Euthanizing the Elderly With Macular Degeneration in the Netherlands

Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Wesley J. Smith

Excerpt:
And this is a real indictment of Dutch medical “ethics:”

The committee must therefore decide whether the patient’s suffering was caused by a medically recognised condition. In this connection it notes that, under the existing due care criteria, suffering that is unbearable with no prospect of improvement must be largely due to a medically recognised condition. However, there is no requirement that this should be a serious condition…The committee noted that macular degeneration is a medically recognised condition. There is no effective treatment for it, or any prospect of improvement. What this means is that this case is not a ‘finished with life’ situation as defined above, and that the physician’s actions lay within the medical field…The committee found that the physician acted in accordance with the statutory due care criteria.

Good grief. Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
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