The proponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia like to denigrate the concerns of we who are opposed by saying they irrational. Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia was obviously fed up when he wrote this letter to the Windsor (Ontario) Star. We feel the same way he does, and we love this letter.
<http://www.windsorstar.com/Howling+over+assisted+death/8781467/story.html>http://www.windsorstar.com/Howling+over+assisted+death/8781467/story.html
‘Howling’ over assisted death
Alex Schadenberg, The Windsor Star
Aug 13, 2013 | Last Updated: Aug 13, 2013 – 8:06 UTC
Re: Column: Assisted death: The right to self-determination, column
by Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, May 9 Gifford-Jones in his recent tirade on
“assisted death” attacks people who oppose euthanasia and assisted
suicide as simply offering “howling and irrational fears.”
Yet Gifford-Jones is the one who howls when he states that in places
where euthanasia and assisted suicide are permitted, “the blunt fact
is that history shows there have been no abuses.”
Were the researchers who published the five-year metaanalysis of the
Dutch euthanasia law in 2012 irrational when they found that 23 per
cent of all assisted deaths were not reported? How irrational were
the researchers who published findings that 47 per cent of all
assisted deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium were not reported?
Is it only the do-gooders who are concerned by the 2010 study that
found that 32 per cent of assisted deaths in Belgium were done
without request? I guess that Gifford-Jones would like us to turn a
blind eye when an Italian man, with a botched diagnosis is killed by
assisted death in Switzerland or when The Netherlands approves
euthanasia for newborns with disabilities. The only irrational
howling I have heard is from Gifford-Jones.
Alex Schadenberg,
Executive director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition