On November 28 the lower house of the Dutch parliament voted 104-40 in favor of proposed legislation that would allow a physician to administer a lethal dose of drugs to a patient who: 1) is undergoing “unremitting and unbearable suffering;” 2) is aware of the medical options; and 3) “voluntarily, persistently and independently” asks to die. The legislation merely reflects the status quo and is expected to win approval when it goes to the upper house early next year.
How, in only two generations, did the medical profession in the Netherlands sink so low? For some retired doctors, Fascist abortion and euthanasia policies are within living memory. And what on earth has happened to the Dutch people? In the decade after World War II, Holland’s Catholics were among the most loyal and best educated in all of Europe, producing record numbers of vocations and sending missionaries throughout the world.
The story is not just political, and it is not for the faint-hearted. To put it bluntly, the Catholic bishops and universities in Holland caved in during the sexual revolution of the 1960’s. The smooth ambiguities and progressive pipe-dreams of the Dutch Catechism were only the tip of the tulip plant. It’s not possible to have “a little bit of dissent” when it comes to Catholic moral teaching. The dike that held back the ocean of immorality had sprung a leak.
Did the Dutch doctors sound an alarm when rates of illegitimacy and veneral disease skyrocketed? Did the media in the Netherlands report and analyze the social devastation brought on by sexual license? Unfortunately, in their case it was more like calling in the National Guard to fix the leaky dike but equipping them with sledgehammers instead of sandbags.
Holland’s medical profession deconstructed itself. In 1977, a “how-to-do-it” mercy-killing manual by Dr. Pieter Admiraal was published by the Dutch Euthanasia Society, which distributed it systematically to medical professionals. America’s Dr. Kevorkian sits in jail, but Dr. Admiraal had little trouble with his government. In the decade that followed he became the “leading Dutch euthanasia practitioner,” and the number of doctor-assisted deaths reported in Holland rose to over 3,000 per year. In one-third of these cases the patient was not the one to request euthanasia.
A government survey taken in 1991 found that only one out of 10 Dutch doctors would refuse a request for euthanasia. Though euthanasia remained a crime on the books, lower-court decisions allowed for more and more exceptions in “hard cases.” Doctors need not fear prosecution, provided they conform to “guidelines.”
As things stand now, every Dutch medical student receives training in mercy-killing and a personal copy of a euthanasia manual issued by the Royal Dutch Society of Pharmacology, which provides recipes for difficult-to-trace poisons. Hospital administrators require general practitioners to write on patient charts the exact cost of treatments for each illness or injury, thus sends the message that patients who are too expensive are prime candidates for euthanasia.
Meanwhile, for over 20 years Dutch television and radio have applauded these illegal developments in a relentless campaign to convince the public that they have a “right” to be killed by a doctor. The media have not stayed on the sidelines as cheerleaders for this trend; physicians publicly opposed to euthanasia have been savaged in the press until either their reputations were ruined or they had ceased their protests.
In February 1993, after 15 years of agitation by a vocal, pro-death minority, the members of the Dutch Parliament saw no reason to continue the contradiction between their nation’s laws and actual practice. They legalized what was “happening anyway,” allowing for doctor-assisted death in “extreme circumstances.” These were loosely defined in the Royal Dutch Medical Association’s own euthanasia guidelines.
Some view the 1993 Dutch law as “pioneering legislation,” but the social consequences have been devastating. The “right” to die mutates swiftly into an “obligation” for those who are too much of a burden on society. Four out of five nursing homes in Holland have closed since 1980. The elderly have become an endangered underclass, afraid to seek medical treatment. Doctors and nurses, on the other hand, find themselves above the law, a more powerful elite than any aristocracy of old.
It is no coincidence that the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its “Declaration on Euthanasia” in the year 1980. That document repeats the authoritative and prophetic words of the Second Vatican Council, which had declared euthanasia, like murder and abortion, to be one of those crimes that “poison civilization” (Gaudium et Spes, 27). The Declaration explains the Catholic Church’s constant teaching: “euthanasia,” deliberately ending a person’s life, is not a “good death;” rather, it “is to be considered as a rejection of God's sovereignty and loving plan.”
Lamentably, despite such early warning from the Church, the widespread practice of euthanasia has all but engulfed the Netherlands. Even if the bill that goes to the upper house of the Dutch parliament next year is not passed, a tremendous amount of repair work remains to be done.
[All pro-lifers should pray that sanity will prevail in Holland. We in America can learn some important lessons from the perilous situation there, namely:
1) The popular press often gives only an antiseptic version of the real story. One syndicated column on November 28 said that the proposed law is “positioning the Netherlands to become the first nation to openly let doctors help suffering patients end their lives.” Not only does this frame the euthanasia issue as a matter of “helping;” it completely misrepresents the facts, since the Dutch government has quite obviously been letting doctors dispense death for over a decade.
2) Attempts to restructure society are usually rationalized in terms of brand-new “rights,” while ignoring existing obligations, i.e., the duty of family members to stand by the sick and the elderly, and the responsibility of government to protect their lives. As in the case of RU-486, the debate is focused exclusively on anticipated “benefits,” with little or no mention of the evidence already in about the harmful consequences.
3) The Catholic Church is sure to be cited by name as the ogre that is opposing “progress.” The average reader who values traditional morality is often at a loss, not having enough information about the issue to see the specific, practical reasons for the Church’s stance. On the other hand, those who resent the Church (or authority in general) will be disposed to add euthanasia to their list of “compassionate” causes.]
Maybe it’s a consequence of our Puritan heritage, but in certain respects the United States is behind Europe in its slide into the culture of death. (It took a decade, for example, for the FDA to approve the French abortion pill RU-486.) Americans must not be complacent, however; several states have already debated legislation that would legalize euthanasia.
Make no mistake: the same folks who brought you the sexual revolution are now trying to sell a whole new form of “pro-choice” known as death on demand. If “a woman’s right to choose” leads to public acceptance of butchering half-born babies, I shudder to think where this new development will lead.
*Note: The writer wishes to acknowledge materials used in preparation of this piece, including The Facts of Life by Brian Clowes, Ph.D., (published by Human Life International) and collections of reports by Fr. Paul Marx, OSB, of Human Life International.
