Sunday 9 December 2012

Liverpool Care Pathway - Is NOT Euthanasia...?

This is THE CENTER FOR BIOETHICS AND CULTURE -

EUTHANASIA CREATED DUTCH CULTURE OF DEATH: ELDERLY “TIRED OF LIFE” NEXT CATEGORY FOR TERMINATION

Euthanasia Created Dutch Culture of Death: Elderly “Tired of Life” Next Category for Termination
By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC
The Netherlands vividly illustrates how euthanasia/assisted suicide cannot logically be limited to the restricted category of people diagnosed with a terminal illness. Since euthanasia began there under official sanction–first decriminalization and then formal legalization–the Dutch have fallen off a moral cliff in which all kinds of people are killed by doctors or assisted in suicide–including disabled infants and people who haven’t asked to die. Had you told the Dutch that their “limited” license, under oh, so strict “guidelines” would lead to baby killing, I wonder whether it would have gone forward.
"...killed by doctors or assisted in suicide–including disabled infants and people who haven’t asked to die."
Wesley J. Smith considers: Had you told the Dutch that their “limited” license, under oh, so strict “guidelines” would lead to baby killing, I wonder whether it would have gone forward.

In the Netherlands, they had to pass laws for this to proceed. In the UK, we don't need Euthanasia Laws; we have the Liverpool Care Pathway which works just as well in its place.

Better. The LCP is a recognised medical 'treatment' for the dying. Just diagnose a condition of 'dying' - which is most often an evaluation, a value-judgement of life prospects, an assessment and appraisal of the life deemed not worth living - and off they go, conveyed on a barque of death across the Styx.

This is the Mail Online -

MailOnline - news, sport, celebrity, science and health stories

Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children are put on end-of-life plan
    • Practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube being used on young patients
    • Doctor admits starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in neonatal unit
    • Liverpool Care Pathway subject of independent inquiry ordered by ministers
    • Investigation, including child patients, will look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors' decisions

    Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’.

    Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults.

    But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

    "But the Liverpool Care Pathway is NOT euthanasia..."
    ‘Palliative care and assisted dying legislation share many common values: the alleviation of suffering, patient choice and a patient-focused process. They should not be seen in isolation.’ 
    Baroness Greengross OBE vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Choice at the End of Life.
    No...?

    Had you told the British that the LCP rolled out under the auspices of the DOH would lead to baby killing, I wonder whether it would have gone forward...

    Do not be so alarmed. Do not be so surprised; these ideas have been 'floated' for a long time. This is the 21st Century. This is our Brave New World.

    1 comment:

    1. I've read that some 20% of Dutch pensioners responded to a survey on experience of the Dutch health service that they are frightened of being admitted to hospital because they are fear that the doctors there might kill them. From comments in the press and on many of the blogs these days, it appears that many retired people in UK share the same fears.

      How did human kind reach such a point of moral decay that a not insignificant proportion of older people are afraid to go to hospital for fear they might be euthanised against their will? I believe the first signs of this moral breakdown began around 15-20 years ago and that it stems from a tide of secularism and moral relativism that's sweeping through our country.

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