Editor,

The Press.

Dear Sir

Euthanasia is Killing

In reply to Diederic Ruarus, 24 March, the Dutch government’s Remmelink Report in 1991 found that 49,000 of the 130,000 deaths in the Netherlands each year entailed a doctor terminating the life of a patient by withholding treatment, discontinuing life support through medication to hasten death. Only 60% of doctors kept record of euthanasia cases and only 29% completed death certificates honestly. Thousands of deaths were without the patients knowledge or consent. Canadian professor of law and medicine at McGill University, Margaret Somerville, has said "…strict guidelines or no, legalized euthanasia has less to do with "unbearable suffering" than with institutionalizing murder in the medical profession."  In 30 years Holland has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, of those who are chronically ill, for those with mental illness,  psychological distress or mental suffering, and from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia or as the Dutch prefer to call it "termination of the patient without explicit request.”

Yours sincerely

Ken Orr

Spokesperson,

Right to Life,