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Death Delivered to Your Door

The Dutch have dispatched "mobile euthanasia units" which will make house-calls throughout the Netherlands in order to euthanize the sick and elderly - free of charge.

The scheme ... will send teams of specially trained doctors and nurses to the homes of people whose own doctors have refused to carry out patients' requests to end their lives.

Set aside for the moment questions of moral culpability, warnings of a slippery slope and the shocking disregard for human dignity which leads a society to condone roving bands of doctors killing the elderly in their homes. Euthanasia is a delicate issue upon which men of good will may disagree.

Rather, consider that even the Netherlands - which allows delivery services for death in the same manner as pizza - allows for conscience protection.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalise euthanasia in 2002 and its legislation on the right to die is considered to be the most liberal in the world.

But doctors cannot be forced to comply with the wishes of patients who request the right to die and many do refuse, which was what prompted NVVE to develop a system to fill the gap.

How far ahead of the liberal curve is Barack Obama, who seeks to force everyone - doctors, employers, insurers - to bend before the social doctrine of the culture of death? Even the most liberal country in the world respects religious liberty. If only Obama could adopt their more moderate and just posture.

Categories > Bioethics

Discussions - 5 Comments

I saw a Dutch family moving from the Netherlands to South Africa (!) on the Home & Garden network. I was scratching my head over that one (SA has become a volatile, crime-ridden society since the end of apartheid). Now I'm beginning to understand why a nice white family might choose to leave Holland (although I would still question their choice of destinations, even with the historically-dutch connection).

I think much of the developed world has lost its collective mind, and the Right just seems too stupid to prevent it.

Amazing comment, Redwald. My dog's ears pricked right up, then he vomited and passed out.

Oh, come on, Scanlon, you know you don't have a dog. Your parents don't allow pets, particularly in the laundry room/basement. Also, what dog in its right mind would have you?

Now that was funny.

Shouldn't a good NLT blogger address this one (about "Obamacare")??

From the LATimes:

"Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.

Brown "doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it," said Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business....

But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills."

(...and from Buzzflash):

"In fact, Brown and her husband allegedly owe $55,000 in debts, resulting in their "going bankrupt." As the Los Angeles Times notes, "Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address."

To layer one hypocrisy upon another, Brown has been forced to live on unemployment compensation, a constant target of the same right wingers - and the GOP caucus on Capitol Hill -- who oppose healthcare reform.

But Brown is not backing down from a stupefying lack of responsibility. She steadfastly claims her right not to have health insurance. Alas, because she and her husband are in Chapter 7 (bankruptcy) and their business collapsed, the healthcare costs will have to be borne by the general public because they add to unpaid bills owed to medical providers. In the end, doctors and hospitals adjust their rates upward for cumulative "free" care such as that provided to Brown's husband."

https://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-healthcare-plaintiff-20120309,0,6657163.story

https://blog.buzzflash.com/print/13371

More from the LATimes:

""There was time pressure" to find a plaintiff for the case, Harned said. "And candidly, it is not as easy as it sounds" to find someone. She recalls that Brown was outspoken and stepped forward as a volunteer. The lawyers found a second plaintiff in Kaj Ahlburg, a retired New York investment banker living in Port Angeles, Wash.

But when U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson declared the mandate unconstitutional in January 2011, he pointed to Mary Brown's complaint. "She is a small-business owner" who "does not believe the cost of health insurance is a wise or acceptable use of her resources," he said.

In August, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed. Florida and 25 other states were suing, but they needed an individual to contest the mandate. "Mary Brown has standing to challenge the individual mandate," the judges said, and "as long as at least one plaintiff has standing to raise" the claim, the court can rule. The Obama administration appealed, and the Supreme Court said in November it would decide the constitutional challenge.

But by then, Brown's small auto repair shop near Panama City, Fla., had closed, and she and her husband had filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition. Brown said in the petition that her only income was $275 a month in unemployment benefits.

Her bankruptcy came to light in December, when a Wall Street Journal reporter interviewed her about her role in the historic case. In a video interview, Brown said freedom from government was the issue. "I'm not fighting just for me," she said. "It's my choice to have healthcare, not theirs."

Shortly afterward, lawyers for the National Federation of Independent Business informed the court of Brown's troubles, and sent along a copy of her bankruptcy filing.

The couple owed $2,140 to Bay Medical Center in Panama City, $610 to Bay Medical Physicians, $835 to an eye doctor in Alabama and $900 to a specialist in Mississippi.

"This is a very common problem. We cover $30 million in charity and uncompensated care every year," said Christa Hild, a spokeswoman for the hospital center. "If it's a bad debt, we have to absorb it."

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$275 in unemployment - WOW!!! - I bet she spends it all on her Cadillac, right?

(The layering of absurdities is just too much to bear.)

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