file: /pub/resources/text/ProLife.News/1992: pln-0205.txt --------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Life Communications - Volume 2, No. 5 March, 1992 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This newsletter is intended to provide articles and news information to those interested in Pro-Life Issues. Questions to readers and articles for submissions are strongly encouraged. All submissions should be sent to the editor, Steve (frezza@ee.pitt.edu). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED DEATH IN HOLLAND by Dr. Eugene Robin Professor Emeritus, Stanford University Medical School The citizens of the state of Washington have shown remarkably good sense in rejecting a law that would have legalized physician-assisted euthanasia. However, much agitation persists to legalize physician-assisted suicide. I have written three columns on issues involved in euthanasia; since then, a substantial amount of new information has become available, so I thought I'd bring you up to date. In this column I'll describe a recent summary of the Dutch experience with euthanasia. It provides a frightening picture of physicians out of control. Many participating Dutch physicians believe they are providing an important social service by direct and active involvement in euthanasia. (Note: most German physicians who participated in the mass slaughter under the Nazis also felt that they were providing an important social service.) To understand how euthanasia might work in the United States, it is useful to describe how it works in a country that is socially similar to our own. Euthanasia, while not legalized in Holland, is widely practiced without fear of punishment of the participating physicians. Recently, a government Committee to Investigate the Medical Practice of Euthanasia proved a public report. During 1990, 3,700 patients were put to death by physicians who provided or administered drugs with the explicit intention of causing death. This accounted for almost 3 percent of the deaths in Holland. Comparable figures for the United States would be about 75,000 deaths per year! Of these 3,700 humans, more than 1,000 were put to death without an explicit request by the victim who was killed. This form of killing goes by the euphemistic title of "involuntary euthanasia." Of the thousand humans killed by Dutch physicians, about half were able to evaluate their situation and yet their doctor decided to put them to death without permission of the patient. Comparable figures for the United States would be 10,000 victims per year. In Holland, involuntary euthanasia now accounts for almost 1 percent of all deaths. What were the factors that motivated physicians to perform involuntary euthanasia? In 32 percent of the cases, the doctor decided that the patient has a "low quality of life." In 31 percent of these cases, the doctor decided "the family can no longer take it." To turn from statistics to individual victims, there are a series of episodes made public by various Dutch physicians that illustrates the corrupting effects of Dutch euthanasia on physician behavior. 1) Euthanasia is administered to a 2-day-old baby with Down's syndrome who has a correctable stomach problem. 2) A physician making a house call to an elderly woman, whom he meets for the first time, tells her she has an hour to be admitted to a hospital or to accept euthanasia. A physician instructs a nurse on a hospital ward ... "When I get back from my weekend off, I don't want to see that patient still here." 3) A physician and some nurses kill a group of mentally retarded children being cared for on a hospital ward. They are tried in Dutch court and acquitted. The grounds for acquittal: The doctor and nurses were performing the humanitarian act of euthanasia. Overt euthanasia is not the only anti-human activity of Dutch physicians. Dutch physicians were involved in intensifying pain and symptom suppression in 22,500 patients with the purpose of accelerating the end of life. In an additional 22,500 patients, Dutch physicians withheld treatment (including tube feeding) without explicit permission from the patient's family to hasten the end of life. Adding all these figures up, it turns out that Dutch physicians (often based on their own social judgments and prejudices) contribute directly to 48,500 deaths per year, or about 37 percent of all medical deaths. It turns out that about 54 percent of all Dutch physicians are involved in killing patients under circumstances in which the judgment of the physicians is based at least partially on their social attitudes. Are Dutch physicians monsters? The answer is no. Actually, Dutch physicians are very much like American physicians (except that they make more house calls). But, a large number of Dutch physicians are involved in monstrous acts because they feel their involvement is socially useful and because their behavior is socially acceptable. How do these Dutch physicians really feel about their activities? The report says Dutch doctors lie about their euthanasia activities when not taking part in an anonymous study with guaranteed legal immunity. There are, of course, many Dutch physicians who are appalled at the carnage. Efforts to stop physician-assisted suicide are being led by a group of physicians, the Dutch Physicians League. If one looks at the Dutch experiment with euthanasia, it should signal us that it leads to unacceptable behavior by physicians and by society. All of this should lead us to salute the citizens of the State of Washington for their defeat of Initiative 119 that would have legalized some forms of euthanasia. -submitted by Larry Larmore [A recent (anonymous) poll of American Doctors indicated that roughly 50% would be willing to help administer the necessary 'treatment' to speed a (willing) dying person to their death. - Ed.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) PA-IFL SPRING CONVENTION The Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Federation for Life will be sponsoring its tenth-annual Spring Convention to be held at Villanova University on March 13-15, 1992. Speakers are to include Mary Beth Bonnacci (editor of "Voice" magazine), Molly Kelly, and Doug Scott (speaking on Planned Parenthood) among others. Registration is $15 per student, and includes meals and housing. For more information, please call Emily Colehower (215)489-7824, Sydney Shrader (215)527-8266 or Jen Schuler (215)525-1983. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) WHAT WORKS - AVOID DOUBLESTANDARDS The charge of "hypocrisy" leveled by "pro-choicers" against pro-lifers seems to be a common rhetorical ploy used to promote abortion. We shall examine some of the alleged "hypocrisies", endevering to find out who the real hypocrites are: "Pro-lifers are `hypocrites' who believe life begins at conception and ends at birth. You don't see pro-lifers adopting the children in orphanages." Refutation: Pro-lifers are much more apt to adopt children than pro-abortionists. The pro-life movement has been much more active in the handicapped rights, and anti-euthanisia movements than has been PP-WP,NARAL or NOW. The more accurate characterization is that pro-lifers show more concern for others, before and after birth, than do pro-abortionists. Doublestandard: Pro-abortionists claim that pro-lifers are concerned only about unborn children, while they themselves `care' about `living, breathing, sentient' women. Well, if pro-abortionists truly care about `living, breathing, sentient' women, why aren't they adopting the girls in those same orphanages? If pro-life concern allegedly ends at birth, then isn't it accurate to note that pro- abortion concern for a female seems to start the instant she loses her virginity? `Pro-choice' message: 1) The children in orphanages and foster-homes are better off dead. Pro-lifers are sadists who condemn children to grow up in cruel conditions. These children would never be a problem because otherwise they would be mercifully euthanized. 2) The killing of 1,600,000 unborn children a year is less wrong than children living under these conditions. For pro-lifers to concentrate their effort on addressing the greatest wrong is not "hypocritical", it is the right thing to do. If we let "pro-choicers" divert us with lesser wrongs, then we aren't going to get around to ending abortion until there is a perfect world. The world will always be imperfect. Does that mean unborn children must always be fair game for arbitrary execution? Finally, stopping abortion is the way to empty those orphanages. The abortion mentality allows for those who are inconvenient to be discarded before birth. Why then are pro-abortionists stunned and amazed that children are being discarded after birth? If pro- abortionist claim that handicapped unborn children are a "burden" to their parents, and so should be killed, then why are they stunned and amazed when those same children, after birth, are kept from "burdening" their parents after birth by being discarded in a foster-home? -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Pro-lifers are `hypocrites' because they don't get involved in other charities." Refutation: Pro-lifers are working for positive social change. It is perfectly valid to specialize one's effort in a particular field. Futhermore, many pro-lifers are involved in other charities. Doublestandard #1: "Pro-choicers" are never labeled "hypocrites" for doing *nothing*, or for making "charitable" contributions so that poor teenage Black women can have abortions, and not seeming at all interested in making charitable contributions so those poor Black teenagers can go to college. The United Negro Birth Control Fund, Planned Parenthood-World Population, seems to attract much more support than The United Negro College Fund. Doublestandard #2: Pro-life advocates are labeled "hypocrites" for not taking part in a "big brother" or "big sister" program. People in big brother/sister programs are never labeled "hypocrites" for not being pro-life/pro-choice advocates. `Pro-choice' message: Abortion, at worst, is something that is, at most, slightly distasteful. Our "real" problems are poverty, disease, dispair, etc. Pro-lifers are "uppity" for advocating a right to life. Pro-life ideals are for ivory-tower intellectuals. Pro-lifers are idealists divorced from the real world - real life problems call for the real life solution of death. The problem is that society finds killing "acceptable". As long as killing the innocent is deemed "acceptable", it isn't any suprise that the poverty, hunger, disease, and dispair are deemed "acceptable" either. -by David Rasmussen ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) WHEN COMPARING ABORTION TO SLAVERY: Suggested slogan for picket signs, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc.: Robert E. Lee was Pro-Choice on Slavery -by Marty Helgesen ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) READER REQUESTS Tim Singhel writes: I was recently on Face the Gate (a radio debate-issues show here at Colgate) twice. Once with other members of Respect Life here, and last week, debating the executive director of PP from Utica. People told me not to do the second one - that I'd be "creamed" however, the people that have come up to me since the show have said that I did well. Please throw my name in the hat of people who would put their names out for more personal, pen-pal contact Feel free to mention that in the next issue - and to ask me more about the debates etc.. [Tim can be contacted at TSINGHEL%colgateu.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu] -- -- -- -- -- -- On the subject fo Pro-Life songs/songwriters: Sean Tompkins writes: Here are some more Christian songs dealing with proLife: DeGarmo & Key - "Who will?" (Stand up for the children) Petra - "Hey World" 2nd Ch. of Acts (The album "Far Away Places" has a few songs on it about this subject) Carmen - "Revival in the Land" (deals with other issues too) -- -- -- -- -- -- Ed Gehringer Writes: Do not forget Seals and Crofts' "Unborn Child", from the early '70s (1972, I believe). At the time, it was alleged that it did not make it high on the chart because of radio station program directors' bias in favor of abortion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Quote Of the Month: "Compelled parental notice of an abortion decision is almost always disasterous to young women and their families. The law did not promote family integrity or communication; on the contrary, it disrupted and damaged family relationships." - Judge Max Rosenn, Ruling in the 1987 Minnesota Cuircuit Court case that struck down that state's parental notification law. +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Credits: | | 1- This column appeared in the Riverside Press-Enterprise,3 Dec., | | 1991. Dr. Robin can be reached by writing to him care of the | | Press-Enterprise, Box 792, Riverside CA 92502-0792. | |QOM- From Peter Irons' book "The Courage of Their Convictions", | | Penguin Books, 1990, pp. 264. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ Anyone desiring information on specific prolife groups, literature, tapes, or help with problems is encouraged to contact the editor.