Quote 20
The most accurate predictors of a persistent request for euthanasia are not related to physical pain but to depression accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and/or a sense of social isolation.
Quote 19
One in every 45 deaths in the Netherlands comes about through euthanasia. In New Zealand this would translate to 700 deaths per year.
Quote 18
Once you open the door to assisted suicide and euthanasia it always becomes wider and wider and wider, and before you know it what starts as an option for a few becomes what’s expected for the many. - Alex Schadenberg
Quote 17
“The disabled are typically ‘in the front line’ when it comes to euthanasia. It’s very clear to me that when people talk about the right to die, it’s very quick for others to start talking about the need to die.” Kevin Fitzpatrick, Not Dead Yet
Quote 16
I am firmly against euthanasia because it is not physical suffering that guides the desire to die but a moment of discouragement, feeling like a burden … All those who ask to die are mostly looking for love. - Maryannick Pavageau - suffers from locked-in syndrome for 30 years
Quote 15
Requests for euthanasia soon after a stroke or accident are not well-informed … many patients come to find happiness in ways that we simply cannot imagine. - Dr Steven Laureys
Quote 14
Legalising euthanasia will create new pathways of abuse for the elderly and disabled.
Quote 13
Expanding one freedom often limits another … Expanding personal freedom to include assisted suicide undermines another right – to remain alive without having to justify one’s existence. - Mark Blocher
Quote 12
Euthanasia: The right to die will all too quickly become a duty to die.
Quote 11
How people die remains in the memory of those who live on. - Dame Cecily Saunders
Quote 10
Euthanasia will inevitably be practised through the various prisms of social inequality and bias that characterise the delivery of social and health services in our country.
Quote 9
Euthanasia will ultimately decrease the choices people have for treatment at the end of life because it will blunt clinical practice.
One in 20 medical diagnoses are wrong.
Euthanasia must be distinguished from the administration of pain relief that may have the foreseen but unintended effect of shortening a person’s life.
Euthanasia must be distinguished from the withholding or withdrawing of medically futile or burdensome treatment.
A person in pain constitutes a medical crisis not a reason for euthanasia.
The Dutch experience has shown that the acceptance of death as a medical solution is suppressing the performance of doctors and nurses in critical situations when life is threatened but can still be saved. - Dr. Richard Fenigsen
Twenty to 40 percent of medical diagnoses prove wrong when confronted with the ultimate criterion of truth, the autopsy. This means that the license to cause deaths on the grounds of medical diagnoses can lead to tragic mistakes. - Dr. Richard Fenigsen
Legalisation of euthanasia results in normalisation.
If euthanasia is a ‘right’ then it must be universal … and if it is universal then we can’t deny it to anyone. Once we allow it for some circumstances then, over time, we will have to allow it for many.