January 18, 2019

"When Keizer and the nurse who was to assist him arrived, they found around 35 people gathered around the dying man’s bed."

"'They were drinking and guffawing and crying,' Keizer told me when I met him in Amsterdam recently. 'It was boisterous. And I thought: "How am I going to cleave the waters?" But the man knew exactly what to do. Suddenly he said, "OK, guys!" and everyone understood. Everyone fell silent. The very small children were taken out of the room and I gave him his injection. I could have kissed him, because I wouldn’t have known how to break up the party.' Keizer is one of around 60 physicians on the books of the Levenseindekliniek, or End of Life Clinic, which matches doctors willing to perform euthanasia with patients seeking an end to their lives, and which was responsible for the euthanasia of some 750 people in 2017. For Keizer, who was a philosopher before studying medicine, the advent of widespread access to euthanasia represents a new era. 'For the first time in history,' he told me, 'we have developed a space where people move towards death while we are touching them and they are in our midst. That’s completely different from killing yourself when your wife’s out shopping and the kids are at school and you hang yourself in the library – which is the most horrible way of doing it, because the wound never heals. The fact that you are a person means that you are linked to other people. And we have found a bearable way of severing that link, not by a natural death, but by a self-willed ending. It’s a very special thing.'"

From "Death on demand: has euthanasia gone too far?/Countries around the world are making it easier to choose the time and manner of your death. But doctors in the world’s euthanasia capital are starting to worry about the consequences" (The Guardian).

136 comments:

Darrell said...

Death is always beautiful to the death cult called The Left.

Darrell said...

I encourage all Lefties to pull their plug, though. . .

Heartless Aztec said...

Watching my elderly aunt deteriorate in real time is tough. I'll take that injection rather than spending two weeks wasting away in agony. Slip sliding away I think the man sang...

chuck said...

He's wrong, the Eskimos were there first.

Dave Begley said...

Now they worry?

Wait until Boomsday. That's the day when the gov't tells you people over 65 that you have to kill yourselves in order to save Social Security. Christopher Buckley wrote a very funny book of the same name: Boomsday.

Nonapod said...

I watched my mother slowly fade to a non-communicative, non-ambulatory, near death from Parkinsons disease over the course of many, many years. Given a similar diagnosis and given the option, I can't say that I would be willing to go through that myself, the idea of euthanasia in the right conditions holds a certain appeal to me. Perhaps that's selfsish, I don't know.

Michael said...

So wrong.

Quayle said...

How easy to break what you have no power to create or fix.

What is the philosophy of "no gain from pain?" As I look at my life, I see all kinds of things I couldn't or wouldn't learn except for pain of some kind. The pain in life is what creates and allows us to feel joy.

Rick said...

Altogether, well over a quarter of all deaths in 2017 in the Netherlands were induced.

I'm sure government 'nudging' would never be used in this manner. The fact that they need you dead so they can continue to offer "free" healthcare would never influence a bureaucrat. Luckily we don't have to guess. Instead we can extrapolate from how they react to your drinking soda and eating fast food.

Reason 46 of the why the government paying for healthcare isn't going to work out well.

Gabriel said...

There is no constituency for keeping sick or dying people alive against their expressed will. The financial incentives are all in favor pulling the plug.

The "right to die" is just the slippery slope that governments and insurance companies need to protect themselves from spiraling end-of-life medical and pension costs.

Not only is it steep and slippery, they're putting ball bearings on it, and banana peels, and a giant fan at the top blowing down it.

AllenS said...

When I die, I want to go out kicking and screaming. Also, a lot of swearing.

Bill Peschel said...

What worries me most about euthanasia is how easy it is to abuse that power.

Perhaps the law should mandate a public declaration of your intent to off yourself (or your caregiver or doc's intent to off you), so that an objection can be lodged and adjudicated. After all, if you're conscious enough to say "I want to die," then it would be easy to verify.

Because whenever I've read about a country legalizing killing, a few months or a year later another article pops up in which the law was applied to people who were not dying, but they were inconveniencing others by living.

Gabriel said...

First it was the terminally ill adults. Then it was the non-terminal elderly. Then it was the depressed. Then sick kids. Now it's depressed kids--or kids who say they are.

Gabriel said...

Belgium. In 2014, that country amended its law on euthanasia, already one of the most permissive in the world, authorizing doctors to terminate the life of a child, at any age, who makes the request.

For a year after the law passed, no one acted on it. Now, however, euthanasia for children in Belgium is no longer just a theoretical possibility.

Between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2017, Belgian physicians gave lethal injections to three children under 18, according to a July 17 report from the commission that regulates euthanasia in Belgium.

The oldest of the three was 17; in that respect, Belgium was not unique, since the Netherlands permits euthanasia for children over 12.


When the euthanasia laws in the Netherlands and Belgium were first discussed in public, when did they say they were going to expand it to children over 12?

Slippery slopes are a logical fallacy but they are not a fallacy of reasoning about human actions.

Gabriel said...

IN 2002 in the Netherlands euthanasia became legal for people over the age of 12. By 2004, the Groningen Protocol was established outlining how children under 12 could be euthanized without triggering prosecution for violating the law.

A very slippery slope indeed.

Gabriel said...

In 2005 a review study was undertaken of all 22 reported cases between 1997 and 2004. All cases concerned newborns with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. In all cases, at least 2 doctors were consulted outside the medical team. In 17 of 22 cases, a multidisciplinary spina bifida team was consulted. All parents consented to the termination of life; in 4 cases they explicitly requested it. The mean time between reporting of the case and the decision concerning prosecution was 5.3 months. None of the cases led to prosecution. The study concluded that all cases of active termination of life reported were found to be in accordance with good practice.

All of these euthanasias were illegal. You can try to make laws about this, and keep from sliding down the slope, but physicians and prosecutors will simply ignore the law when they choose to.

If someone is determined to die you cannot stop them. But if you try to make any part of it legal THIS happens.

Martha said...

I believe that palliative sedation is practiced far and wide by most physicians to hasten death when the patient is terminal and suffering.

rehajm said...

If euthanasia day was Tuesday and your last fuckable day was the following Thursday a line has been crossed.

rehajm said...

Necrophilia comedy is still okay right? It's not like the victims are offended.

MadisonMan said...

Watching my elderly aunt deteriorate in real time is tough

Am going through the same thing with a relative, did the same with my parents and brother.

Being along for their ride was (and is, for the relative today) extremely interesting and rewarding for me. You sit with others, and talk to the person to ease their way, and yours. It's not fast, and it's teary sometimes, but it's rewarding.

John said...

My sister passed away recently after a long illness. I never knew how it worked. As it turns out hospice comes and gives you a big bag of drugs and directions to "make her comfortable." As the days drift by and the gasping and death rattles grow worse and worse you're supposed to keep giving her more of the meds until it's like she's sleeping.

What would you want? Would you want your loved ones to try and drag it out for a few more days? If they under dose you then you're going to feel like you're suffocating and in pain from whatever is killing you. Or would you want to give you a nice healthy dose?

John said...

I believe that palliative sedation is practiced far and wide by most physicians

In a hospital setting. What I didn't know was that if you choose to die at home the palliative sedation is at the discretion of whoever is the caregiver.

chickelit said...

Isn’t it contagious?

Nonapod said...

In a hospital setting. What I didn't know was that if you choose to die at home the palliative sedation is at the discretion of whoever is the caregiver.

At the very end my mom's hospice nurse said she was going to be bringing morphine on her next visit but my mother passed before that came about. Nothing was said explicity.

stevew said...

I watched both of my parents deteriorate over a period of time, and then sat in the room with them as they died. I could not imagine euthanizing them. I find the practice abhorrent.

mockturtle said...

Agree with Peschel about possible abuse. I have seen too many cases where the 'dying' person might be persuaded to choose the euthanasia option rather than to burden his/her family. And this is more common where a lot of money is involved.

John said...

then sat in the room with them as they died.

Was any palliative sedation provided?

robother said...

I'm sensing a meme, being introduced into the body politic. As Justice Ginsberg ends her second week of SCOTUS absence, and with the widespread weariness and defeatism on the Hill, is Putin using the power of (barely) subliminal suggestion to make Trump's enemies seek an easy way out?

Dave Begley said...

There was a case in Omaha within the past two months where a guy was supposedly brain dead. Before the service, one of his kids goes to the morgue to say one final goodbye. He was alive! And now a complete recovery.

His name is T. Scott Marr and he used to be the Creighton basketball play-by-play guy. I liked him more than the current guy.

Dan from Madison said...

"What I didn't know was that if you choose to die at home the palliative sedation is at the discretion of whoever is the caregiver." Yep. Just went through this with my wife's Mom. She had to administer the morphine. It was absolutely insane. We would have taken an injection to end it all over that. Such awful memories of the end of life of a wonderful person.

traditionalguy said...

Funny thing seeing this article now. Until Trump stopped the process, Obama was the end of life specialist assigned to end the life of this Republic and surrender us back to the Crown. Hillary was ready and willing to finish that job for cash, when Trump began work and reversed everything Obama had carefully done to our Nation.


Paul Zrimsek said...

(musingly) Starting to worry about the consequences. Starting to worry about the consequences.

n.n said...

The end of life, the beginning of life, the middle of life, where there is a burden, where there is quality of life issues, where there is GDP, there is abortion, the wicked solution, quick, private, and effective.

stevew said...

“Was any palliative sedation provided?”

Not morphine or any thing like that. The staff kept them comfortable but if that included drugging them in some way we were not told.

Seeing Red said...

Now they’re thinking about it?

gahrie said...

How many of those who support euthanasia are opposed to animal shelters that kill unwanted animals?

Jamie said...

I was surprised, to say the least, to read that this is "the first time in history" that we've had a place where the dying are surrounded by their loved ones, etc. Maybe I misread. Because I thought that's how it almost always was until the modern era.

I'm very much against euthanasia, but I do understand the desire both not to suffer a long and painful death oneself and not to witness a long and painful death. My dad wants to be put down, in a phrase, if he begins to lose his faculties; but I don't know which of us will be willing to authorize it (if such is necessary) since my sister and Mom are devout Catholic, I'm adamantly against it, and my brother is fundamentally passive following a terrible past five years.

Virgil Hilts said...

Heh, I am seeing Ashley Madison banner ads again on Althouse. And no, it's not me - I never see them anywhere else. Trying to figure what story or tagline Ann used that caused these to suddenly pop up again. Maybe its AOC-related.

Infinite Monkeys said...

"How am I going to cleave the waters?"

Waiting until the patient calls for him would be too inconvenient? Gotta keep to the schedule.

Sydney said...

Invite to a euthanasia party.

gilbar said...

AllenS said...When I die, I want to go out kicking and screaming. Also, a lot of swearing.

not ME!
When i die, i want to die peacefully in my sleep; like my grandfather,
Not Screaming in Terror, like his passengers

John said...

I'm adamantly against it,

Against palliative sedation? For example, if you're dying from congestive heart failure you're dealing with chronic shortness of breath. You feel like you're suffocating because you are in a way. Morphine blocks that feeling. But it also suppresses respiration. The more comfortable you make them the quicker they die. What would you do in that situation?

Guildofcannonballs said...

Deadwood has a scene that would lead one to believe, sans wisdom of any extrapolations, that mercy killing is indeed merciful and even perhaps Godly.

Is Old Yeller appropriate to mention?

I certainly don't have the capability of nuance required to not equate human and animal suffering but can distinguish, ala Gump (Forrest), between them and those killing for profit/killing for love.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

I was involved in a campaign to stop the Dutch euthanasia fetish all the way back in the 1980s--it was a dreadful idea then and it's a dreadful idea now.

I was a co-author of a 1988 report on the topic of Nazi euthanasia, a personal favorite program of Hitler's and the cover for killing countless "lives unworthy to be lived."

We had documentation of old people being afraid to go to the Netherlands for fear of being euthanized, as it were, if they got sick. And that was all those years ago. Imagine what it's like now.

You expect it from the Nazi doctors tried at Nuremberg (that's why they're at Nuremberg), but somehow, you don't expect it from dear old Dr. Smith down the block.

John said...

Molly,

When you're dying of end stage heart failure and you feel like you're suffocating - morphine or no morphine?

alanc709 said...

Euthanasia is ok but the death penalty is immoral?

RBE said...

I see Ashley Madison ads, too.

mockturtle said...

When pain is intense, one can build up an amazing tolerance for morphine. My tiny, frail grandmother was given [at the hospital], in the doctor's words, "Enough morphine to kill an elephant'. And yet she was still in pain. She looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over the bones when she died.

When my father was dying of cancer at home, I gave him, per doctor's orders, both morphine and demerol, alternately, but the doses were not at the lethal level. I can't even imagine letting someone suffer needlessly when relief is available. Pain, in and of itself, is of no value when you're dying.

mockturtle said...

And while I am against active euthanasia, I do like the Eskimo's way of death in the aged.

Guildofcannonballs said...


sans wisdom of any extrapolations

Ha, just started THe Creepy Line five minutes after I wrote that and it was confirmed by a quote for Art C. Clarke.

"The film opens with a written quote by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke:

"Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.'"

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13491/the-creepy-line

rhhardin said...

I don't see any ads. ublock origin.

MBunge said...

It's very easy to imagine situations where euthanasia seems like a perfectly reasonable option.

The problem is that just as any system of justice will inevitably result in some innocent people going to jail, any system of euthanasia will INEVITABLY result in people being killed for what are now considered perfectly UNREASONABLE justifications. There is literally no way to have legalized euthanasia without it meaning some number of non-terminal people being killed or people being killed when they still want to live.

Mike

Fen said...

"Watching my elderly aunt deteriorate in real time is tough. I'll take that injection rather than spending two weeks wasting away in agony. Slip sliding away I think the man sang..."

Or the 3 months of chemo my father went through, continuously vomiting so violently 24/7 that he was reduced to sobbing tears. His law partner was diagnosed with the same cancer a year later, he chose a bottle of whiskey and a shotgun over chemo torture deatb.


Liberty is the freedom to make what others consider to be "stupid" choices.

jeremyabrams said...

This is best handled as in the olden times, with laws prohibiting assisted death, but that are generally unenforced, and quiet decisions made between doctors, the terminally ill, and family members. Not an area for the law to butt into, except in egregious cases.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

John said: When you're dying of end stage heart failure and you feel like you're suffocating - morphine or no morphine?

If I were dying of end-stage heart disease I would blow my own brains out (or take my own overdose of whatever worked). I don't approve of making other people accomplices in my death.

I am not saying that death is never a solution--it certainly can be.

I am saying that euthanasia is a moral abomination because it's taking death and the decisions involved out of the hands of the dying person. If it's going to be death, fine, but I don't want to be soothed into it by some all-wise doctor.

That may be paranoid, but that's okay. There are a lot weirder aberrations than a touch of paranoia.

Sydney said...

I often see the Ashley Madison ads, too. Just on this blog. Not sure why. My browsing habits would not support directing me to them. I hate seeing them since they are promoting adultery. Does Althouse have any control of the types of ads that pop up here?

MBunge said...

"Liberty is the freedom to make what others consider to be "stupid" choices."


But what we're talking about here is involving OTHERS in your choices and the legal system justifying their participation.

Mike

rhhardin said...

Perhaps if you express an interest in ice cream you get Ashley Madison ads.

Fen said...

Mike: "There is literally no way to have legalized euthanasia without it meaning some number of non-terminal people being killed or people being killed when they still want to live."

I agree. I can't find the right word to describe the tension between the two lines of thought that are both valid:

1) I should have the legal right to end my life, but
2) if legalized, Right to Die will be abused by family, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and the State to wrongfully murder people who still want to live.

I guess the solution is to err on the side of life? I can still end mine without legalization.

tim in vermont said...

RBG has pneumonia per Fox News, which was perfectly predictable from her rib injury, see my comments at the time. Three broken ribs, advanced age, and a history of cardiopulmonary disease and you better be a pretty artful dodger to evade it.

tim in vermont said...

Plus the incredibly strained wording of the re-assurances on her health did not augur well for her recovery.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“I can't even imagine letting someone suffer needlessly when relief is available. Pain, in and of itself, is of no value when you're dying.”

I completely agree. What some folks here fail to realize is that the extremely ill, frail, or dying person cannot always say or do anything to ease their own passage. Best to spell out what you desire when your time comes, while you still can.

tim in vermont said...

If she hands over a pick to Trump, she better have armed guards or be ready to pass to the arms of Abraham at the hands of some deranged lefty.

madAsHell said...

Does Althouse have any control of the types of ads that pop up here?

No, but Google does!! Google owns the blogspot.com domain. Do no evil.

john said...

Allen,

You're a big guy, who is going to hold you down?

Molly,

I'm going out on a limb here, but I would guess that most people in end-of-life situations are not physically able to either blow their brains out, concoct a lethal potion, or find an ice flow. It seems we rarely get to choose the means and time of our death.

My dad had a stroke that made it impossible to move, swallow, or talk. He was DNR/DNI but amongst our family there was little agreement as to what the specifics of that meant. Hospice did what they could to ease him into the next life and we did not try to individually intervene, but to this day I am guilt ridden about that period. I feel like we put him down.

wwww said...

I don't see ads for ice cream or for sketchy websites. My usual ads are for Wayfair, home & kitchen decor & for a hotel in Costa Rica. Refreshed it, and the top ad is back to the usual top ad, a company called "Gale" that does "analytics on demand."

The other day I did a search for pictures from the Galapagos, which is why I'm getting an ad for Four Seasons Costa Rica. Looked at tourist websites trying to get pics of the landscape. I didn't do any searches on Costa Rican hotels or Costa Rica & I've got no interest. The algorithm isn't exact in its matches.

rhhardin said...

Nadine: Look, I don't wanna take up a ton of your time... But I'm gonna kill myself. I just thought that someone should know. I don't know how this works. I'm probably gonna jump off an overpass in front of a semi, so... Or a u-haul. Not a bus. I'm not gonna be a dick and make people watch. But it has to be big. It's gotta be so big that it just... Done. Kills me. Lights out. 'Cause if it just maims me and I'm like... well, how's that good for anyone? Then I gotta find a nurse to smother me. How am I gonna get across "smothering" if I'm... We don't need to get caught up in the minutia. I just thought that an adult... you should know.

Mr. Bruner: Wow. This is, uh, a lot to take in, Nadine. I... I wish I knew what to say. Well, I was actually just drafting my own suicide note just now. "Dear everybody. As some of you know, I have 32 fleeting minutes of happiness per school day during lunch, which has been eaten up again and again by the same... Especially badly dressed student, and I finally thought, you know what? I would rather have the dark, empty nothingness. I really would. It sounds... relaxing. Have a nice life without me, fuckers."

Nadine: You are so gonna get fired when I actually do it.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

chuck said...

Pratchett’s death from natural causes was “a great blow”she said. “Sir Terry was a great asset to our [assisted suicide] movement. He was successful, rich, intelligent and relatively young. He had so much to live for. The fact that he wanted to end it all at his own hand said so much that was positive about assisted suicide. Now he has died it’s hard to see how we will replace him. Personally I just wish I could have been there to help him;’

No comment.

Two-eyed Jack said...

It is not hard to imagine times when a lethal injection seems morally acceptable, particularly for anyone who has seen a loved one die of cancer, for example. There is a lot of pain. Palliative care primarily doses people to the point where they feel no pain, but often this is the point where they think no thoughts and loll in a fog as their life ends without much further input from them. The idea that rendering people insensate is moral, but ending their suffering through death is immoral does not strike me as particularly well-grounded.
The idea of involving physicians in (voluntary) suicides, however, seems like an awful practice. We have traditions of suicide for honor, to relieve others of burdens, and for other reasons. In stories we have characters who disappear with a pistol and a bottle of whiskey and we think better of them. Heading for the low countries' health care providers doesn't seem like the same thing.

DanTheMan said...

>>here is literally no way to have legalized euthanasia without it meaning some number of non-terminal people being killed or people being killed when they still want to live."

Today: An option
Tomorrow: Mandatory


DanTheMan said...

>>Keizer is one of around 60 physicians on the books of the Levenseindekliniek, or End of Life Clinic, which matches doctors willing to perform euthanasia with patients seeking an end to their lives, and which was responsible for the euthanasia of some 750 people in 2017.

Serial killers.


wild chicken said...

The article said the main sticking point was that perfectly healthy and capable people were demanding that doctors perform the act, shifting the responsibility to others. So some docs are refusing.

Hence the push for the ultimate chill pill.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Malpratice defined: blogging without referrencing:

https://genius.com/Smashing-pumpkins-disarm-lyrics

Wow what a site, certainly ot aggraiated overly onglerme4ated, but complamerated , eampig/

etbass said...

Searching the web determines the ads you see. I invariably find ads after searching for a plumbing item, electrical ad, item of clothes, etc. Google does this based on our searching. Many times it is the same company whose web site I visited.

Michael McNeil said...

I'm not sure if easing one's way out of the world is really the right way of looking at the matter — at least for those who are not effectively undergoing severe torture at the time — from Aldous Huxley's point of view anyway (quoting…):

You mean what everybody means nowadays… Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma.

(/unQuote)

(Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop, 1944)

Sounds like Huxley himself preferred the idea of facing the Life-Death transition face-on: such as, perhaps, at most with a dose of LSD rather than (a lot of) opium.

Ann Althouse said...

The ads are served by Google, based on something about YOU.

I’m getting an ad for Square Space.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

John said:

I'm going out on a limb here, but I would guess that most people in end-of-life situations are not physically able to either blow their brains out, concoct a lethal potion, or find an ice flow. It seems we rarely get to choose the means and time of our death.

You're absolutely right about that-=we don't get to choose when or how most of the time, and certainly most people near death can't leap into a car, drive out into the country, and shoot themselves (as my father did).

The euthanasia issue is a knotty problem, but I don't want responsibility for the death of anyone--when my uncle was dying the doctors used to call me up and harangue me about pulling the plug; they dismissed all my objections; and finally became very aggressive and abusive. But I had told my grandmother I would take care of him and by God, that's what I intended to do.

Nor do I want my kids to be made into my killers. I think the guilt would be severe.

I agree with you, though, that nothing is ever as simple as we, or at least I, try to make it.

Mark said...

It is hardly the first time in history. Others have done it, and others have expressed the exact same sentiments to justify it.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, only 70 years or so, the world was repulsed at such things and hanged the people who practiced it.

Mark said...

Let's dispense with the slippery slope, shall we?

The evil of now is bad enough without worrying about the next evil of tomorrow.

Focus on today's evil and on the psychopaths that gleefully promote it while perverting the idea of mercy.

Mark said...

De facto euthanasia -- killing of the infirm -- has long been an unspoken practice in this country. Often committed without the knowledge, or against the will, of the patient and/or his or her family.

A certain nurse who formerly commented here before someone else fraudulently adopted her name used to try to justify it.

DanTheMan said...

>>perfectly healthy and capable people

I don't think you can be "perfectly healthy and capable", and want to kill yourself.

Murder is not normal act done by healthy and capable people. Either to others or to themselves.



RK said...

"How many of those who support euthanasia are opposed to animal shelters that kill unwanted animals?"

I have euthanized my pets when the time was right. What time is that? It most often involved difficulty breathing. Once it was a look of despair from a dog beyond her life expectancy who could no longer control her bowels.

I personally don't plan to waste away slowly and painfully, but we'll see what happens.

Guildofcannonballs said...

https://www.steynonline.com/9135/primal-fear

no "Tutu soso" wit but what else is there?

Malpracticed Defined.

RK said...

I stopped listening to 'ethicists' when a University of Minnesota version of one fretted on television about the prospect of a "death booth on every street corner". Useless nitwit.

Anthony said...


Blogger Bill Peschel said...
What worries me most about euthanasia is how easy it is to abuse that power.


My mom had a stroke and was wheelchair bound for over three years. She was miserable, having been an active and independent woman right up until that moment. It broke my heart to see her mostly unable to communicate. Or have trouble doing the simplest of things, like drinking from a straw.

She eventually got fed up with it all and stopped eating and drinking and taking her meds. It was her decision. But it killed me that she had to suffer for almost a week before she died. God DAMN it.

I wish we could allow people to kill themselves humanely and peacefully when they're ready. I really do. But I also know that it would be horribly abused.

So I don't know what to do.

alanc709 said...

Its not a very long road from euthanasia to eugenics

Lezer said...

In 2016 the number of official cases of euthanasia in the Netherlands was 6,091 which was 4% of total deaths in the Netherlands.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_Netherlands

As a Dutch citizen I greatly value the possibility to have my life ended in case of unbearable and hopeless suffering. It’s very moving to see how concerned and alarmed Americans are about our euthanasia practice, but they can be assured that no one in this world, not even the Dutch, will allow themselves to be murdered against their will. If I do not choose to have my life terminated, it’s not going to happen.

I like Americans, but they are not the measure of all things in this world. I could, in turn, hold forth about the fact that the number of gun-related deaths per capita in the US is 20.6 times that of the Netherlands, but I won’t. The Dutch aren’t the measure of all things either, you know.

Lezer/Kassaar

Greg Hlatky said...

I could, in turn, hold forth about the fact that the number of gun-related deaths per capita in the US is 20.6 times that of the Netherlands, but I won’t.

Mostly that's Democrats shooting Democrats.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Feste abested us all.

Numeruosly waylly.

Rob said...

Has anyone checked whether Keyser was in fact Kevin Spacey in a reprise of his role as Keyser Söze?

Fen said...

"that the number of gun-related deaths per capita in the US is 20.6 times that of the Netherlands"

Netherlands. Population 17 million.
United States. Population 330 million.

Did you know that Lemonade Stands, while profitable locally, are not profitable on a national level?

But I bet they would do just fine in the Netherlands.

Forgot why. It's a word... rhymes with scalability.






Yancey Ward said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yancey Ward said...

My father passed away in August. He suffered from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. The last year of his life was pretty miserable. After a mental break in August of 2017, he rarely knew where he was even though he had lived in this house for the last 22 years, and from the Parkinson's he had Lewy Body Syndrome that caused hallucinations that out of you could not reason him. Even so, he knew his condition enough to discuss it with myself and my mother, his caregivers. I know for a fact that he considered at times ending it directly by his own hand- he had started mentioning to his doctors that he might we interested in ending it. My mother and I both gently told him that wasn't necessary just yet, as did his physicians, but I did start expecting to find him one day hanged in his bedroom.

At the end of this past July, after fairly good 2-3 months (he had a change in medication in April that had calmed him, helped him to sleep better at night, and sharpened his mental focus a bit), he developed a really bad case of sciatica that impaired his ability to walk. Given his physical deterioration, I knew that if he didn't walk without aid in a week or two, he never would again. For a week, my mother and I helped him walk through the house, but then he couldn't even do that, so we wheeled him in the chair helping in transferring him to and from the bed for a few days, and then he could no longer even stand up enough for that- I was literally picking him up and putting him down. After one last consultation with a doctor that didn't result any relief from the back and leg pain, my father just stopped eating, and he stopped drinking more than a sip to wet his mouth. My mother and I debated having him hospitalized and force fed, but chose against it when he made it clear that he wanted hospice care.

After he was enrolled in hospice care, he never left the bed again. We got morphine from from the hospice care agency and used it to minimize as much as possible his pain, though it wasn't always effective. It took 8 days of not eating or drinking for him to slip into a permanent coma and then another week to die. I did, at times, think about giving him enough to end it during that last week, but didn't do so.

If he had had the option to take an injection and end it that first day he decided to stop eating and drinking, I think he would have taken it, and I don't think I would stopped him from doing so. Watching someone you love waste away like that is emotionally wrecking. In my father's case, there was no hope of recovery to a life he was willing to live, so I understand his decision, but I am also glad that it was his decision and actions and not mine- I feel guilty enough without that on my conscience.

rhhardin said...

According to a then young veterinarian in a mailer to clients, euthanasia is from Latin meaning good death.

stevew said...

RE: the Ads.

They know who you are. They know where you search and browse and what you buy. They have a good idea of your age, buying habits, income, and interests. They know all this for lots of other people too. They make recommendations to you based on what they know about you and what others like you research and buy.

Question for you: how accurate is it? The less you are interested in what they show and recommend, the more incomplete their knowledge of you.

rhhardin said...

There's a book Final Exit, from the 70s, listing various ways to off yourself; my father had it on the bookshelf.

rhhardin said...

I notice from my junk mail that I own my own business and am married (Kay), neither of which is true.

RK said...

Europeans complain that we know so little about their country. Then when we talk about their country, they complain about that too. I was thinking just this morning about the German women I know and how much they like to gripe.

Fen said...

"Perhaps if you express an interest in ice cream you get Ashley Madison ads."

I suspect I am the MOST likely to have Ashley Madison show up as an advert, based on my browsing history, I'm getting ads for underarmor instead.

No rhyme or reason.

Josephbleau said...

Hard to understand why lethal injection in prisons is so difficult and claimed to be so inhumane. Apparently someone is making it difficult on purpose.

Be said...

Thos is a surprisingly introspective piece by the Guardian. Wow.

Holland being the vanguard of a medically assisted suicide movement strikes me much like Switzerland with the safe injection sites. They tried. God Bless Them.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"They know who you are. They know where you search and browse and what you buy. They have a good idea of your age, buying habits, income, and interests. They know all this for lots of other people too. They make recommendations to you based on what they know about you and what others like you research and buy."

They think I'm a tobacco chewing bro who listens to classical music, is into fashion and cheating on my husband. They got some of that wrong.

I blame Althouse.

stevew said...

:-)

It is quite imperfect, isn't it? It, the advice, gets better as time passes and the data accumulates.

Greg Hlatky said...

Europeans complain that we know so little about their country. Then when we talk about their country, they complain about that too.

Europeans are so cute when they complain about Americans.

bagoh20 said...

If you don't own the right to end your life, your suffering, your pain, then what are you, livestock, a family heirloom, a slave? Like it or not, it is a person's basic right. If not, then how can life be a right. Something that is forced on you is not a right.

Mark said...

The fact is, aside from a quadriplegic maybe, regardless of what the law may say, there is NOTHING to stop even a sick person from murdering himself. A gun, a rope, a bunch of pills, a bag over the head -- that's all it takes.

People can do their evil without making all of society complicit by giving legal approval.

bagoh20 said...

My mother died about 18 months ago. She fought cancer for years and it finally was winning with a Blitzkrieg. Near the end, she was very week and could not walk or eat. With her whole family around her, the hospice nurse attended to her during her last night. It involved repeated and increasing doses of morphine. She might have lingered on another day or so mostly unconscious or in pain without the nurse's help. Although it was unspoken, it became clear that we were sending her off that night. In hindsight that was clearly the nurse's usual M.O. in these situations, and we were there giving our approval, again unspoken. We were all grateful for the peaceful, painless way she passed. I would hope for the same myself, but quicker. It only took as long as it did, so that all involved could avoid it looking like what it really was.

John said...

Yancy,

I’m sorry for your loss.

In my sister’s case it took a little over 3 days from the point she decided it was time. That’s what people don’t realize. You have end stage pancreatic cancer or heart failure and you decide that it’s time, you have to die of thirst which takes days. Days of gasping agonizingly for life.

John said...

a bunch of pills,

They don’t give you (or your faimly) the pills until after it’s too late for you to take them. My sister lacked the sthrengh to even lift her head when the hospice delivery services arrived with the morphing and the adavan.

John said...

Ativan I mean.

William said...

I get ads for plantar fasciitis shoes. Plantar fasciitis is a progressive disease. I'll know what to do when the time comes thanks to my readings here.......,A lot of transformative experiences are over hyped. When I finished basic training, for example, I did not become more manly, either subjectively or objectively, than the day before I went in. (It did, however, teach me that high school was not the worst possible experience a young person could have.).....I do not think the death experience is overhyped though. You really do come out of it a different person.....I've read that some few are spared the experience. Mohammed and the Blessed Virgin Mary ascended directly to heaven without the bother of dying. I don't completely rule out this possibility in my case, but the odds don't favor it. I'm old, and I'm fairly certain I will die in the next ten years. If I have a terminal illness or I suffer a great deal of chronic pain, I'd just as soon take the morphine exit.

chuck said...

>"They don’t give you (or your family) the pills until after it’s too late for you to take them."

My father would have hated the way he died, but by the time he realized that he was maybe dying, his mind was nearly gone, and completely gone shortly thereafter, done in by repeated infection. He was not prepared because, when he was still cognizant, he was convinced he was going to recover.

Mark said...

They don’t give you (or your faimly) the pills

Who is this "they" you're talking about? Plenty of people just get stuff off the shelf at their nearest drug store.

William said...

I've been by the bedside of a loved one who was dying of cancer. It was the most god awful experience of my life.....,I'm not such a great person. At the back of my mind was the thought that I don't not want to go out like this. As we boomers pass into senescence and obsolescence, more and more people will be coming to this conclusion.

Lezer said...

“Netherlands. Population 17 million.
United States. Population 330 million.”

You know what “per capita” means, don’t you?

Mark said...

The only worse way of dying than from some disease or injury would be to have a "loved one" kill him/her, or the abet in the killing, or by being a murderer of himself/herself.

mockturtle said...

I don't get any ads. Guess 'they' think I'm a nothingburger. Or it's because I have Firefox AdBlock Plus.

John said...

Plenty of people just get stuff off the shelf at their nearest drug store.

I was talking about hospice. And what “off the shelf” stuff are you talking about?

mockturtle said...

Let me make something clear: Hospice nurses do not intentionally kill patients. The goal is to make dying as comfortable as possible. Most people I know who have used the service for loved ones were grateful for the caring and kindess they and their loved ones received during their final weeks. There is a major difference between comfort measures and euthanasia.

Maillard Reactionary said...

Bill Peschel @12:04 PM: Very true. That is exactly the problem, humans cannot be trusted with this power, except over their own lives. It is just too damn convenient sometimes.

My wife, who was a hospice nurse, often said that we don't let our pets suffer like this. (To her credit, she made damn sure the docs prescribed enough medication to make her people comfortable.) I replied that it is because there is too much at stake, unlike with our dogs, and human nature is too corrupt to be allowed to do this to others. She had to agree that she had seen such cases, even talked with a DA once, in a fairly blatant case (that she was not involved in directly), who decided not to act on it, letting it slide. The heirs got the money and nothing was said.

I think it is entirely appropriate for persons without dependent responsibilities to have the discretion to end their own lives if they become intolerable. As is so often the case in human affairs, though, this will not always do, as some become demented, or "locked in" due to stroke or accident, and cannot make the decision or execute the act. In such cases others must provide compassionate support and let Nature take its course, and not assume a wisdom that they do not have.

Maillard Reactionary said...

Mockturtle @7:44 PM: That is precisely true, and it was the way my wife practiced.

I do not get any ads either, and I do not think it is because either of us is a nothingburger (although I cannot rule that out in my case at least). Regarding my lack of ads, it may be because I use duckduckgo instead of the evil G-machine.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“Let me make something clear: Hospice nurses do not intentionally kill patients. The goal is to make dying as comfortable as possible. Most people I know who have used the service for loved ones were grateful for the caring and kindess they and their loved ones received during their final weeks. There is a major difference between comfort measures and euthanasia.”

Thank you!

mockturtle said...

You're welcome! :-)

Fernandinande said...

Who owns your body? You? The gov't? I heard on a Jesus freak radio station that god owns you - your life - and your money(!), and it's your responsibility to be a good steward. Does that mean you're not allowed to not suffer?

"I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." -- Mark Twain

Mark said...

I was talking about hospice.

I was talking about killing yourself, and aiding and abetting in the killing of a human being. About 400,000 people kill themselves each year.

We don't need society's caregivers to be purveyors of death.

Mark said...

Hospice nurses do not intentionally kill patients.

Some maybe. Some maybe not. A wink and a nod works just as well.

The original Inga admitted as much a couple years back.

Mark said...

Who owns your body?

No one "owns" your body. Human beings and human life are not articles of property or commerce that can be reduced to being "owned," much less being alienated.

ken in tx said...

The Ashley Madison ads I see feature a beautiful woman who looks like a girl I used to date. It's not fair.

Phunctor said...

my idea of a good death includes piles of smoking brass and dying marxists

Phunctor said...

my idea of a good death includes two piles: of smoking brass and dying marxists

n.n said...

Civilized society should not normalize planned parenthood or elective abortion (i.e. Pro-Choice) without consent. We should also not be in the business of aiding and abetting self-abortions. While both are natural rights, the former is a summary judgment, whether performed by the mother or an abortionist, and the latter can be performed at any time without external influence and shared responsibility. Civilized society should offer aid and comfort, and nothing else. Civilized individuals should certainly not collude to perform planned papoose or person. Planned Politician... well, the best wisdom suggests: mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“The original Inga admitted as much a couple years back.”

Mark, you’re a loon. First of all there is no original Inga, secondly I never ever said hospice nurses kill or want to kill their patients. Are you nuts?


“Hospice nurses do not intentionally kill patients.”

“Some maybe. Some maybe not. A wink and a nod works just as well.

The original Inga admitted as much a couple years back.”

Bob Loblaw said...

What worries me most about euthanasia is how easy it is to abuse that power.

That's what makes most people uncomfortable. How many older people are getting pressure from people they know? "Why hang on for a few more months, when you can leave your family a bigger inheritance by checking out early and painlessly? Are you selfish?"

And what about people with no family. This old guy is just a drain on society. Someone hold his hand while he signs the papers.

Paul said...

Coming soon.. Soylent Green!

Mark said...

you’re a loon

You're a fraud.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

The young veterinarian was wrong. Euthanasia does indeed mean good death, but it's from Greek, not Latin. Eugenics means good birth and eulogy means good speech, or speaking well of someone.

We used to use the phrase mercy-killing more than we do now.