Re: <nettime> The Vegetative Prince Will Not Wake Up: Dutch Prince Friso medical ethics and the ordeal of social inequality

[Karin Spaink <karin@spaink.net>]

On Aug 28, 2012, at 06:12 , martin hardie wrote:

> he figures i refer to were from the first years of the Dutch law. They
> were from the 1990s.

That's quite unlikely. In the 1990s, the number of euthanasia cases varied between 2300 and 3200. If there were officially 2000 cases of unwanted euthanasia per year, as you claim, the law would *never* have passed.

> I dont have them at hand but I recall them clearly

I'd like an official citation, please. And I'm quite sure that you can't find it.

> as I worked on a case in Australia about the so called right to death. I
> started out thinking that it was ok, something I supported, but in the end
> after reading the literature and reports I realised that it was a great
> danger to allow the state to have the power to kill ... in the end this is
> what it is ...

Wrong again. It's not the state, but a physician killing somebody, per the outspoken request of said person, and only after a second physician has corroborated both the request and it's applicability. You really should try to be less demagogic.

> go find a smack dealer and stock up if you want to die

Oh, and that works so well if you live in the country and are suffering because of aids, MS or cancer. Just go to the big city and buy illegal drugs! Great advice, indeed.


- K -

-- 
This is your life: right here, tight now. It's real time, you hear me? Real time!
  - Mace, in Strange Days [Kathryn Bigelow, 1995]


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