"The Culture of Death is Heroin"

I have a piece in the new Center for Bioethics and the Culture Newsletter, expanding on my earlier SHS comment about a new "how-to-commit-suicide" book in the Netherlands. It is a pretty good nutshell summary of the collapse of Dutch medical ethics and what happens when euthanasia is is accepted as a legitimate answer to the problem of human suffering. Check it out.

Dutch Medical Standards: Killing Patients OK in Euthanasia Land, but not Alternative Treatments

Get this story out of Euthanasia Land--a.k.a. the Netherlands: A physician has lost his medical license for attempting to treat his dying cancer patient with an alternative treatment. I am not for quackery, of course, and the physician may well deserve the harsh punishment. But this extreme sanction is being imposed by the same medical establishment that would have applauded had the doctor killed his patient in euthanasia instead of trying a questionable approach to keeping her alive. This is the same medical establishment that huffs and puffs at any government action, rare though they are, that would meaningfully punish doctors who break the country's euthanasia laws, and which, for example, winks at "termination without request or consent," the Dutch term for euthanizing patients who have not asked to be killed. This is the same medical establishment that has applauded infanticide and who are now urging that eugenic baby killing be legalized. Bottom line: In the Netherlands a doctor can kill patients, whether or not they ask to be killed, murder disabled and dying babies, and confidently expect the support of their medical peers. But engage in questionable treatments for a dying patient and lose the right to practice medicine. What a travesty.

HT: Bob Hiltner