Euthanasia

[David S]

According to CNN, Dutch health officials are considering guidelines doctors could follow for euthanizing terminally ill people "with no free will," including children, the severely mentally retarded and patients in irreversible comas.

Should this be legal? What do you think?

[12th Doctor]

No.

Perhapes these "doctors" should remember the Hippocratic oath that they took.

[David S]

I support the right of terminally ill people to choose doctor assisted suicide of their own free will. But killing people who are unable to make their wishes known crosses the line in my opinion. I would say that's homicide.

[12th Doctor]

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

[ATFFL]

Absolutely.

I then can decalre the entire ing Dutch naiton no longer capable of deciding what is right for themselves, euthanize them and sell the land off.

No one else can do this first, I called dibs on it.

"You killed an entire nation of people."

"They were unable to make their wishes known to me."

"Most of them were sleeping.  The rest begged you not to."

"They were speaking gibberish.  Clearly they were mentally disturbed."

"They were speaking Dutch!"

"Right, gibberish.  So I killed them and took all their posessions as my fee.  Can I get you anything?  Soda?  Drugs?  Amsterdam?"

[??????????]

Hitler approved of Euthanasia for children as well. And he approved of it for reasons of "compassion". Sick Sick stuff. I would be ashamed to call myself Dutch at this point.

[Beet]

Depends on what is meant by irreversible coma. If, for example, the entire brain structure has been render nonfunctional, so that no brain waves can be emitted, the Dutch would hardly be alone in considering this person to be legally dead. If on the other case what is meant is "vegetative state", then NO certainly not. Perhaps this is what they want to clear up with the guidelines.