Healthy, elderly who are simply “tired of living” could be allowed to end their lives with a lethal injection under new euthanasia laws being debated in the Dutch parliament.
MPs will discuss the proposals after campaigners collected more than 100,000 signatures in support.
The influential Dutch “Right to Die” campaign, which has been active since 1973, has proposed training non-medical staff to administer a lethal injection to healthy people over the age of 70 who “consider their lives complete.”
Under the new vrijwillig levenseinde or “of free will” plans, the suicide assistants would be certified and would be required to make sure that patients were not temporarily depressed and had a “heartfelt and enduring desire” to die.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of reactions, especially because people took it so seriously and reactions were mostly positive,” said Marie-Jose Grotenhuis, the campaign’s spokeswoman.
Euthanasia was legalized in Holland in 2002, and the new proposals have been backed by a majority in opinion polls.
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I can see lots of ways this could be abused. Slip a few bucks to the “assistant” to help you convince Dad that it’s time to go and you can get that house and inheritance so much sooner.
It’s a humane idea for people who are terminally ill but if someone is just “tired of living” maybe they’re more in need of some counseling or perhaps a hobby rather than the big dirt nap.
We have no say about entering this world but should have about leaving it.
Re # 2 — Disagree. The article points out a Canadian private members bill and therefore the reason for this post. I don’t like it and the bill should be killed.
The time will come when we must consider this situation but for now it’s “dead on arrival”.
“dead on arrival”.
Yeh..as Brian says, that’s what is scary about this bill.. :>P
Ahem …more seriously, life and death needs an ongoing discussion in Parliament in terms of technological advances capable of keeping us on some kind of life support indefinitely or ending it all as discussed in this post. There are both costs and moral issues around this subject.
But it would take a mature Parliament to have such a discussion and since we don’t insist on that, it will get kicked over to the SCC and our MPs and MPPs will hide behind them.
I speak to my 88 year old mom every other day, she is very interesting to talk to and I love her very much. Why do healthy old people wish to die? Maybe because they are not valued by those that they love? My Mom gives me cooking instructions, tells me about my relatives, fills me in on the latest B.C news, reminisces with me about Dad and how much we both miss his wicked sense of humour and his blunt, sensible observations. A people who do not honor, love, respect and protect their parents and their old relatives are soulless beasts, IMO. If anyone tried to inject my mom I would grab the needle and inject them.