Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 14, 1993 TAG: 9303150554
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DUTCH DIDN'T ISSUE LICENSE TO KILL
REGARDING Cal Thomas' comment (Feb. 17) on "From birth control to death control":Contrary to what he suggests, the Dutch Parliament has stated that mercy killing remains killing and therefore a crime. However, if a doctor can give no other help to a patient who is asking to shorten her specific dehumanizing death-process than complying with her question, then this doctor may not be prosecuted.
There is no license to kill, and doctors are taking risks if they do so. The essential point is that the state does not want to be a judge in somebody's individual life and death. Such a judgment has now been given to conscientious individuals, who are directly involved and will bear responsibility. The state only sets norms for the behavior, which is judged in every case.
The problem at stake is one that will confront any society with highly developed medical techniques. We have learned how to prolong life, and many of us would already have been confronted with a natural cause of death if we had lived some 100 years ago. Doctors are gradually spending less and less time on curing illnesses, and more time on prevention and teaching people to cope with medical facts of life. Those doctors are asked questions, and they in turn are asking society for answers. I think that the Dutch Parliament has done a great job by assuming that there are sufficient people in its society who are able and willing to take up this responsibility, and that it has required standards to be set whereby behavior is scrutinized in each case. From the data that will come available in the future, one can judge whether the Dutch society is to be blamed or credited for this initiative.
Thomas' comparison with Hitler's euthanasic measures is completely unjustified, in my opinion. Hitler's killing was aimed at groups of people who were very much alive and by no means willing to die. His doctors were clinical instruments without conscience and personal judgment about the people concerned.
But perhaps he is referring to another issue, such as the problem of "turning off the knob" of a respiratory machine giving oxygen to a patient in a coma for many years. No answer on that problem. Unsolicited mercy killing of people who cannot ask for it is readily available in the Netherlands. It would be interesting to learn what the actual practice of this is in the United States. PIETER H.M. RUYS BLACKSBURG