covici@ccs.portal.com (John Covici) (03/22/91)
Index Number: 14122
Scientific American Magazine Promotes
Dutch Model of Nazi Euthanasia
CLUB OF LIFE
by Linda Everett
The March 1991 issue of Scientific
American magazine presents a ringing
endorsement of Nazi euthanasia crimes
as practiced in the Netherlands today.
In his Science and the Citizen
column, staff writer John Horgan writes
under the headline, ``Death with
Dignity: The Dutch explore the limits
of a patient's right to die.'' He
starts off with views from the sleeping
pills-and-plastic bag-over-the-head
crowd in the U.S., and moves on to
Dutch lawyers and physicians ready to
kill children and the mentally ill
(``we don't want to discriminate''). In
between, Horgan tells how easy it is to
get away with killing--just like the
Nazis--except here it's called ``the
last dignified act in the health care
process.''
- Death Rules -
The Dutch do it by following some
basic rules and techniques to make the
killing tidy and legal. Dutch death
rules go like this: Patients must
explicitly express the ``desire to
die''; must be suffering with severe
physical or mental pain with no
prospect for relief and no options for
care; the killing must be done by a
``qualified'' physician, after
consultation with another doctor; and
the coroner must be alerted. If the
prosecutor suspects a death occurred
``improperly,'' he may call for an
investigation.
Minors too may obtain euthanasia
over their parents' objections--they
might have ``immature judgments,''
while the child may have ``mature
judgment,'' in the revolting
doublespeak Dutch death doctors use.
- Against Their Will -
It is only as an afterthought that
Horgan raises the possibility that
Dutch patients are being killed against
their will, and he raises it only to
disparage Dr. Richard Fenigsen, a
Jewish Polish cardiologist who has
documented the widespread killing in
Holland of nursing home residents and
unconscious hospital patients who are
judged to be a burden to society.
In fact, Fenigsen says the Dutch
Royal Society of Medicine advocated
{involuntary} euthanasia. The Dutch
Patients' Association had to place
warnings in the press that patients in
many hosptials are being killed without
their will or consent, or that of their
families. Horgan reports none of this.
Instead, he considers if the Dutch
system would work here, and asks those
who reject the basis of all Western
medical science, the sanctity of human
life. Thus, he consults Sister Corrine
Bayley, who kills via ``ethics''
committee, and Margaret Pabst-Battin,
who pushes suicide advocacy. Both
differ with the Dutch only in methods
used to dispatch people.
Horgan may be writing a
``science'' column for a ``science''
journal--but he is advocating the
opposite of science, whose purpose is
enhancement of the human condition. He
and his co-thinkers surely don't want
to call euthanasia a Nazi crime, but
you can. You can reach Horgan's editor,
Jonathan Piel, at (212) 754-0550. Tell
him the Club of Life sent you.
You can also use the letter below as a sort of model to write to
Scientific American. This letter was written by Club Of Life U.S.A. to
Mr. Piel.
Jonathan Piel
Scientific American, Inc.
415 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10017
March 11, 1991
Mr. Piel:
John Horgan's recent article on the euthanasia policies
of the Netherlands is truly outrageous for several reasons, and
we must vigorously protest its publication ("SCIENCE and the
CITIZEN", March 1991, "Death with Dignity, The Dutch explore
the limits of a patient's right to die").
Have you and your staff completely forgotten that one of
the crimes against humanity for which the post-World War II
International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg indicted, tried,
and executed leaders of the Third Reich was the crimes of
euthanasia? It was we, Americans, who insisted that the
Tribunal hold these trials to assure that the world would
never again experience so heinous a "program (which) involved
the systematic and secret execution of the aged, insane,
incurably ill, of deformed children, and other persons, by gas,
lethal injections and diverse other means in nursing homes,
hospitals, and asylums. Such persons were regarded as 'useless
eaters' and a burden..."
That historical precedent still stands--no matter what
today's Dutch doctors and lawyers--who also consider killing
sick children and the mentally ill ("We don't want to
discriminate against the mentally disturbed..")--might say.
When society allows the intentional killing of individuals,
whether by direct means as is done in Dutch hospitals or by the
methods utilized in American facilities by withholding or
withdrawing life-sustaining care or nutrition and hydration,
that society tacitly says these lives are "not worth living".
The American "ethicists" that Horgan consulted in his
article utilize exactly that rationale to terminate lives every
day. They help decide if one lives or dies according to his or
her "quality of life". Margaret Pabst-Battin, whom Horgan also
consulted says its unethical for psychiatrists to restrain
suicidal patients with a poor quality of life from committing
suicide.
Besides dismissing Dr. Fenisgsen's numerous
investigations into the wide-spread involuntary killing of
nursing homes residents and unconscious hospital patients--
Horgan never once even intimates a concern for the overall
rampant willingness to terminate human life by the
euthanasia/suicide movement. Rather, he implies a rejection of
the sole impetus for the existence of Western medical science,
the sacredness of all human life.
We believe that the crisis each and every individual
faces with a devastating disease must be matched by the
committement and creativity of our physicians to find a way to
save them. That's the kind of compassion that spurs a national
mandate to conquor killer diseases and crippling disabilities,
including the ravages of pain that might drive some victims to
despair.
Horgan may be writing a "science" column for a "science"
journal--but he is advocating the antithesis of the
purposefulness of science which is the enhancement of the human
condition. But, what kind of medical "science" is Horgan
espousing by essentially advertising the Hemlock Society's
suicide campaign of sleeping pills and a plastic bag over the
head? And, how can you, Mr. Piel, as his editor--and an
American--condone it?
Linda Everett, Club of Life, U.S.A.
Jutta Dinkermann, Club of Life, Germany
Mar. 7 (EIRNS) NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE AGAIN LAUNCHES
EUTHANASIA DRIVE with latest report of doctor assisting in
patient's suicide. This week's New England Journal of Medicine
reports how Dr. Timothy E. Quill instructed his patient
``Diane,'' whom he describes as having leukemia, to contact the
Hemlock Society for information and assistance to complete her
suicide plans. Quill says after he discussed all her treatment
and suicide options, his patient opted for suicide. Despite the
fact that the patient had a 25% chance of beating her disease,
the media's focus was on Quill's going public with his role, so
that physicians would know ``that it was right'' for doctors to
help dying patients have a dignified death. Quill said he
prescribed barbiturates for his patient, knowing they would be
used for her suicide.
Outrageously, the editor of the New England Journal said on
national news that it is a doctor's duty to help his patient, and
that is what Dr. Quill was doing! Quill's main objection to the
latest known assisted suicide/murder by Michigan Doctor Jack
Kevorkian, was the method involved. Kevorkian did not know his
patient well, and he focused on machines, making the killing a
``mechanized, sterilized process''.
This is the latest of a long series of bold attempts by the
New England Journal to launch a full campaign to push a
euthanasia ``consensus'' in the medical community. The NEJM
regularly promotes the genocidal agenda of the Euthanasia
Council, the Society for the Right to Die, and the Concern for
Dying. In 1984, those ``recommendations'' included refusing
life-saving interventions or food and water to terminal patients,
and starving senile patients who might fuss about taking food. In
1989, the NEJM gave updated recommendations of the Euthanasia
Council, et al, to retool medical care in the U.S. That article
included the statement that ``It is not immoral for a physician
to assist in the rational suicide of a terminally ill patient.''