Western doctors now euthanize patients as a 'treatment' for depression and psychiatric conditions

Natural News

Claiming that she has wanted to die ever since childhood, a 24-year-old Belgian woman thinks that suicide is the only answer. This summer, she is getting help from her psychiatrist. The suicidal Belgian woman is about to receive, in her mind, the ultimate treatment for her psychological condition.

No, the psychiatrist isn't going to help the woman cope with the voices in her head and the traumatic experiences she may be dealing with.

No, the psychiatrist isn't going to help the woman conquer the conflict in her head to help her live a life of purpose.

Instead, the psychiatrist is encouraging Laura to end it all. The psychiatrist is giving Laura the option to end her life by euthanasia. This is how insane Western medicine and psychiatry has become. Doctors are now dishonorably viewing euthanasia as a "treatment" for depression and psychiatric conditions. People who feel they were born to take their own life are being accepted for who they are and allowed to commit suicide in a hospital setting.

Belgian Euthanasia to Expand to Minors

National Review 
by Wesley J. Smith

Belgium has jumped head-first off a vertical moral cliff with its euthanasia law. As I have documented here and elsewhere, the Belgians have permitted joint euthanasia deaths of an elderly couple and now couple organ harvesting with the euthanasia killings of people with disabilities and even, mental illness.

Now, the country looks poised to expand the category of killables to minors and Alzheimer’s patients. From the AFP story:

Belgium is considering a significant change to its decade-old euthanasia law that would allow minors and Alzheimer’s sufferers to seek permission to die. The proposed changes to the law were submitted to parliament Tuesday by the Socialist party and are likely to be approved by other parties, although no date has yet been put forward for a parliamentary debate.”The idea is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing cases we must find a response to,” party leader Thierry Giet said.The draft legislation calls for “the law to be extended to minors if they are capable of discernment or affected by an incurable illness or suffering that we cannot alleviate.”

Is anyone surprised? Once a culture accepts killing as an acceptable answer to human suffering, the culture of death is never satiated. It is never enough.

Psychiatric Patients Euthanized in the Netherlands

National Review Online

by Wesley J. Smith

Rick Santorum got into trouble a few months ago for making some pointed criticisms of euthanasia in the Netherlands. As I pointed out at the time, his details were somewhat off, but the substance of his critique was spot on. Simply stated, euthanasia has taken Dutch medical ethics off a vertical moral cliff, to the point that psychiatric patients are sometimes terminated by their doctors or psychiatrists.

Latest example: According to Dutch media, thirteen psychiatric patients were assisted in suicide last year. From the DutchNews story:

A total of 13 psychiatric patients were helped to end their life last year, compared with just two in 2010, according to new figures from the regional euthanasia monitoring groups. Euthanasia among people in the early stages of dementia also rose last year to 49 cases, double that of 2010. The figures are in line with a general upward trend. The total number of euthanasia cases rose 18% last year to 3,695 and the number of cases has doubled since 2006, the report said.

Don’t expect the media to care. When they reference Dutch euthanasia, readers/viewers are always assured that medicalized killing is tightly controlled under “strict conditions,” as the story quoted above does–even as it cites the euthanasias of psychiatric and dementia patients!

Belgium has also legalized euthanasia, and a medical journal reported one psychiatric patient (as well as several disabled patients) euthanized and then subjected to consensual organ harvesting. The Swiss allow suicide clinics and its Supreme Court established a right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill.

Here’s the moral of the story: Once a society agrees that some suicides are good, the categories of the killable never stops expanding.