Ghouls are cheering NYs new suicide law, but look what happened in the Netherlands
New York’s pro-death community must have celebrated Wednesday when the state’s Medical Aid in Dying law kicked in.But for a horrifying, real-life illustration of the slippery slope such laws face, look no further than the Netherlands.There, activists — many in the medical professions — have become part of a pernicious death cult, roaming almost at will through homes, nursing facilities and, increasingly, hospices with their macabre mantra: Death on demand, anywhere, anytime, for anyone, for any reason.It was difficult to imagine such a state of affairs getting worse, but it did when the country breached the final remaining taboo against assisted suicide and euthanasia and OK’d the medicalized killing of children between 1 and 12 years old.Until two years ago, such paths were only available to patients 12 years and older.For 12- to 16-year-olds, parental permission was required.Anyone over 18 was fair game.Infants from birth to a year old were also previously covered under statute.But two years ago, the Netherlands moved to close that age gap, authorizing the administered death of children between 1 and 12.Tragically, it didn’t take long for a child to be medically killed.Late last year, in a case just now being revealed in a government report, doctors euthanized a child under the age of 12 for the first time.Details from the Dutch health minister were sketchy, hidden behind bureaucratic mumblings about “confidentiality” and “statistics.”In the drab parlance of a bean-counting apparatchik, the minister reported that the child was “incurably ill” — a glib toady describing the case as if it were per-capita consumption of potatoes: a nameless child, nameless parents, nameless bureaucrats, nameless medical professionals, a nameless illness.These are strange omissions when the Dutch pro-deathers bang on endlessly about transparency, honesty and “guardrails.”Yet the notion of medical confidentiality rings hollow.
Confidentiality could well be...