May 2019 – Article 3:
When it comes to what’s morally right, the world increasingly gets things upside down. This is especially true in how we care for the elderly and infirm.
In southern Belgium, there’s a retirement home for aging animals that allows them to live out their final days in peace.
But don’t look for the first country to legalize euthanasia to show the same compassion for people.
A recent study shows that 40 percent of Belgium residents believe the country could save money by “no longer administering costly treatments that prolong the lives of people over 85.”
One solution? Encourage people to terminate their lives. As a result, in 2018 there were 2,357 requests to die from euthanasia in Belgium.
Euthanized for Depression in the Netherlands
The situation is even worse n the Netherlands where patients over 75 can’t get a pacemaker.
In addition, euthanasia is practiced on individuals who are not terminally ill, but are suffering from depression and psychiatric illnesses. Babies are also killed because their parents or doctors decide their suffering is too difficult to bear.
The numbers reveal the consequences of their attitude. Doctors euthanized approximately 7,000 people in 2017, up from 4,188 five years earlier.
Saving Money by Killing Patients in the US
Tragically, the United States is fast catching up as doctors and insurance companies increasingly view treating the elderly as too expensive.
In Vermont, where assisted suicide is legal, Guy Page of the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare said, “it doesn’t take a healthcare economist to see the shortest distance to finding ways to reduce healthcare costs is physician assisted suicide.”
That idea played out several years ago when an elderly Vermont woman was repeatedly pressured to submit to assisted suicide. Her ailment? A broken wrist!
In 2017, Brian Callister, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Nevada, said he unsuccessfully tried to transfer two patients out of state for better treatment.
Callister said that in both cases two different insurance companies denied the transfers while encouraging him to consider prescribing assisted suicide.
“It’s a lot cheaper to grab a couple drugs and kill you, rather than to provide life-saving therapy,” he was quoted saying.
In Oregon the state’s Medicaid program has begun informing patients that certain medications and painkillers would not be covered—but assisted suicide would be.
Since legalizing the procedure in 1997, we know of 1,459 people who have died in Oregon by assisted suicide
Eliminating Precautions in Oregon
And now Oregon lawmakers are considering speeding up the process by waiving waiting periods and expanding methods of taking the deadly drugs.
One proposal would eliminate the 15-day waiting period between the required two requests for assisted suicide to only one day.
Another measure would change how lethal drugs are administered. Currently, prescriptions must be taken orally. This new measure would permit IV injections or other methods for patients unable to swallow or self-administer taking the pills.
How did we get to this point?
Seductive Primrose Path
Whether or not to care for the elderly is an ancient debate. Over 400 years before the birth of Christ, Greek playwright Euripides wrote:
“I hate the men who would prolong their lives by foods and drinks and charms of magic art, perverting nature’s course to keep off death. They ought, when they no longer serve the land, quit this life and clear the way for youth.”
That same twisted logic has been expressed by ethicist Daniel Callahan, co-founder and professor emeritus at the Hastings Center, who suggests “the future belongs to the young, who bring new life and vitality to the human species.”
Calling the current approach to medicine a “seductive primrose path,” he suggests older people need to accept the reality of death and be willing to step aside to save precious resources for the young who contribute to society.
To accomplish that, Callahan says we need better methods to “care” for critically ill patients and less effort to “cure” them.
Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, has said the assisted suicide movement is “about allowing killing as an acceptable answer to many causes of suffering…once you open that door, it leads to virtual death-on-demand and that’s something we should all oppose.”
Physician-assisted suicide is legal in California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington State and Vermont.
Thankfully, it’s not in Georgia.
Such ideas falsely assert that Personhood—governmental recognition of the God-given sanctity of life and human dignity—somehow diminishes as we age. It tells us that our time is up and we just need to get out of the way.
God values His greatest creation at every stage of life and we should not give government the power to alter God’s plan for each of us.
Adopting a Personhood amendment to our state constitution—which Georgia Right to Life is committed to—is the only way to guarantee that all innocent human life is protected from fertilization through natural death.
Georgia Right to Life will remain vigilant to ensure the assisted suicide ban is not overturned as well as pursuing a Personhood amendment, and pro-life supporters need to be prepared to contact state legislators if necessary.
Sources: dailysignal.com; bioedge.org; churchmilitant.com; nationalreview.com; theamericanconservative.com; bbc.com; theguardian.com; scu.edu; liveaction.org.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor