Supporters of Assisted Suicide Are Proven Wrong With New Study

Fr. Mark Hodges : Feb 17, 2016
LifeSiteNews.com

"My review of reports has shown that patients are not screened for depression according to the law, meaning that many who would otherwise not wish to take their lives if treated for depression are not adequately protected." -Dr. Jacqueline Harvey

(The Netherlands)—A new study brings to light abuses associated with the practice of euthanasia for the mentally disabled. (Photo via Pixabay)

Analyzing euthanasia in the Netherlands, the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry, found that in more than half of physician-assisted suicide cases, patients declined treatment that could have helped them.

This flies in the face of euthanasia activists' claims that physician-assisted suicide for the mentally ill is committed only on people with untreatable mental illnesses.

In many cases in the study, patients cited "loneliness" as their primary reason for requesting to be killed.

Besides the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland have legalized killing the mentally ill, and Canada will implement assisted suicide in the coming months. Proponents say they are defending the rights of the mentally ill, but opponents say laws allowing patients to be killed by their doctors are intrinsically flawed. They say that "doctor-assisted death" is an oxymoron.

Depression is one example euthanasia opponents use to illustrate how physician-assisted suicide can be abused under the guise of mental illness. Other mental illnesses qualifying for suicide assistance include avoidant personality, dependent personality, eating disorders, and autism.

Investigating records of most physician-assisted suicide cases for psychiatric distress from 2011 to mid-2014, 57 percent of patients refused treatment that would have...

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