hello group!! <3 : )-alex
thats real cool alex-emily
hey-alyson
hi-emily
i am very hungry-alex
oh-emily
maddie and alyson are over and were going to the freshman sophmore mixer!!!!!
IS ANYONE GOING TO POST THERE ACTUAL PROJECT HERE OR JUST EMAIL IT???? emily
assignments
emily- intro, what is euthanasia and why is the church against it
alyson- cancer with euthanasia and sickness
alyssa- kids and teens with euthanasia/ infantcide
alex- dr.kavorkian/terri shivo
pat- conclusion, wrap up
ALYSON
Cancer Specialists' Support for Assisting Suicide, Euthanasia Drops By Half in Four Years
Washington, DC — A study published October 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that support for assisting suicide and euthanasia among oncologists (physicians specializing in cancer treatment) declined by more than half between 1994 and 1998, a drop the study authors attributed primarily to "expanding knowledge about how to facilitate a 'good death,' making euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide no longer seem necessary or desirable."-alyson
Oncologists, who reported that they could get their dying patients all necessary care were over four times less likely to have performed euthanasia, compared to those who reported that administrative, fiscal, and other barriers allowed them to provide only some of the care needed by their dying patients. Those who reported having sufficient time to talk to dying patients and those who believed they had received adequate training in end-of-life care were less likely to have performed euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. The study authors, Dr. Ezekial Emanuel and seven others, wrote that the date "end some support to [the] concern [that] inadequate access to palliative care might make euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide attractive alternatives."-alyson
The study, with 3,299 participants, founds 22.5% of oncologists supported physician-assisted suicide (PAS), compared with 45.5% in 1994. The shift was even more dramatic with regard to euthanasia (here understood to mean the doctor killing the patient, as by lethal injection, instead of providing the patient the means to commit suicide, as in PAS). Only 6.5% supported it, compared to 22.7% in 1994. Of doctors who had actually performed PAS (10.8%), 18% had done so five or more times. Additionally, 3.7% had performed euthanasia, 12% of whom had done so five or more times.-alyson
"The significant decline in cancer specialists who support euthanasia demonstrates that the answer to pro-euthanasia activism is not to legalize killing but to redouble efforts to improve care," said Burke J. Balch, J.D., director of NRLC's Department of Medical Ethics. "You don't solve problems by getting rid of the people who have them."-alyson
Maine voters will decide November 7 whether to join Oregon in legalizing assisting suicide. A bill now before the U.S. Senate, the Pain Relief Promotion Act (passed by the House in 1999) would end the use of federally controlled drugs to assist suicide, while implementing programs to improve pain relief as a positive alternative.-alyson
Euthanasia for British couple with non-terminal illnessJeevan Vasagar and Alison Langley in Zurich
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 April 2003 07.44 BST
Article history
A British couple have been helped to commit suicide by a Swiss euthanasia group even though they were not suffering from terminal illness. Robert Stokes, 59, and his wife, Jennifer, 53, flew to Zurich at the end of March, where they drank the poison pentobarbital sodium, say Swiss police.
The couple, from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, were assisted to commit suicide by Dignitas, the Swiss organisation that has aided the deaths of more than 100 people from around the world.
Both suffered from chronic, but not necessarily terminal, illnesses. They were among five people, including another British woman, who arrived in Zurich between March 31 and April 5 and killed themselves.
The number of so-called suicide tourists is becoming an embarrassment to the Swiss authorities, and alarming anti-euthanasia campaigners.
Edwin Loescher, a Zurich district attorney, said five assisted suicides in one week was "too many - it's nearly unbearable".
Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association, which opposes euthanasia, said: "It certainly strengthens my view that it is very difficult to write the law so tightly that you don't get unexpected consequences. That has to give everyone cause for concern, whether they are for or against."
Mr Stokes had epilepsy and is believed to have undergone brain surgery in an attempt to cure chronic depression.
His wife was diabetic and is thought to have had arthritis affecting her spine, although she remained fit enough to drive a car.
After Mrs Stokes damaged her back in a fall, the couple sold their house in Dunstable and retired to a warden-controlled block of flats for the elderly in Leighton Buzzard.
The new owner of the Dunstable house said the couple had been unhappy to leave. "She had a scan on her back and was told that she would get worse and would end up in a wheelchair. That was the reason they decided to leave this house and move into a flat. They were very upset about it - they loved this house and never wanted to leave."
The couple's bodies have been returned to Britain and an inquest was opened in Luton on April 10.
Last week, Merseyside police said they would not take legal action against the widow of Reginald Crew, 74, who killed himself with the help of Dignitas. Mr Crew suffered from motor neurone disease.
Euthanasia Not About Terminal Illness Despite Advocates' Claims Email this article
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by Wesley J. Smith
October 17, 2006
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His current book is Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World.
Here is proof positive that the international drive to legalize assisted suicide/euthanasia is not really about terminal illness. The World Federation of Right to Die Societies has reissued its "Manifesto." Here it is in full. I will discuss the italicized portions of the Manifesto below:
"The World Federation of Right to Die Societies (an international nongovernmental organization) is aware of the increasing concern to many individuals over their right to die with dignity.
"Believing in the rights and freedom of all persons, we affirm this right to die with dignity, meaning in peace and without suffering. All competent adults—regardless of their nationalities, professions, religious beliefs, and ethical and political views—who are suffering unbearably from incurable illnesses should have the possibility of various choices at the end of their life.
"Death is unavoidable. We strongly believe that the manner and time of dying should be left to the decision of the individual, assuming such demands do not result in harm to society other than the sadness associated with death."
"The voluntarily expressed will of individuals, once they are fully informed of their diagnosis, prognosis and available means of relief, should be respected by all concerned as an expression of intrinsic human rights."
Notice that all competent adults with an "incurable" illness are supposed to have this right. That is not the same thing as a terminal illness. Arthritis is incurable. Asymptomatic HIV infection is incurable. So may be bi-polar disease.
Thus, the Manifesto is a call for establishing an almost open-ended right throughout the world for death on demand.
The legalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia would, by definition, harm society.
It corrupts the purposes of medicine, it discriminates against the vulnerable by permitting the facilitation of some suicides, while requiring the prevention of others, and it opens the door to the fall of a steep moral cliff as has occurred in the Netherlands where, after 30 years of euthanasia, the parliament will soon legalize eugenic infanticide.
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27 September 2007
Dutch euthanasia stats
The Care Not Killing Alliance has warned Parliament, the public and the media not to be misled by a report, published on 27th September, that downplays the risk to vulnerable people posed by the legalisation of euthanasia. The warning comes amidst fears that fresh attempts will shortly be made to legalise the practice in Britain, most likely beginning with Scotland, which is seen as a soft target by pro-euthanasia advocates. Dr Peter Saunders, Campaign Director of Care Not Killing, warned:
People should be aware that the prominence being given to this new review is part of a deliberate campaign to soften up the British public for the legalisation of euthanasia. In the Netherlands healthcare is covered by insurance, but in the UK most people rely on the State. In a cash-strapped NHS, where hospitals are being closed and elder abuse is on the rise, there is growing prejudice against the chronically ill and disabled who are seen as disproportionate consumers of limited resources. Legalising euthanasia would place vulnerable lives at risk. And the Dutch statistics, when properly examined, actually raise great cause for concern.
We should not be placing before health providers in Britain the temptation to consider euthanasia as a therapeutic option to be used in the patients' "best interests". Once euthanasia is established as a legal "therapy", it will be made the subject of cost/benefit assessment by health managers and economists. And in a cost conscious health service £5 for a lethal injection will be a tempting therapeutic option to £500 per week for effective palliative care.
Care Not Killing has always argued that legalising euthanasia would place pressure, whether real or imagined, on vulnerable people - the lonely, elderly, sick, disabled or depressed - to request early death. These people often already feel themselves to be a financial or emotional burden on relatives, carers or society and this is why they need strong legal protection. The "right" to die, can so easily become a coercive offer, a duty to die. The law should not be changed just because a small number of insistent people wish to have their lives ended by doctors. It would result in a much larger number of vulnerable people being placed at risk.
This fear was borne out by opinion polls published at the time of the defeat of Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying Bill in May 2006, which showed that 65 percent of people agreed that if the law changed "vulnerable people could feel under pressure to opt for suicide", 75% of people agreed that "people with treatable illness such as depression might opt prematurely for suicide", 73% said that a change in the law would "make it more difficult to detect rogue doctors such as Dr Harold Shipman" and 82% said that if Dutch laws were adopted here they would be concerned that people would be killed without an explicit request.
The pro-euthanasia lobby, by contrast, has attempted to reassure people that legalising euthanasia would not increase pressure on vulnerable people and has therefore campaigned to give prominence to the latest article purporting to demonstrate this, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics today.
About every five years, statistics on Dutch euthanasia are released. The figures for 2005, published in May this year and highlighted today, show that the number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands fell from 3,500 in 2001 to 2,325 in 2005. The drop, from 2.6% to 1.7% for euthanasia cases as a percentage of all deaths, may appear reassuring on the surface and this is indeed how it is being spun.
However, these figures, which were set out in a detailed report in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of Dutch doctors, including some of the country's leading advocates of euthanasia, on deeper scrutiny reveal a very different picture. They show that a small decrease in voluntary euthanasia has been more than offset by a hefty increase in what is called "terminal sedation". Patients are given drugs which sedate them "continuously and deeply" until death, in 8.2% of all deaths! To put it more starkly, voluntary euthanasia (1.7%), non-voluntary euthanasia (0.4%) and terminal sedation accompanied by withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, now account for nearly one in ten Dutch deaths. Even if we were to disregard the increasing use of "terminal sedation" by Dutch doctors the argument that legalising euthanasia in the Netherlands has not led to an increase in people having their lives ended without giving consent is deeply flawed for the very simple reason that euthanasia has been legally sanctioned in the Netherlands for over 20 years.
In 1984 the Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) ruled that performing euthanasia was ethically permissible provided certain criteria were met and the Ministry of Justice confirmed in 1985 that physicians who performed euthanasia using the KNMG's criteria and reported it to the coroner would not be prosecuted. In other words the legalisation of VAE and PAS occurred in 1984 not 2002, and notably before any of the official surveys were carried out.
Furthermore, the courts have interpreted the law extremely liberally underlined by the paucity of convictions of doctors for non-voluntary euthanasia (which has never been legalised) and the leniency of sentences imposed on doctors found guilty of breaking the law.
It is therefore quite disingenuous to argue that the official surveys have revealed no significant increase in non-voluntary euthanasia as a result of legalisation. The law, indeed the whole legal climate, had changed seven years before the first official survey was published in 1991. As early as 1990 over 1,000 Dutch citizens per year were having their lives ended by doctors without their consent. Non-voluntary euthanasia was rampant in 1990 and is equally rampant now. Dutch doctors who practise euthanasia are not on the slippery slope. From the very beginning, they have been at the bottom. These concerns were further heightened in 2005 when Dutch doctors instituted the Groningen protocol, enabling the killing of severely disabled children.
Dr Saunders concluded: 'Britain should not be going down the Dutch road. Instead, we need the excellent palliative care already available in this country to be made much more widely accessible. There are no full time palliative care posts in the Netherlands at all. This, together with the fact that patients with the worst symptoms are most likely to request euthanasia, makes a strong case for making good palliative care more widely accessible. Requests for euthanasia are extremely rare when the needs of dying patients are properly met'.
Care Not Killing
Notes for Editors
Care Not Killing is a UK-based alliance bringing together around 50 organisations - human rights and disability rights organisations, health care and palliative care groups, faith-based organisations groups - and thousands of concerned individuals.
We have three key aims:
to promote more and better palliative care;
to ensure that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed during the lifetime of the current Parliament;
to inform public opinion further against any weakening of the law.
We seek to attract the broadest support among health care professionals, allied health services and others opposed to euthanasia by campaigning on the basis of powerful arguments underpinned by the latest, well-researched and credible evidence.
Key groups signed up to Care Not Killing include: The Association for Palliative Medicine, the United Kingdom Disabled People's Council, RADAR, the Christian Medical Fellowship, the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, the Church of England and the Medical Ethics Alliance.
For more information, broadcasting bids and media inquiries
Nick Wood of Media Intelligence Partners
07889 617 003 or 0203 008 8146
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Care Not Killing - Promoting palliative care, Opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide
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EMILY
MURDER SUICIDE AND GENOCIDE CAN ALL BE WRAPPED UP IN ONE WORD EUTHANASIA
First, though, it might help to review some basics. Assisted suicide happens when a person commits suicide with the help of someone else. Jack Kevorkian, disbarred from medical practice in 1991, is the best known of these helpers. He sets up a machine and the person who wishes to die operates it. Voluntary euthanasia, on the other hand, occurs when someone kills another person at that person’s request, presumably to end suffering or some other undesirable condition. Withdrawal of medical equipment which is creating more burden than benefit is neither suicide nor euthanasia: The Church teaches that it is ethical to withdraw useless medical intervention and accept natural death. The Church also teaches that drugs used to eliminate pain are desirable, even if they hasten inevitable death.-emily
The position of the Catholic Church is very clear on the subject of euthanasia. The Church teaches that human life is sacrosanct, and to take it is a sin. Self defense is an exception to this rule. Suicide has always been a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church, as was assisting someone commit suicide. There is no exception in this rule for doctors. However there are a few circumstances in which passive euthanasia is considered to be acceptable. If a patient is going to die, and painkillers will ease their passing but cut a few days off their life, the Church teaches that the painkillers can be given. (Yacc Labs, catholic-ew ) When possible however, the patient should be conscious up until the end, so that they can make their peace with their family and their God. The Church also accepts that sometimes aggressive medical treatment to prolong the life of someone who is going to die, is too painful and expensive, and that the patient should be allowed to die. On the whole though, the Church is very much against euthanasia.-emily
No one can make an attempt on the life of an innocent person without opposing God's love for that person, without violating a fundamental right, and therefore without committing a crime of the utmost gravity.[4]
2. Everyone has the duty to lead his or her life in accordance with God's plan. That life is entrusted to the individual as a good that must bear fruit already here on earth, but that finds its full perfection only in eternal life.
3. Intentionally causing one's own death, or suicide, is therefore equally as wrong as murder; such an action on the part of a person is to be considered as a rejection of God's sovereignty and loving plan. Furthermore, suicide is also often a refusal of love for self, the denial of the natural instinct to live, a flight from the duties of justice and charity owed to one's neighbor, to various communities or to the whole of society—although, as is generally recognized, at times there are psychological factors present that can diminish responsibility or even completely remove it.
However, one must clearly distinguish suicide from that sacrifice of one's life whereby for a higher cause, such as God's glory, the salvation of souls or the service of one's brethren, a person offers his or her own life or puts it in danger (cf. Jn. 15:14).-emily
Ultimately, the word euthanasia is used in a more particular sense to mean "mercy killing," for the purpose of putting an end to extreme suffering, or saving abnormal babies, the mentally ill or the incurably sick from the prolongation, perhaps for many years, of a miserable life, which could impose too heavy a burden on their families or on society. -emily
By euthanasia is understood an action or an omission which of itself or by intention causes death, in order that all suffering may in this way be eliminated. Euthanasia's terms of reference, therefore, are to be found in the intention of the will and in the methods used.
It is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action. For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity.
It may happen that, by reason of prolonged and barely tolerable pain, for deeply personal or other reasons, people may be led to believe that they can legitimately ask for death or obtain it for others. Although in these cases the guilt of the individual may be reduced or completely absent, nevertheless the error of judgment into which the conscience falls, perhaps in good faith, does not change the nature of this act of killing, which will always be in itself something to be rejected. The pleas of gravely ill people who sometimes ask for death are not to be understood as implying a true desire for euthanasia; in fact, it is almost always a case of an anguished plea for help and love. What a sick person needs, besides medical care, is love, the human and supernatural warmth with which the sick person can and ought to be surrounded by all those close to him or her, parents and children, doctors and nurses.-emily
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http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11881 http://www.rsrevision.com/GCSE/christian_perspectives/life/euthanasia/bible.htm
No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death." - Ecclesiastes 8:8Murder, suicide and genocide can all be described in one horrible term. Euthanasia. It is an awful word that describes the act of assisted suicide, or helping someone kill themselves. As Catholics we totally oppose the act of taking a life or helping someone take their own life. The fifth commandment says “Thou shall not kill”. This directly states where the Roman Catholic Church stands on the issue of euthanasia. God is the sole creator of us and only he should decide when our lives should end. The Church declares that life is a sacred, holy thing. To help kill or more directly murder a human being would be a grave sin. A passage in the Bible from Ecclesiastes proclaims “No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death.”
On May 5, 1980 created a Doctrine of Faith on Euthanasia.
Pope reaffirms Church’s stance against euthanasia
Comments: 2
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Pope Benedict XVI - Biography
Pope tells why he chose the name of "Benedict XVI"
Vatican City, Feb 25, 2008 / 11:01 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict received participants in an international congress entitled: "Close by the Incurable Sick Person and the Dying: Scientific and Ethical Aspects" today and reiterated that the Church is against all forms of euthanasia.
The event which brought the specialists to the Vatican is being promoted by the Pontifical Academy for Life as part of their general assembly. The gathering will take place in the Vatican over the coming days.
Reflecting on the moment of death, the Pope said that it “concludes the experience of earthly life, but through death there opens for each of us, beyond time, the full and definitive life. ... For the community of believers, this encounter between the dying person and the Source of Life and Love represents a gift that has a universal value, that enriches the communion of the faithful".
This moment of encounter, the Holy Father emphasized should draw the community along with close relatives around the dying person in support as they face the last moments of their life. "No believer", he said, "should die alone and abandoned".
Benedict XVI also spoke of the larger societal dimension of respecting those who are ill or dying. All society "is called to respect the life and dignity of the seriously ill and the dying", he said. "Though aware of the fact that 'it is not science that redeems man', all society, and in particular the sectors associated with medical science, are duty bound to express the solidarity of love, and to safeguard and respect human life in every moment of its earthly development, especially when it is ill or in its terminal stages.
"In more concrete terms", he added, "this means ensuring that every person in need finds the necessary support through appropriate treatments and medical procedures - identified and administered using criteria of therapeutic proportionality - while bearing in mind the moral duty to administer (on the part of doctors) and to accept (on the part of patients) those means for preserving life which, in a particular situation, may be considered as 'ordinary'".
As for forms of treatment "with significant levels of risk or that may reasonably be judged to be 'extraordinary', recourse thereto may be considered as morally acceptable, but optional. Furthermore, it will always be necessary to ensure that everyone has the treatment they require, and that families tried by the sickness of one of their members receive support, especially if the sickness is serious or prolonged".
Pope Benedict also pointed to how society can improve its support for the dying or seriously ill.
Just as when a child is born family members have specific rights to take time off work, said the Pope, in the same way "similar rights must be recognized" to the relatives of the terminally ill. "A greater respect for individual human life inevitably comes through the concrete solidarity of each and all, and constitutes one of the most pressing challenges of our times".
After raising the issue of how it is becoming more common for elderly people in large cities to be alone "even in moments of serious illness and when approaching death", the Holy Father noted that such situations increase pressures towards euthanasia, "especially when a utilitarian view of people has become established".
In this context, the Holy Father once again recalled "the firm and constant ethical condemnation of all forms of direct euthanasia, in keeping with the centuries-long teaching of the Church".
"The synergetic efforts of civil society and of the community of believers must ensure not only that everyone is able to live in a dignified and responsible way, but also that they can face moments of trial and of death in the finest condition of fraternity and solidarity, even where death comes in a poor family or a hospital bed".
Society, said the Pontiff, must "ensure due support to families who undertake to care in the home, sometimes for long periods, sick members who are afflicted with degenerative conditions, ... or who need particularly costly assistance. ... It is above all in this field that synergy between the Church and the institutions can prove particularly important in ensuring the necessary help for human life in moments of frailt http://www.blurtit.com/q126508.html http://www.socyberty.com/Issues/The-Morality-of-Euthanasia.19987 http://www.euthanasia.com/vatican.html
'ALEX
ALYSSA
Doctors Criticize Euthanasia of Children
Zenit.org
Monday, Sept. 6, 2004 http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/9/5/150622.shtml
ROME — Catholic doctors warned that the new practice in Holland to euthanize children is another step towards a society in which life is not respected.
Story Continues Below
The World Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations published a statement in response to the decision to allow Groningen University Hospital to euthanize children under 12 when their suffering is intolerable, or if they have an incurable illness.
The document states that this initiative "is another violent laceration of the very fundamentals of our social coexistence."
"Officially aimed at putting an end to 'unbearable suffering,' in fact it permits the killing of human beings without their consent," the statement continues, signed by Dr. Gian Luigi Gigli, president of the federation.
"This happens in a society, as the Dutch one, in which euthanasia on adults has been legally performed even on depressed persons and where, as documented by official studies, there is already an illegal but tolerated euthanasia performed by physicians" on patients who have not given their consent, the statement adds.
The "decision proposes a death solution in situations which could be addressed by modern palliative care," the Catholic doctors stress.
Moreover, "the decision raises the suspicion of a financial interest of the public authorities, since it decreases the 'burden' of prolonged and expensive care in clinical conditions for which any extension of life duration is considered meaningless," the statement continues.
Worse yet, "it opens the door on a national scale to the 'mercy killing' of other mentally incompetent persons, to be eliminated without their consent for reasons based on an external appreciation of their quality of life," said the federation.
This move is also in line with the Aug. 26 decision of the Kentucky Supreme Court, which granted legal authority to the state to end the life of one of its citizens, the statement adds.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Euthanasia+for+children-a0132466046
Euthanasia for children.
Link to this page
<a href="Euthanasia">http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Euthanasia+for+children-a0132466046">Euthanasia for children.</a>
On August 30, 2004, the Dutch judiciary authorized the University Hospital in the province of Groningen to carry out the "mercy killingmercy killing: see euthanasia.
..... Click the link for more information." of children under the age of 2. This includes newborns when they are suffering from incurable diseasesThe following is a list of debilitating diseases for which medical science has no cure as of yet. This list is incomplete.
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia
Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Acquired Immune Defficiency Syndrome (AIDS) see also HIV
Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD)
..... Click the link for more information. or undergoing unbearable suffering. This can easily lead to the practice of arbitrarily deciding which youngsters will live and which will die, observed Father Gonzalo Miranda, dean of the School of Bioethics bioethics, in philosophy, a branch of ethics concerned with issues surrounding health care and the biological sciences. These issues include the morality of abortion, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, and organ transplants (see transplantation, medical). of Rome's Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University A pontifical university is a Roman Catholic university established by and directly under the authority of the Holy See. It is licensed to grant academic degrees in sacred faculties, the most important of which are Sacred Theology, Canon Law, Sacred Scripture and Philosophy. , in an interview with Zenit.
Dr. Eduard Verhagen Eduard Verhagen is clinical director of pediatrics at the University of Groningen. He is mainly known for his involvement in infant euthanasia in the Netherlands.
Euthanasia, while legal for adults, is illegal for children under the age of 12 in the Netherlands. , speaking for the Groningen Academic Hospital in the Netherlands, has asserted that euthanasia of infants is occurring worldwide, and that the country's eight teaching hospitals support the request for a panel to consider guidelines for euthanasia for people with "no free will" (consciencelaws.org).
This measure, he said, demonstrates that the proverbial "slippery slope'slippery slope' Medical ethics An ethical continuum or 'slope,' the impact of which has been incompletely explored, and which itself raises moral questions that are even more on the ethical 'edge' than the original issue
..... Click the link for more information." theory is correct. Once a principle is established according to according to
prep.
1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.
2. In keeping with: according to instructions.
3. which a human being can be killed because he suffers, then logically it extends to all human beings who say they suffer—even if this is not true. Moreover, this new provision allows the killing of human beings who cannot speak for themselves—the murder of someone who cannot express what he is thinking. Ours is a culture in which death is seen as a solution for children who suffer. Who can say that another's life is not worth living and that the best thing for a person is to die? Another Roman spokesman, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, also saw a verification of the slippery slope argument (Osservatore Romano, Sept. 3, 2004). Once mercy-killing for the conscious adult who has asked for it becomes legal, then it will be extended to youths, with the consent of their parents, and, finally, to children and newborns—without their consent, he said. In the coming years, euthanasia will continue to expand until it includes adults incapable of giving consent, such as the mentally ill. The underlying reason rests on the assumption that there are no absolute values that have to be respected. Once monetary reasons such as an inheritance begin to play a role, the slippery slope becomes uncontrollable.
Dr. Claudia Navarini, professor of ethics at Regina Apostolorum, sees the recent Dutch decision as closing the distance with the former Nazi practices of euthanasia. Nazi euthanasia meant doing away with citizens considered of lesser value. The same is true in the case of euthanasia of newborns or children. There is no question of acceptance by the patient. The killing is no longer an act of mercy In evasion and recovery operations, assistance rendered to evaders by an individual or elements of the local population who sympathize or empathize with the evaders' cause or plight. See also evader; evasion; evasion and recovery; recovery; recovery operations. because of the person's intolerable pain, but an act of intolerance on the part of the person witnessing the one suffering. (Zenit, Sept. 13, 16, 2004).
"The case involved a mildly retarded black male, Matthew Woods, who was placed on a ventilator after suffering cardiac arrest at the age of 54. The state requested permission to remove his life support, contrary to the wishes of Woods' guardian ad litem," the statement explains.
The statement appeals to "medical doctors still committed to the Hippocratic Oath, to feel the moral imperative to contrast the slippery slope that, step by step, is permitting the public authorities to take decisions on which lives are worthy to be lived."
"The next steps will be the mental capacity bill under scrutiny by the British Parliament, and the attempt by local authorities to change the ethical code of Belgian doctors," the statement stresses.
"The risks of such an attitude, in terms of violence and discrimination, should be evident for physicians and call them to resist and fight," the statement concludes. ZE04090305
Proposals from Belgian government officials would give teenagers the right to assisted suicide and parents of terminally ill children the right to have their children euthanized. The plans by members of Belgium’s coalition government call for the extension of rules allowing physicians to perform euthanasia on terminally ill people suffering “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain.”
Since 2002, the law allows patients — other than newborn babies — to be over 18 years of age to qualify for assisted suicide. Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium Liberals, wants to change the law by extending euthanasia to children and elderly persons who are unable to choose for themselves.
Belgium’s legal standards allow euthanasia on infants. Of those Belgian babies who die before their first birthday, more than half are killed by deliberate medical intervention. In 16 per cent of the cases, parental consent was not considered.
Teenagers should be given the right to medically assisted suicide and the parents of terminally ill younger children should be able to choose euthanasia under proposals from members of Belgium’s coalition government.
The plans to extend rules allowing doctors to perform euthanasia on terminally ill people suffering “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain” comes amid heated Belgian debate on the issue.
Under existing Belgian laws, in place since 2002, patients, other than newborn babies, must be over 18 to qualify for assisted suicide, a situation that Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium Liberals, wants changed.
Mr Tommelein, whose party is a key member of Belgium’s coalition government, has pledged to bring forward new legislative proposals extending euthanasia to children and old people suffering from such severe dementia that they are unable to choose for themselves.
“We will seek, as Liberals, parliamentary majorities,” Mr Tommelein said.
The ethical debate will mean another headache for Belgium’s new Prime Minister Yves Leterme and his fragile government, which took power last week after a nine-month political crisis.
Cardinal Danneels, Belgium’s Catholic Cardinal, used his Easter sermon to start a polarised national debate on euthanasia.
“Avoiding suffering is no act of bravery,” he said. “Our society seems unable to cope with death and suffering.”
The Cardinal has reacted to Belgian media “glorification” of the “brave” euthanasia least week of Hugo Claus, a Flemish writer suffering from Alzheimers disease.
There are more than 39 cases of euthanasia declared by doctors in Belgium every month, but the true figure is thought to be double that.
Euthanasia is currently permitted on infants and more than half of the Belgian babies who die before they are 12 months old have been killed by deliberate medical intervention.
In 16 per cent of cases parental consent was not considered.
Via The Telegraph
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/616jszlg.asp
FIRST, Dutch euthanasia advocates said that patient killing will be limited to the competent, terminally ill who ask for it. Then, when doctors began euthanizing patients who clearly were not terminally ill, sweat not, they soothed: medicalized killing will be limited to competent people with incurable illnesses or disabilities. Then, when doctors began killing patients who were depressed but not physically ill, not to worry, they told us: only competent depressed people whose desire to commit suicide is "rational" will have their deaths facilitated. Then, when doctors began killing incompetent people, such as those with Alzheimer's, it's all under control, they crooned: non-voluntary killing will be limited to patients who would have asked for it if they were competent.
And now they want to euthanize children.
In the Netherlands, Groningen University Hospital has decided its doctors will euthanize children under the age of 12, if doctors believe their suffering is intolerable or if they have an incurable illness. But what does that mean? In many cases, as occurs now with adults, it will become an excuse not to provide proper pain control for children who are dying of potentially agonizing maladies such as cancer, and doing away with them instead. As for those deemed "incurable"—this term is merely a euphemism for killing babies and children who are seriously disabled.
For anyone paying attention to the continuing collapse of medical ethics in the Netherlands, this isn't at all shocking. Dutch doctors have been surreptitiously engaging in eugenic euthanasia of disabled babies for years,
although it technically is illegal, since infants can't consent to be killed. Indeed, a disturbing 1997 study published in the British medical journal, the Lancet, revealed how deeply pediatric euthanasia has already metastasized into Dutch neo natal medical practice: According to the report, doctors were killing approximately 8 percent of all infants who died each year in the Netherlands. That amounts to approximately 80-90 per year. Of these, one-third would have lived more than a month. At least 10-15 of these killings involved infants who did not require life-sustaining treatment to stay alive. The study found that a shocking 45 percent of neo-natologists and 31 percent of pediatricians who responded to questionnaires had killed infants.
It took the Dutch almost 30 years for their medical practices to fall to the point that Dutch doctors are able to engage in the kind of euthanasia activities that got some German doctors hanged after Nuremberg. For those who object to this assertion by claiming that German doctors killed disabled babies during World War II without consent of parents, so too do many Dutch doctors: Approximately 21 percent of the infant euthanasia deaths occurred without request or consent of parents. Moreover, since when did parents attain the moral right to have their children killed?
Euthanasia consciousness is catching. The Netherlands' neighbor Belgium decided to jump off the same cliff as the Dutch only two years ago. But already, they have caught up with the Dutch in their freefall into the moral abyss. The very first Belgian euthanasia of a person with multiple sclerosis violated the law; and just as occurs routinely in the Netherlands, the doctor involved faced no consequences. Now Belgium is set to legalize neo-pediatric euthanasia. Two Belgian legislators justify their plan to permit children to ask for their own mercy killing on the basis that young people "have as much right to choose" euthanasia as anyone else. Yet, these same children who are supposedly mature enough to decide to die would be ineligible to obtain a driver's license.
Why does accepting euthanasia as a remedy for suffering in very limited circumstances inevitably lead to never-ending expansion of the killing license? Blame the radically altered mindset that results when killing is redefined from a moral wrong into a beneficent and legal act. If killing is right for, say the adult cancer patient, why shouldn't it be just as right for the disabled quadriplegic, the suicidal mother whose children have been killed in an accident, or the infant born with profound mental retardation? At that point, laws and regulations erected to protect the vulnerable against abuse come to be seen as obstructions that must be surmounted. From there, it is only a hop, skip, and a jump to deciding that killing is the preferable option.
PAT
