The Daily Mail is reporting that the proposal for the mobile death units, dubbed "grim reapers on wheels" by critics, was revealed by Dutch Health Minister Edith Schippers during a debate on euthanasia in the Dutch parliament.
The only people who could use the units would be "patients who meet the criteria for euthanasia but whose doctors are unwilling to carry it out," Schippers explained. If the patient thinks it "desirable," the doctor can refer him or her to the mobile team or clinic.
Dutch euthanasia activists are aggressively promoting the units because they claim 80 percent of people with dementia or mental illnesses are being "missed" by the country's euthanasia laws.
A person qualifies for euthanasia in the Netherlands if they convince two doctors that they are making an informed decision in the face of unbearable pain or suffering. Euthanasia is typically carried out by administering a strong sedative to put the patient in a coma, followed by a drug to stop breathing and cause death.
The mobile units would be just another step in the on-going downward spiral of Dutch euthanasia laws. Just this summer, the Dutch Medical Association, which supports the mobile units, issued guidelines suggesting that even people who complained of being lonely could qualify for euthanasia so long as their state-of-mind constitutes "unbearable and lasting suffering."
Not surprisingly, opponents of euthanasia are appalled by the proposal to use mobile units to "put people down."
"The suggestion that these mobile units would euthanize people where the local doctor was not willing to do the killing could constitute a serious breach of medical ethics," writes Paul Russell, Director of the Australia-based HOPE: Preventing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.
"What if the doctor would not kill for sound medical reasons such as untreated depression or evidence of coercive pressure? Will his or her advice be sought and will his opinion and treatment plan prevail? It doesn’t seem that likely."
Lord David Alton, a former member of the British House of Commons, gives a sobering warning about similar laws which are being considered in Britain. Just like in the Netherlands, in the UK, the same warped view of human worth and human dignity is prevailing in discussions about legalizing euthanasia.
“Chillingly, Baroness Warnock has already said that the sick are 'wasting people’s lives' because of the care they require: 'If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service.' Suggesting that we have a 'duty to die' she said 'I think that’s the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you’d be licensing people to put others down'.”
Alton writes: "This isn’t giving people 'dignity in dying.' Sending out mobile units to administer lethal injections, to 'put people down,', will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable. It diminishes the dignity and humanity of the sick and elderly and diminishes those of us who condone it. Rather than imitating the Dutch, Britain needs to defend and care for the sick and elderly and put our energy into compassionate care, and practical loving support – let’s demand 'dignity in living' with the same fervor as those who want to license the routine killing of the most vulnerable in society.”
Pro-life activists in Britain also expressed their outrage over the idea. Phyllis Bowman of Right to Life told the Mail that the mobile death squad proposal is "too dreadful for words."
"Not even the Nazis thought of that one," she said.
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