Stunning Concern Over Euthanasia in the Netherlands

Last year over 250 people were euthanized in the Netherlands for psychiatric reasons or dementia.  A year earlier it was 60.  A study published in a medical ethics journal examined nine cases of intellectual disability and/or autism.  They concluded, “the bar for assessment of intractable suffering [the reason for euthanasia] is set lower for people with intellectual disability or autism…than for the general population.”  They stated it’s possible “people with intellectual disabilities are like the canary in the coalmine.”  And: “We found no evidence of safeguards against the influence of the physicians’ own subjective value judgments.”  Legal euthanasia is a Pandora’s box that should’ve never been opened.