Liverpool Care Pathway - The Insinuation Of The Unacceptable

Keep floating an idea and it will cease to appear so novel and extreme as it insinuates itself into the consciousness and onto the landscape of opinion.

And will the accepted become the acceptable...

This flotsam and jetsam of ideas which has been floated over many years has become a flotilla. Its course already charted, it hastens rapidly to join an Armada that threatens to overwhelm what last vestiges of common decency there are left to sustain us. This Armada that has gathered has put up a barrage and now threatens us with its blockade.

Jacques Attali

Jacques Attali, leading French intellectual and former President of the European Bank for reconstruction and development, has said, "As soon as he goes beyond 60-65 years of age man lives beyond his capacity to produce, and he costs society a lot of money...euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies."

Baroness Warnock has said that elderly people suffering from dementia are “wasting people’s lives” and “wasting the resources of the National Health Service” and should be allowed to die. These are the words of a well-respected commentator on medical ethics.
Lady Warnock’s comments were published in an interview with the magazine of the Church of Scotland, Life and Work, and have been condemned by dementia charities.

Already, Dave Cameron has put a CQUIN bounty on dementia for 2013. The bounty hunters will be out in force to hunt them down.

And to make sure that such gentlemen as Mr. John Maddocks do not evade capture, they will be micro-chipped..

Martin Amis says euthanasia is 'an evolutionary inevitability' and that the 'primitive' Christian notion of the 'sanctity of life' is holding back debate on assisted suicide.

In The Guardian:
Martin Amis in new row over 'euthanasia booths'

Euthanasia Booths?

Why not go for a home delivery...?

Globalpost

Have a chat about it in your local Death Cafe...

CTV News ‎- In cities across the country, Canadians are getting together in small, intimate groups to relax, enjoy refreshments … and discuss death.


Ahead of the world, as usual, British LCP nurses already do a home delivery service.

The Right To Die Netherlands (NVVE) says it expects to receive around 1,000 assisted suicides requests per year, and has already been contacted by 70 potential patients since the plan was approved in early February last year.

Spiegel Online International

Not Just for the Terminally Ill

These are some of the reasons why de Jong has lobbied so hard to establish a euthanasia clinic. She recalls the case of a 28-year-old woman who had suffered from depression from an early age and had been in therapy for years. The woman asked her psychiatrist for help in ending her life, but he declined. She eventually pulled a plastic bag over her head and suffocated herself.

De Jong says the new clinic has also been created to fulfill the death wishes of individuals who are not terminally ill, as was the case with this woman. Of course, the doctor adds, the euthanasia clinic will evaluate each case on its own particular merits. During her career as a practicing physician, she has personally terminated the lives of 16 patients, adding that it has always been a difficult decision.

The largest professional medical organization in the Netherlands, the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG), takes a critical view of the introduction of mobile euthanasia. Although the organization supports euthanasia in principle, it argues that it's absolutely essential to build a relationship of trust between doctors and patients before taking this step. The KNMG says that patients and their suicide assistants should know each other as well as possible. Its concern is that the due care criteria proscribed by law could be undermined by mobile euthanasia doctors. Nevertheless, in case of doubt, the medical association advises its members to cooperate with the new euthanasia clinic.

Not for Those Who Merely Wish to Die

The Levenseindekliniek physicians first have to review the medical files of the patients who wish to die. Then they are required to contact the patients' primary care providers to find out why they declined to perform the euthanasia procedure themselves.

Six teams are currently working at the clinic. All participating doctors have previous experience in performing active euthanasia. They will work one day a week in the clinic and the remaining days at their own medical practices. Likewise, they will be allowed to perform euthanasia at most once a month.

Plans had originally called for the clinic to serve an additional function. It was conceived as a center for all types of world-weary people -- in other words, for able-bodied individuals who are planning to kill themselves, as well. Indeed, all those seeking to end their own lives could have done it there, and the doctors would have merely ensured that the suicides didn't fail.

Each year, some 1,500 people kill themselves in the Netherlands. They jump off bridges, hang themselves, or shoot themselves. The NVVE respects their right to self-determination in ending their lives but, as de Jong argues, it should be a death with dignity, a freely chosen death for free individuals.

Deadly Drugs

The NVVE intends to continue fighting for the legalization of assisted suicide in the Netherlands. Thousands of people call the association's office every year because they want to die and are looking for advice. NVVE staff members don't try to talk any of them out of killing themselves. "It's not our job," de Jong says. "It would be paternalistic."

Instead, the callers are provided with information on how to ensure that their suicide attempts succeed. Association members receive a password that allows them to access a list of death-inducing drugs on the NVVE website. However, these deadly substances are only available over-the-counter in other countries, such as neighboring Belgium.

There's a bowl of candies on the table in front of de Jong in her Amsterdam office. The sweets were distributed two years ago as part of a promotional campaign. At the time, her organization was calling for Dutch pharmacies to be allowed to sell lethal drugs to individuals with a prescription. Printed on the wrappers is the word Laatstwilpil, or "last will pill."

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

The cull advocated by Attali, Warnock et al, that accommodates the Communitarian profile so well, is being accommodated...

NVVE (Right to Die-NL), which claims 124,000 members, has called for legislation to make euthanasia available to anyone over age 70, sick or not.

International Herald Tribune

Sick or not, this is sick.