by Calling Out Community, Posted August 1, 2015

Wim Distelmans, an oncologist and professor of palliative medicine at the Free University in Brussels, Belgium, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of people.  

His assisted dying center near Brussels is just one of the places in that small Western European country where people can come to find out more about euthanasia.  Belgium adopted new laws in 2002 making assisted suicide and euthanasia a new norm in Belgian society – now as much a part of Belgian culture…as waffles, and assisted suicide and euthanasia are not distinguishable in Belgium, both being protected equally under the law.  The Netherlands and Luxembourg also have similar laws, and an assisted dying centre recently opened in Switzerland.

An ‘end-of-life clinic’ opened in 2012 in Amsterdam for patients whose doctors refuse to assist with their suicides. Above is the kit that the in-house doctor uses when the patient is terminated. Credit: Jean Pierre Jans / REA / Redux

Patients spend their time in Distelmans’ centre in Brussels, playing cards or simply sitting for hours in a chair and waiting for nothing. If someone says that he is going to die soon, and he knows the date and the time of day, the others throw a party for him with sparkling wine, chips and his favorite music. Yes, you read correctly – they throw a party for the “lucky” guy or gal before Dr. Death snuffs them out.

He is one of only a few select doctors in the entire world who looks at the death of his patients as a success.

According to the latest data, in 2013 more than 4,829 Dutch citizens chose to have a doctor end their lives. That’s one in every 28 deaths in the Netherlands – triple the number of people who died this way in 2002.  No proof of terminal illness is required – a patient must only convince two doctors that they are enduring “unbearable” suffering, a definition that is ever-expanding.  If you’re Dutch and you’re tired of living with Lou Gehrig’s disease, multiple sclerosis, depression or loneliness – if you’re just tired of living – the government will turn a blind eye and allow a physician to assist you to commit suicide, even though the latter practice is still technically illegal in the Netherlands.

In Belgium, Dr. Distelmans scrupulously studies his field of work, having travelled around the world to review “best practices” on end of life care and the right to die.  But underneath that background of research and medical knowledge lies the heart of a liberal leftwing lunatic, which he was bound to demonstrate sooner or later.

In October 2014, he had the public fuming as he lead a group of 70 supporters of euthanasia (patients, writers and doctors alike) on a field trip to a rural area just outside the city of Kraków, Poland, to a place he once called an “inspiring venue” which “clarifies confusion about dying“…

The Auschwitz concentration camp.

‘Euthanasia kits’ are available in Belgian chemist shops for GPs

One cannot blame the doctor alone for this unbelievable lack of judgement, when one looks at the Belgian society as a whole, almost completely bipolar regarding the subjects of life and death:

• January 1, 1999 – the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights, came into force in Belgium, forbidding the death penalty in all circumstances. This “right to life” of criminals – including the worst of the worst – was later enshrined in the country’s Constitution in 2005.
• May 28, 2002 – The Belgian Act on Euthanasia was passed. allowing for doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia to be legally made available in certain circumstances, granting those individuals a legal “right to death” for the first time.
• April 2012 – University professor Tom Mortier received the shocking news that his 64-year-old mother, Godelieva De Troyer, had been euthanized the previous day, and her family had been intentionally kept in the dark.  While she had talked about euthanasia before, he never dreamed her request would be granted because she was in perfect physical health.  Her death has turned Mr. Mortier into a raging critic of the country’s euthanasia law, and he has launched a court action to fight against this law.  “This is suicide with the approval of society,” he said of her death. “This has nothing to do with euthanasia”.
• 

  Lawmakers in Belgium voted on whether to allow children to be euthanized if suffering and parents demanded it.

  March 3, 2014 – the King of Belgium signs a new law which allows children to be euthanized if their parents believe they are suffering too much (example, from serious illness).  Sorry, BACK UP here:  Kids with cancer no longer have a protected “right to life”, but serial killers, rapists or Islamic terrorists DO?  When this kind of logic makes sense, we must be in Hell.  Or Nazi Germany.

• September 2014 – Frank Van Den Bleeken having been in a Belgian jail for 30 years for rape-murder, argued before the courts that his lengthy sentence had caused him “unbearable suffering”, especially as capital punishment was no longer a possibility.  He therefore requested the freedom to be euthanized.  But what about his victim’s families – they don’t just get to duck out on what he did.  And how could the courts approve euthanasia on a dangerous criminal, when they had just aabolished capital punishment previously years before? Yet, regardless of the public outcry and the lack of wisdom, the bleeding heart Liberal courts agreed initially with his request.
• On January 6, 2015 the Belgian justice minister announced that the procedure had been cancelled following “the decision of doctors treating Frank Van Den Bleeken to no longer continue the euthanasia procedure”. He will be moved to a psychiatric prison ward in Ghent while authorities consider his transfer to a Dutch specialist treatment facility.  The average Harry and Mary in Belgium can request euthanasia – heck, there’s a possibility that even their grandkids could start dying by lethal injection for questionable reasons – but “Dr. Death” got a sudden conscience when a murderer requested euthanasia?  He stated:

“In my opinion it is plausible the euthanasia commission would refer this case to the prosecutors, should the euthanasia take place,” he said in a Sunday Times report. He also cited a lack of “credible reasons” for it.

Credible reasons?  Are you a having a laugh?  There are no credible reasons for offing yourself when you just don’t feel like being around.  List your credible reasons to Mr Mortier in the loss of his perfectly-well mother.  Tell that to a sick little boy or girl, who might be put out of their misery because they have weak-willed parents that can’t stomach it.

What could be even more shocking than family members not bringing made aware of a perfectly healthy patient’s choice to die at a time of their own choosing?  Or kids being euthanized for any reason?  How about the recent revelation that thousands of Belgian patients are also being euthanized without their consent!  Heil Hitler.

An article approved for publication in 2015 in the Journal of Medical Ethics states that nearly 2% of all deaths in Belgium are people killed by doctors against their will.  The abstract from the article states:

The aim of this article is to provide a critical review of one of the most worrying aspects of the euthanasia policy and practice in Belgium – the deliberate shortening of lives of some patients without their explicit voluntary request. Some suggestions designed to improve the situation and prevent abuse are offered.

These patients were not suffering from a terminal illness – and in four out of five cases, their doctors did not discuss end-of-life options with the patient, simply deciding on the patient’s behalf to kill them.

The study confirms fears that the laws related to assisted suicide will lead to abuse.  And the numbers of deaths from assisted suicide continues to grow at an alarming rate:

• 2003 – 235
• 2007 – 495 (+106% in 4 years)
• 2008 – 704 (+42% in 1 year)
• 2011 – 1,133 (+61% in 3 years)
• 2012 – 1,432  (+26% in 1 year)
• 2013 – 1,807 (+26% in 1 year)

In the last decade, this adds up to a staggering 5,806 deaths.  And should this rate of growth continue, there could be an estimated 4,500 euthanasia-related deaths per year in the next few years.  This brings on chills. And the hair is standing on the back of my neck.  It’s ironic that Dr. Death found Auschwitz so inspiring,  as we’ve heard this story before – the euthanizing of the sick, the infirm, the old, the disabled.

Ah, yes, the Third Reich.

And now for one final display of leftwing lunacy, and I’ve left the best until last:  we’ve read how some of the most vulnerable in our society might be euthanized against their will, children who’s lives are snuffed out far too early, when miracles and modern science could have saved the day for them.

Dr. Mary Gardner, a veterinarian, co-founded an in-home pet hospice and euthanasia service called Lap of Love. Credit: J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

How about learning that there is a formal end-of-life and hospice movement for your pets when they become ill or old?  Dr. Eden Myers, a veterinarian in Kentucky who runs JustVetData said:

“There is a formal end-of-life movement, a formal hospice movement.” It’s a growing movement to provide hospice care for our animals.  Some hospice supporters advocate giving pets palliative care until they die naturally, as in human hospice.

But, wait – didn’t we already euthanize grandpa who gave the puppy to his granddaughter?  And wasn’t she “put to sleep” too because of her depression issues? Well, I feel better knowing that at least Fido will have some quality of life around here.

Question:  when did it become inscribed that life must not be difficult? That we are entitled only to good things? Have we really reached the stage when life gets difficult and we check out?  This is the evolution of humankind?  We are told that this is enlightened thinking, not like the backward thinking of those who believe in God and life.

For years, the “right-to-death ers” have been petitioning our Canadian government for the same opportunities here, as Belgium …(cough) enjoys.  Diane Weber Bederman, writing for the Huffington Post on the subject of euthanasia, put it masterfully:

For those who say this will not happen in Canada, I say prove it. Prove to me that we won’t slide down into the depths of depravity now being played out in Belgium. That we won’t let mentally ill, deeply depressed 64-year-olds end their lives because of a broken heart, leaving loved ones bereft. And that they are allowed to end their lives without the medical establishment contacting loved ones first. Or have we reached the place where family and friends don’t matter? We are rocks? We are islands?

The push for death with dignity with stories like these make me grateful for believing in God; in the sanctity of human life. I shall have to hope that when the end is near, I will not have my right to live decided by someone like Wim Distelmans, but rather someone who values life, every moment of it, encouraging me to hold on, if not for myself then for those I love and who love me.