulnerable patients to be starved to death.
Leading pro-life groups have also been given permission to make submissions to the Supreme Court of Victoria next week when it begins hearing the case - the first of its kind in Australia.
Earlier, a man whose 68-year-old wife is suffering from a form of dementia called Pick's Disease applied for permission for medical staff to withdraw her nutrition and hydration, so that she will die. State law allows "medical treatment" to be refused by a person legally empowered to act on behalf of a critically-ill patient. But whether "medical treatment" includes assisted feeding by tube is in dispute. Some experts argue that assisted feeding forms part of palliative care, and can therefore not be refused by a person acting on behalf of a patient.
After a civil and administrative tribunal in Victoria - a body with similar functions to a court - ruled last February that assisted feeding did indeed constitute medical treatment, a lawyer appointed as the woman's guardian asked the Australia Supreme Court to rule on the matter.
The lawyer, Victoria's Public Advocate Julian Gardner, has now asked the state's attorney general, Rob Hulls, to intervene in next week's test case. While Gardner will ask the court to declare that tube-feeding and hydration is medical treatment and therefore can be refused, Hulls said his job will be to ensure that all of the issues surrounding the case are truly tested.
"This intervention is in the interests of the proper administration of justice because it will ensure that alternative views are before the court," he said in a statement made available by his office.
Doctors' groups have welcomed the case and hope it will provide legal certainty about what has been seen as a gray area by many.
The patient, known only by the initials BWV, is in a Melbourne nursing home and her doctors say she has been unable to communicate for three years. She is being kept alive by feeding through a tube inserted into her stomach.
When the case was before the civil and administrative tribunal, a specialist in geriatric medicine, Dr. Michael Woodward, testified that the woman was unable to communicate or move and did not respond to pain.He acknowledged, however, that her breathing was regular, her cardiovascular system was stable, and said she followed him with her eyes as he moved around her room. But Woodward concluded that there was no prospect for improvement in her condition, or recovery.
In that earlier hearing, the pro-life organization Right to Life of Australia intervened, providing a written submission detailing its views.
Right to Life continues to argue that a 1988 state law appeared to uphold the right of the patient to continue being fed. The Medical Treatment Act, available on the Victoria government's website, says the refusal of medical treatment does not cover palliative care, which in turn it says includes "the provision of reasonable medical procedures for the relief of pain, suffering and discomfort; or the reasonable provision of food and water." But lawyers have pointed out that the same legislation also says "medical treatment may be considered unwarranted if it can provide no medical benefit to the patient, that is if it has no medical purpose, or if the treatment is reasonably seen to be disproportionate to the results that can be expected."
These are the issues that will be tackled by the Supreme Court starting next week.

Right to Life and the Catholic Church have been given permission to make written and oral submissions, although the court has turned down a request from Right to Life to call and cross-examine witnesses.
Denis Hart, the Catholic Archbishop of Victoria's capital, Melbourne, wrote this week that the BWV case "may change the way we care for and relate to elderly, handicapped and unconscious people for years to come." In an article published in a local daily, Hart argued that neither law nor morality called for the force-feeding of the old and sick, and that attempts shouldn't be made "to keep people alive forever with artificial life-support." On the other hand, "the more vulnerable people are, the more vigilantly we must protect them and ensure that they receive appropriate care." Hart also warned that, "Euthanasia advocates have been looking for a test case with which to get our courts to drastically alter the laws protecting human life."

Catholic Health Australia, the country's largest non-governmental provider of health care services, has a code of ethics which says treatment can be legitimately foregone if it makes no significant contribution to curing or improving a patient's condition, or is over-burdensome to the patient. The code was made available Friday by Catholic Health Australia's chief executive officer, Francis Sullivan. It says that even in such cases where treatment can be stopped, other forms of care including appropriate feeding should continue. Nutrition and hydration should always be provided "unless they cannot be assimilated by a person's body, they do not sustain life, or their only mode of delivery imposes grave burdens on the patient or others."

Subject:   Australians Will be Prosecuted for Making Suicide Bags
Source:   Cybercast News Service; August 21, 2002

Canberra, Australia -- After euthanasia proponents in Australia publicly launched plastic bags designed to facilitate suicide, the country's federal government warned that anyone importing or making the death kits could be prosecuted. Justice and Customs Minister, Chris Ellison, reiterated the government's anti-euthanasia stance, and noted that it was putting resources into trying to discourage suicide, especially among young people.He called on authorities in Australia's six states and two territories to act against anyone manufacturing the suicide bags. "Aiding, abetting or inciting the killing of a person is a criminal offense in all states and territories," he stressed.

But the premier of the state where the bags are being manufactured said it may prove impossible to ban to bags without taking similar steps against other everyday articles that are dangerous if misused.
Earlier, the country's leading euthanasia advocate held a press conference in Queensland state to launch the "Aussie exit bag," a variation of a similar product promoted by Canadian euthanasia activists. Dr. Philip Nitschke said 150 of the heavy-duty plastic bags had been commissioned and would be provided free of charge to long-term members of Exit, the voluntary euthanasia group he runs.He said the bags' elasticized opening could be tightened around the wearer's neck, providing an airtight seal. Used in conjunction with a sleeping tablet taken beforehand, the device would ensure death from oxygen starvation within an hour. Death would be neither violent nor traumatic, he claimed. Nitschke said the bag was the result of desperation resulting from government rejection of "sensible" euthanasia legislation."People don't want to put bags over their heads, but we have governments - state and federal - that have painted people into desperate corners, and desperate people do desperate things."

Australia's Northern Territory in the mid-1990s passed the world's first euthanasia law. Nitschke helped four patients commit suicide under the legislation before the federal government overturned it. Assisted suicide and euthanasia is now illegal throughout Australia.

A group of pro-life campaigners attended Nitschke's launch in protest."[The bags] would have to be illegal because they've been made for a specific purpose of causing a person to suffocate, and they're being promoted for that purpose," said Graham Preston of Right to Life Australia.

Also critical of the activist was Senator Eric Abetz, a member of the federal cabinet, who said Nitschke's "continued push for the deliberate deaths of Australians is both wrong and callous."

Those working to prevent suicides also expressed concern about the message the death bag drive was sending in a country with one of the highest suicide rates in the Western world. According to World Health Organization figures, an average of 14 people in every 100,000 commit suicide in Australia annually, compared to 11.3 in every 100,000 in the United States, and 7.4 in Britain.

Queensland premier Peter Beattie told lawmakers he found Nitschke's scheme offensive but doubted the bags - which are being made in a factory in the state capital, Brisbane - could be outlawed. "If the government were to ban the bags it would also have to ban numerous products freely available today which could be used to inflict injury orcause death if consumers used them incorrectly - for example knives, bricks, razor blades ..."

Nitschke insisted he was not breaking the law. The bags would not come with instructions on how to use them, although those would be available on an Internet website. The bags are also clearly labeled with warnings that they can cause death.
Pro-lifers have long been calling for legal action against Nitschke, who earlier this year oversaw a campaign in which a woman, Nancy Crick, who suffered from bowel cancer, took her life surrounded by friends and activists. Later she was found to have no signs of cancer.
That incident took place in Queensland. State police investigating the death of Nancy Crick raided Nitschke's premises early this month, impounding computer records and other materials. Nitschke at the time said the real aim of the police action was to avert the launch of the death bag project. Queensland police also attended this week's launch of the suicide bags, although no action has been taken against him.

At least one Australian, a 56-year-old woman in Adelaide described as having been in severe pain from several illnesses, is reported to have used one of the specially designed bags to kill herself earlier this month.
And an Anchorage, Alaska newspaper last weekend reported that a terminally ill man in his 80s had used an "exit bag" ordered from Canada to take his life several days earlier. According to Canadian anti-euthanasia campaigner Alex Schadenberg, the Alaskan case was the second known time a suicide bag obtained in Canada had been used to kill someone in another country. Schadenberg's Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) has been trying without success to have law enforcement authorities in Canada investigate the production and distribution of the bag by Canada's Right to Die Network.

One of the reasons behind Nitschke's decision to make the bags locally was a clampdown by Australian authorities last year on the importation of the death kits from Canada. The Canadian suppliers advertised the bag as a "self-deliverance" tool with an adjustable collar. An optional extra was a terry-cloth neckband "for added comfort and snugness of fit."

AUSTRALIA 2 Oct 2001 Dr Philip Nitschke, who has been travelling Australia holding Euthanasia seminars, has warned that his Voluntary Euthanasia Research Foundation will make its own suicide kit (plastic bag and instructions) if the Federal Government would not let a Canadian suicide bag, a heavy-duty plastic bag with velcro neckband designed for suffocation, pass Customs.
Doesn't it seems to rational people the ultimate insult to an elderly person to tell them to go put their head in a bag?
How can this be a dignified death?

22nd May 2002 69 year-old Queenslander Nancy Crick killed herself by taking an overdose of drugs on Wednesday night.
Commenting on the issue in the Courier Mail 27/5/02, Medical ethics professor Margaret Somerville said the AMA's position was consistent with the law and ancient medical principles. "You can't have doctors acting primarily to kill the patient, not the pain," she said.
Patients needed to be able to trust doctors to give the best possible medical care, not euthanasia.
"To have that trust they have to know they are not going to be killed by their physician," Professor Somerville said.
In the case of Mrs Crick, investigations are still ongoing into the fact that she seems to have been cancer-free at the time of her death, and it is alleged that she and Dr Nitschke knew this.

Online article "Nancy Crick: what is the real story?" by Dr David Van Gend in News Weekly , June 15, 2002.

• 2005Jan. 27  Lenten Message by John Paul II has proposed that Lent offer believers the chance to understand the multifaceted "threat against the elderly."In the text, the Holy Father highlights the greatness of the elderly person's dignity, and stresses that the Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" "does not lose its applicability in the face of illnesses, or when the weakening of forces reduces the human being's autonomy."
  
  The reason for this, is that "the number of elderly persons has multiplied rapidly in the recent past, while the young population has decreased," Archbishop Cordes said in explaining the message to the press.The archbishop pointed to Italy as an example. Fifteen years ago, 15.3% of the population was older than 65; by 2050 that figure will grow to 34.9%, or 14.4 million citizens. In France, those over 65 will number more than 15 million, and in Germany more than 20 million.Amid these new imbalances, the social security expenses for the care of the elderly are a danger for the younger labor force, something which in turn "might cause tensions between the two groups," or a "generations war," he noted.
  "The young increasingly believe that the elderly are a burden," that they "cost too much," that they "take up space" and "limit" free time, as well as remind the young "of their own future," the prelate said. "Why, then, not eliminate them from our sight? Or exile them behind walls? Or offer them a 'sweet death?'"
  
  The German archbishop continued: "There are associations to promote the 'right,' as they say, 'to die with dignity.' In the world of science, concrete methods are offered to this end. The movies try to stir up emotional backlashes against existing laws. And politicians are pointing to a new culture: the culture of death. The topic of euthanasia has become inevitable."
  In fact, he added, "the threat against the elderly has taken different forms. For those who can discern, the urgency and importance of the Pope's Lenten Message needs no further reasons."
  
  
• USA   January 2004 issue of Citizen magazine.
• August 2004 Louisiana Court Allows Family to Withdraw Life-Sustaining Nutrition, Hydration from Mother
  An 89 year-old woman who suffered a debilitating stroke is being denied life-sustaining food and water by her family and doctors -- a court said it was okay because Doris Smith signed a living will. The daughter of the woman argues, however, that her mother never intended to be starved to death when she signed the legal document before her stroke."Most people have no idea that when it states in a Living Will/Power of Attorney that no further medical treatment will be provided in certain circumstances that it means they will also be denied food and fluids," according to Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. "The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is called regularly by people who have no intention of granting their doctor or family members the right to dehydrate and starve them to death and yet have a Living Will/Power of Attorney document that would do just that."
  
  Pettis argued in three courts that her mother was not aware that waiving her right to "life-sustaining procedures" included the denial of food and water. The document signed by Smith is nearly identical to a standard state form used by thousands of Louisianans. In a list of definitions, not located directly on the living will form, but separately, is included the denial of food and water as part of the forfeiture of life-sustaining procedures.
  "To intentionally kill someone by dehydration and starvation is euthanasia," Schadenberg said. "This differs from removing fluids and food from someone who is nearing death and who's body is shutting down, that act is normal protocol."
  "The dehydration and starvation of Doris Smith is a wake-up call," Schadenberg continued. "The message is that everyone needs a Power of Attorney document that protects them. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition distributes the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care. It is a legal document that will protect you from being dehydrated or starved to death and allow you to die a natural dignified death."
  Contact the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for more information:
  http://epcc.ca
  Read local coverage: http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-11/109300584267841.xml&storylist=louisiana
  

• Hospitals in Belgium Must Mandate Euthanasia

• 2003 The Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that a doctor who helped an elderly man "tired of living" to die was guilty of assisted suicide. The ruling upholds strict medical guidelines for mercy killing in the Netherlands, which was the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia. Had Dr Philip Sutorius won the case, it would have made mental suffering a legal reason for seeking euthanasia. The director of the Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society said he was "disappointed" with the ruling. -Read full article at BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2603709.stm
  

• The most recent Oregon Health Division report demonstrates that there was not one case of assisted suicide in 2001 where uncontrollable pain was documented as the primary motive.  Dr. Hamilton noted, "The reasons for overdoses were all psychological and social concerns, not pain."  This is consistent with the Journal of the American Medical Association (12/13/00) finding that, "Among patients who were neither depressed nor hopeless, none had high desire for hastened death" (p.2910).  "That's because we can treat pain," Hamilton said.  "The problem is depression and feelings of hopelessness, feelings which can be made worse by the assisted- suicide proponents' exaggerated and grotesque portrayals of the normal dying process."
  

• Subject:   Most Change Their Minds About Assisted Suicide

"Ultimately, less than one in a thousand Oregonians takes a lethal prescription. In other words, while legal, the option is not commonly used in this state," Dr. Paul Bascom, a professor of medicine who worked on the study, said in a statement.The researchers said nationwide an estimated 25,000 terminally ill people ask their doctors for lethal prescriptions each year. "Twenty-one percent of primary care physicians said they had a request in the prior year," Tolle said.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Tolle's team looked at the case study of a 47-year-old man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. It is an incurable and inevitably fatal disease that progressively leaves a patient paralyzed and, eventually, unable to breathe.The patient, identified only as "Mr. G." to protect his privacy, asked his doctor about assisted suicide. The doctor did not approve and did not know what to do.
"When the patient made a request, he walked away. He did not explore the reason behind the request," said Tolle, who listened to recorded transcripts of Mr. G's meeting with his doctor. The patient did not want to die quickly, but was afraid."It turns out he was scared to death to die like his father, who died of colon cancer," she said. "He died in the hospital a truly horrible death with inadequate medication, on a lot of machines in a great deal of pain."Mr. G. did not know that ALS does not cause a painful death. "So he was not even given adequate information. He was not given information about what could be done for him. He feared a painful death more than anything else," Tolle said. "Once he was sure he could be comfortable, he was happy enough to have his  death occur from natural causes without pursuing physician-assisted suicide. But this was nearly a missed opportunity to reduce this man's terrible suffering."

Patients also incorrectly believe that assisted suicide involves a lethal injection, she said.
"It's not legal in Oregon, let alone anywhere in the United States," she said. They are given a prescription and told an overdose will kill them, then allowed to decide what to do.
"What a doctor needs to do is take a deep breath and say 'Why do you ask?' rather than indicating either that you are willing to participate or that you are unwilling to participate," Tolle said."The doctor should ask, 'What are you afraid of? What are you worried about?"' she advised. "Responding to requests for physician-assisted suicide," Journal of the American Medical Association, 7/3/02, pp. 91-98

It seems logical that patients with a new diagnosis of terminal illness are afraid, and need careful explanations of what is involved and what palliative care is available to them, in order to be reassured that they will be able to cope and that their self-image will be respected and that they will be adequately cared for throughout  this new journey.

• Thursday 16th May 2002

The Belgian parliament has approved a Bill on euthanasia, making it only the second country in Europe to legislate to give terminally-ill patients the right to die.
The Bill defines euthanasia as an act practised by a third party intentionally ending the life of a person at his request.
Under the Bill, this can be practised by doctors only on patients who have reached the legal adult age, 18 in Belgium, and at their specific, voluntary and repeated request. A patient seeking assisted suicide must be in a "hopeless" medical situation and be constantly suffering physically or psychologically, the measure says.
If the person is not in the terminal phase of his illness, his doctor must consult with a second doctor, either a psychiatrist or a specialist in the disease concerned. At least one month must pass between the written request and carrying out the act.
``Today we fought the law with our votes. Tomorrow it will be before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,'' said Christian Democrat Tony Van Parys.

• April 2002 Europe's leading human rights court threw out an appeal by a terminally ill and paralyzed British woman who wanted her husband to kill her. The woman, Diane Pretty, died in May in her sleep.

• Subject:  Assisted Suicide is No Act of Compassion

As for the Netherlands, its law passed in April 2001 was little more than confirmation of what had become almost commonplace. Mercy killings have gone unpunished for decades in that country, but their numbers have dramatically accelerated.  Elderly or chronically ill patients and deformed or critically ill newborns have long been considered eligible subjects. Now a new segment of the population has been added. As of last fall, doctors have been able to euthanize sick children as young as 12, as long as Mom and Dad agree.There is irony in the Dutch experience, said Richard Miniter, a writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe. In contrast to doctors of every other Nazi-occupied country, he noted, Dutch doctors never recommended or participated in a single act of euthanasia during World War II. All such orders were disobeyed.

Essayist Malcolm Muggeridge saw irony as well in that it took only a generation of Dutch doctors "to transform a war crime into an act of compassion."
The evolution of euthanasia in the Netherlands demonstrates how readily expedience can replace conscience and principle. Evil is habit-forming. Studies suggest that habitual offenders commit up to 90 percent of all crime. Once a society loses its way, it ends up in a moral no-man's land.
 

• A Dutch study on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease - shows alarming percentages of patients put to death by or with the assistance of their doctors. The study published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 203 Dutch ALS patients and found 20% died with their doctor's connivance and among cancer patients it was 10%.

The study also found the only difference in choice to commit to PAS or euthanasia was religion. "Patients who said religion was more important in their lives were less likely to die prematurely," it said.
See an abstract of the study from the journal: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/346/21/1638

Under prior euthanasia practice in the Netherlands, the "burden of proof" was on the physician to justify the termination of life. The new law shifts the burden of proof to the prosecutor who is required to show that the termination of life did not meet the requirements of due care. The prosecutor will not receive information about any euthanasia death unless it is forwarded by a Regional Committee.
 Last July, the United Nations Human Rights Committee strongly criticized the euthanasia law, as being open to abuse. The committee was particularly concerned that the ending of patients’ lives would become routine and doctors would become insensitive to cases; that there may be "undue influence by third parties"; that any oversight of the practice occurs after the patient is already dead; and the killing of minors, even at their own request, is problematic given their "evolving and maturing capacities." [U.N., International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Netherlands, 7/20/01]

  "[Euthanasia] is not really necessary any longer at all," explained Dr. Van Coevorden. "Patients let themselves be influenced far more than their physicians realize. You mention euthanasia, they ask for it. And if you mention palliative care, that’s what is going to be." She used to perform euthanasia twice a year. "Over the past three years," she added, "I have had requests for euthanasia, but, thanks to my knowledge of palliative care, I have not had to give euthanasia once."   These days Dr. Van Coevorden tells patients, "I respect your wish for euthanasia, but would you allow me to alleviate your pain first?" "And very often nothing ever comes of the euthanasia," she added. "I do not mean to seem proud, but palliative care gives me back the confidence that had been much on the wane of late." said Dr. Budde. "It is a way of saying no to a demand for euthanasia. To say no, and yet have something to offer."

   Budde remembers the beginning years of euthanasia. "There you were, out on the streets with your euthanasia bag; it hàd something: a mixture of caring and power. But that vanguard feeling has certainly gone now." "Maybe it has to do with one’s age," Budde explained. "I am fifty-three now: Then you begin having other thoughts about death. Would I want euthanasia? No." [Oostveen, "Regrets: Champions of euthanasia practice are having second thoughts," NRC Handelsblad, 11/10/01. Translated.]
   

11TH APRIL 2001 the Upper House of the Dutch Parliament passed a new liberal euthanasia law voted 46-28 in favour. This makes the Netherlands the only country to make euthanasia legal.

EWTN News Story 12-Jul-99 -- NETHERLANDS MULLS FULL LEGALIZATION OF EUTHANASIA
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CWNews.com) - The government of the Netherlands will seek to fully legalize euthanasia, removing the practice of so-called "mercy killing" from a legal gray area. Justice Ministry spokesman Wijnand Stevens said on Monday that decriminalization was the next logical step considering the government's policy of turning a blind eye to the practice. Thousands of terminally-ill patients are killed each year by euthanasia in the Netherlands even though it is technically illegal. It is the most liberal assisted-death policy in the world. After pressure from doctor groups and euthanasia advocates, the government said euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legalized under strict guidelines, including candidates must suffer from unbearable and irremediable pain and must request death repeatedly and lucidly. Doctors must also seek a second opinion and report all euthanasia deaths to authorities. The proposal must be approved by both chambers of the Dutch parliament.

According to the Remmelink Report, in 1990:
- 2,300 people died as the result of doctors killing them upon request (active, voluntary euthanasia).
- 400 people died as a result of doctors providing them with the means to kill themselves (physician-assisted suicide).
- 1,040 people (an average of 3 per day) died from involuntary euthanasia, meaning that doctors actively killed these patients without the patients' knowledge or consent.
- 14% of these patients were fully competent. 
- 72% had never given any indication that they would want their lives terminated. 
- In 8% of the cases, doctors performed involuntary euthanasia despite the fact that they believed alternative options were still possible. 
- In addition, 8,100 patients died as a result of doctors deliberately giving them overdoses of pain medication, not for the primary purpose of controlling pain, but to hasten the patient's death.  In 61% of these cases (4,941 patients), the intentional overdose was given without the patient's consent.
- According to the Remmelink Report, Dutch physicians deliberately and intentionally ended the lives of 11,840 people by lethal overdoses or injections--a figure which accounts for 9.1% of the annual overall death rate of 130,000 per year. The majority of all euthanasia deaths in Holland are involuntary deaths.
- The Remmelink Report figures cited here do not include thousands of other cases, also reported in the study, in which life-sustaining treatment was withheld or withdrawn without the patient's consent and with the intention of causing the patient's death.  Nor do the figures include cases of involuntary euthanasia performed on disabled newborns, children with life-threatening conditions, or psychiatric patients.
- The most frequently cited reasons given for ending the lives of patients without their knowledge or consent were: "low quality of life," "no prospect for improvement," and "the family couldn't take it anymore."
- In 45% of cases involving hospitalized patients who were involuntarily euthanized, the patients' families had no knowledge that their loved ones' lives were deliberately terminated by doctors. 
- According to the 1990 census, the population of Holland is approximately 15 million. That is only half the population of California. To get some idea of how the Remmelink Report statistics would apply to the U.S., those figures would have to be multiplied 16.6 times (based on the 1990 U.S. census population of approximately 250 million).
A government health inspector recently told the New York Times: "In the end the system depends on the integrity of the physician, of what and how he reports. If the family doctor does not report a case of voluntary euthanasia or an assisted suicide, there is nothing to control." 

Inadequate Pain Control and Comfort Care -- In 1988, the British Medical Association released the findings of a study on Dutch euthanasia conducted at the request of British right-to-die advocates. The study found that, in spite of the fact that medical care is provided to everyone in Holland, palliative care (comfort care) programs, with adequate pain control techniques and knowledge, were poorly developed.  Where euthanasia is an accepted medical solution to patients' pain and suffering, there is little incentive to develop programs which provide modern, available, and effective pain control for patients. As of mid-1990, only two hospice programs were in operation in all of Holland, and the services they provided were very limited.

Broadening Interpretations of Euthanasia Guidelines
 In July 1992, the Dutch Pediatric Association announced that it was issuing formal guidelines for killing severely handicapped newborns. Dr. Zier Versluys, chairman of the association's Working Group on Neonatal Ethics, said that "Both for the parents and the children, an early death is better than life." Dr. Versluys also indicated that euthanasia is an integral part of good medical practice in relation to newborn babies.  Doctors would judge if a baby's "quality of life" is such that the baby should be killed.
 A 2/15/93 statement released by the Dutch Justice Ministry proposed extending the court-approved, euthanasia guidelines to formally include "active medical intervention to cut short life without an express request." (Emphasis added.) Liesbeth Rensman, a spokesperson for the Ministry, said that this would be the first step toward the official sanctioning of euthanasia for those who cannot ask for it, particularly psychiatric patients and handicapped newborns.

Euthanasia "Fallout" -- The effects of euthanasia policy and practice have been felt in all segments of Dutch society:
 Some Dutch doctors provide "self-help programs" for adolescents to end their lives. 
 General practitioners wishing to admit elderly patients to hospitals have sometimes been advised to give the patients lethal injections instead. 
 Cost containment is one of the main aims of Dutch health care policy. 
 Euthanasia training has been part of both medical and nursing school curricula.
Euthanasia has been administered to people with diabetes, rheumatism, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, bronchitis, and accident victims.

  In 1990, the Dutch Patients' Association, a disability rights organization, developed wallet-size cards which state that if the signer is admitted to a hospital "no treatment be administered with the intention to terminate life." Many in Holland see the card as a necessity to help prevent involuntary euthanasia being performed on those who do not want their lives ended, especially those whose lives are considered low in quality. 
 In 1993, the Dutch senior citizens' group, the Protestant Christian Elderly Society, surveyed 2,066 seniors on general health care issues. The Survey did not address the euthanasia issue in any way, yet ten percent of the elderly respondents clearly indicated that, because of the Dutch euthanasia policy, they are afraid that their lives could be terminated without their request. According to the Elderly Society director, Hans Homans. "They are afraid that at a certain moment, on the basis of age, a treatment will be considered no longer economically viable, and an early end to their lives will be made."

Three good reasons why euthanasia should not be legalised:
*Pro-lifers are not concerned to prolong life at any cost. Rather our concern is that all people, no matter whether they are ill, disabled, dementia or comatose, should be treated with respect and value as persons , irrespective of their "use" to society.
*There is no need to kill the terminally ill, frail and elderly. Adequate palliative care, which includes pain management, a caring supportive environment, and hospice care is surely the most non-violent and caring solution in a civilised society.
*Once euthanasia is made legal in any country, the pressures put on the dying will be enormous. Instead of expecting to have doctors, care-givers and families ensure our comfort and dignity, there will be loss of trust as some decide for others that they should be killed, and others will be pressured to volunteer to save money etc. Voluntary euthanasia leads involuntary euthanasia, when a helpless person is in the hands of others who believe in euthanasia.
Old people will avoid health care, as they do in Holland, and life at this stage will become disposable if society deems it not worth the money or effort to sustain it.

Dutch euthanasia has even been used in paediatric wards. A study of infant euthanasia in the Netherlands (The Lancet,July 26, 1997) revealed that 8% of all infant deaths are caused by their doctors - between 80-90 infanticides per annum mostly on grounds that the baby will grow up disabled.Parents weren't consulted in 21% of these cases, because the doctors presumed
this was"obviously the only correct decision". 45% of neonatologists and 31% of pediatricans who responded to the survey admitted to killing babies. (Information from Wesley J Smith, attorney for the US International Task force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, in an article in Right to Life News Jul/Aug 2001.)
 Brian Pollard comments on Dutch euthanasia http://www.nswrtl.org.au/issues.htm
David N. O'Steen, Ph.D., NRLC executive director says"The so-called new restrictions are little consolation in a country whose justification for euthanasia has slipped inexorably from the terminally ill, to the chronically ill, to the mentally ill, and most recently to those who have no mental or physical illness at all."
http://www.nrlc.org/news/2001/NRL05/dutch.html
The startling number of euthanasia cases has many Dutch residents carrying wallet cards asking doctors to do all they can to save their lives in case of an accident that leaves them unable to make decisions for themselves in an ER or operating room.

PALLIATIVE CARE : Improving the quality of life for vulnerable people takes away the reasons many people favor abortion and euthanasia. Drugs used to suppress pain can aid in comforting those who are suffering from a terminal or debilitating illness. It is a paradox that never have we had better knowledge of painkillers or access to hospices. Holland however is neglecting this better option for the dying.
The Church teaches that medicines remain morally licit, even when they affect one’s state of consciousness. Such medicines must not, however, be used as an end or a means to bring about one’s own death. Though some pain-relieving drugs may indirectly cause one’s life to be shortened, they are permissible, again, as long as relief of pain and not the death of the patient is sought as the end.
Where drugs may affect consciousness, if possible the patient should be given the opportunity to farewell family and receive confession and absolution. Hospices allow people to die naturally, with pain relief, treated with dignity and surrounded by love.

In a Japanese study from the Journal of Clinical Oncology, it was reported that 25% of terminal cancer patients experienced significant depression during their illness, due to multiple factors. Such findings prompt us to consider the ethical obligations of Christians to terminally ill patients, especially those experiencing depression.
Depression in the elderly as a group is common, and often goes undiagnosed and untreated. The stress of terminal illness can trigger a new onset of depression or exacerbate chronic underlying depression in patients. One result is that patients often experience a sense of hopelessness, which may be accompanied by a desire that death be hastened through physician-assisted suicide. Studies have shown that terminally ill patients with major depression do respond to therapy, resulting in an improved quality of life and a loss of the desire to hasten death. The recognition and treatment of depression is an important and often overlooked aspect of holistic palliative care....http://www.cbhd.org/resources/endoflife/hensley_2004-10-14.htm

Top books on this issue:
 POLLARD,Brian MB  "Euthanasia; should we kill the dying?" Regent House, 1989
                               ISBN 0949773921            Purchase: $15.00 from QRTL
POLLARD, Brian "THE CHALLENGE OF EUTHANASIA" 1994 Purchase: $15.00 QRTL
PERRY, Selwyn     Palliative care "Way we let them die"  92 p. How dying can be a peaceful
                               experience for the patient and the grieving family aided . Written by a nurse (QRTL)
STUPARICH, Jeremy.  "EUTHANASIA, PALLIATIVE AND HOSPICE CARE AND
                  THE TERMINALLY ILL. Pro-Life Issues Seminar"1992 Purchase: $5.00 QRTL
CUNDIFF, David   “Euthanasia Is Not the Answer : A Hospice Physician's View”
         Amazon $22.95  Hardcover - 190 pages (1992) Humana Pr   ISBN 089603237X
 Eric M. Chevlen, M.D., and Wesley J. Smith "Power over Pain: How to Get the Pain Control You Need" -An outstanding new book on pain and its treatment.(2002, 236 pages) An understandable, down-to-earth book on a very complex and important subject.
Wesley J. Smith "Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder" (1997)