Euthanasia advocates frequently tout all of the “rules” put in place by countries which allow assisted suicide. This, they claim, makes it A-OK to have legalized assisted suicide. Only the terminally ill can be euthanized, or those who are in extreme suffering. People who are depressed won’t be euthanized, the elderly can’t be pressured into it by their families and now, with Belgium legalizing child euthanasia, children will have to be terminally ill and ask to die. Because, you know, there are laws set up to prevent rampant abuse and corruption in assisted suicide.
If only the doctors who euthanize people would cooperate with that little fantasy. Dignitas, an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, has just euthanized an elderly woman because she was upset about losing her looks. She was also lonely and, most importantly, physically healthy.
A healthy Italian woman paid a Swiss right-to-die clinic to take her life because she was ‘unhappy about losing her looks’.
Oriella Cazzanello, 85, travelled to a clinic in Basel, Switzerland, where she paid €10,000 for an assisted suicide.
The elderly woman, who was in good mental and physical health, disappeared from her home in Arzignano, near Vicenza in northern Italy, without telling her relatives where she was going.
Her family, who had reported her to the police as missing, only learnt of her death after they received her ashes and death certificate from the clinic.
Now, in Switzerland, a person need not be terminally ill in order to undergo euthanasia. But this case is a clear example of how euthanasia clinics will not hesitate to euthanize someone suffering from a mental illness, such as depression. This woman was lonely and didn’t want to age. So she was killed, even though she was a healthy woman. Yet does someone who wants to die over their looks sound like they are mentally healthy? Being suicidal in and of itself is a mental illness, and people suffering from suicidal tendencies need help — not to be cheerfully handed a loaded gun in exchange for a hefty check. But that’s what the right-to-die movement advocates for. Who cares if someone is suicidal and depressed? Euthanasia is profitable.
Switzerland originally did limit euthanasia to the terminally ill. But over time, the regulations were loosened more and more until they got to where they are today, where anyone can be killed at any time, for any reason. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the same thing isn’t already happening in other countries where assisted suicide is legal, like Belgium.
In Switzerland, assisted suicide clinics are able to practice without any regulations or oversight, which has led to rampant fraud and abuse. People in the Netherlands were found to be euthanized without their consent. And Belgium has truly run off the rails, euthanizing people simply for being anorexic, blind, depressed, transgender… and now, they’re allowing children to be killed. But it’s all OK, because there are regulations to limit the system from being abused, right?
If you’re still advocating for the legalization of assisted suicide, think long and hard about what you’ve read here. Every single place that has allowed euthanasia to be legal has seen the same results. If you truly believe that the system won’t be abused, you’re fooling yourself. We’ve seen every single time that the exact opposite is true.
