Euthanasia on the rise in Netherlands, up 13% in one year, now 3% of total deaths
Euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands jumped 13 percent last year to constitute about 3 percent of all deaths in the European country, an official report confirms.
Official statistics show 4,188 people died by euthanasia in 2012, an increase of nearly 500 from the previous year, The Daily Mail reported compared to 3,695 deaths by euthanasia in 2011.
It marked the sixth consecutive year for an increase in the Netherlands, which legalized euthanasia in 2002.
The government has said that the reasons for the increase in euthanasia deaths cannot be determined with certainty.
In March 2012, the country saw the first mobile euthanasia units staffed by doctors and nurses started crossing the country to end the lives of people in their homes.
The teams — known as Levenseinde, or “Life End,” units — go to the homes of people who desire to be euthanized but whose physicians have refused to do so. More on Life End groups here, click here to see one of their websites
Dutch law supposedly limits those eligible for euthanasia to people who are incurable and in unbearable pain, but the actual practice appears far more expansive.
Newborns with disabilities and people with chronic depression, mental pain and even macular degeneration have been euthanized, said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
Anti-euthanasia organizations decried the practice’s increasing acceptance. “The Dutch experience shows that euthanasia becomes routine,” said Elspeth Chowdharay-Best of anti-euthanasia ALERT. “It traps more and more people into thinking they ought to leave this world prematurely. In that kind of culture euthanasia becomes expected and inevitable and everything else — such as good palliative care and a functional hospice movement — is gradually portrayed as rather selfish.”
The Netherlands is one of three countries that have legalized euthanasia. The others are Belgium and Luxembourg.
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[…] The Netheralnds have been targeted by euthanasia critics because there has been a 13% rise in euthanasia death, which is now 3% of the total deaths – more here. […]
[…] Euthanasia on the rise in Netherlands, up 13% in one year, now 3% of total deaths (theglobaldispatch.com) […]
[…] The teams known as Levenseinde, or Life End, units go to the homes of people who desire to be euthanized but whose physicians have refused to do so. More on Life End groups here , click here to see one of their websites Dutch law supposedly limits those eligible for euthanasia to people who are incurable and in unbearable pain, but the actual practice appears far more expansive. Newborns with disabilities and people with chronic depression, mental pain and even macular degeneration have been euthanized, said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Anti-euthanasia organizations decried the practices increasing acceptance. The Dutch experience shows that euthanasia becomes routine, said Elspeth Chowdharay-Best of anti-euthanasia ALERT. More: http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/euthanasia-on-the-rise-in-netherlands-up-13-in-one-year-now-3-of-to… […]