Mark Langedijk was an alcoholic. He battled his addiction for eight years. The battle was so difficult for him that he decided he would rather die. And in the Netherlands – where the logic of euthanasia has run its course – he found a doctor who would make him dead. And why not? He was suffering. It doesn’t matter that his suffering did not involve physical pain or that he was not terminally ill. All that matters is that he was experiencing suffering and wanted relief. Euthanasia knows no limits.
And last year, a person suffering from mental illness due to sex abuse as a child was also euthanized. Euthanasia is an easy way to throw broken people away rather than treat them. It is abandonment. These people need our care, not a lethal injection.
Thinking to Believe 
December 8, 2016 at 5:38 am
Actually it was Mark who committed suicide. Marcel was Mark’s brother. I was going to highlight this as yet another example of sloppy scholarship in the blogging world, but I suspect it is just a case of your being too busy to double check your work. I agree, however, that this goes far beyond what I thought was the original intent of the Dutch law.
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December 8, 2016 at 11:51 am
BM
Good points.
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December 9, 2016 at 7:34 am
T.R.
It might be helpful for you to understand if you read the full story as printed in the Magazine LINDA. After reading the sorry you may feel like tempering your disparaging remarks for those so afflicted.
The story is in Dutch so you’ll need to use Google translation…It’s very compelling. Mark was 41 years old. It is not simply a broken man without suffering without treatment…8 years and 21 rehabs of treatment, in fact.
THIS IS THE CONDENSED VERSION OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE BOOK WRITING ON MARCEL THE DEATH OF HIS LITTLE BROTHER. THE END COMES FROM 2017 TO PUBLISHER Q.
My Brother is Dead,
https://blendle.com/i/linda/mijn-broertje-is-dood/bnl-linda-20161116-95376
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December 12, 2016 at 9:41 pm
Bob, fixed.
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December 12, 2016 at 9:42 pm
Leo, it doesn’t change anything. Those of us who are opposed to euthanasia aren’t opposed to it because we don’t think anyone endures suffering, or that we don’t care that people are suffering. So why think my opinion of the morality of the situation would change if only I knew how much he was suffering?
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December 12, 2016 at 10:37 pm
T.R.
So what’s your point?
Deciding what everybody else ought to conform to?
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December 13, 2016 at 4:34 pm
Leo, what is not clear about my point?
You are trying to paint this as some kind of coercion. That may be rhetorically effective, but is disingenuous. If I was talking about moral opposition to rape, would you offer the same response? Of couse not! You only do so because you don’t think this is a moral issue. But I do. So the debate is about the morality of suicide, not coercing people. The fact of the matter is that laws limit behavior, and the basis for those behavior-limiting laws is morality. If it’s immoral to kill oneself, then the law ought to reflect that by making it illegal to do so. And yes, that would mean everyone must conform – not to me – but to what is moral.
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December 13, 2016 at 10:48 pm
Jason:
“You only do so because you don’t think this is a moral issue. But I do.”
This is not a moral issue for me or for you; it’s not even a moral issue for the Langedijk family, in particular Mark; this is an issue for them and Mark but has nothing to do with what you believe morals for the Mark should be. because you believe morals to be divinely given from God. That’s your whole debate in a nutshell.
Just because the law dictates what is illegal doesn’t mean it is illegal in every case. After all the law says that you shall not kill yet the law as of January 1, 2016, had 2,943 death row inmates in the United States. So it seems the law can render the “thou shalt not kill” impotent and legal when the State decides the matter. Ironic though that the system will prevent death row inmates from suicide attempts but allow them to wither in jail where a quarter of inmates die of natural causes for 30 years until the law runs its course and finally say..okay appeal over, it’s okay to kill s/he now but we Lawyers, Scholars and Judges want to decide when the killing is right, correct, legal and moral, nest ce pas?
Obviously the Law is in effect that claims euthanasia is legal therefore it is not immoral for the courts or for those participating in, that is clear and certainly refutes your argument:
“If it’s immoral to kill oneself, then the law ought to reflect that by making it illegal to do so. And yes, that would mean everyone must conform – not to me – but to what is moral.”
First of all your statement begins with “If it’s immoral to kill oneself………….” but in fact, it is not immoral to kill oneself so the rest of the statement is meaningless
What you are not saying is that you believe morals are given to man from God a belief with a religious bias and speculation. However morals like religion itself, derives from a person, from people. Morals were made to meet the needs of people, not people to meet the requirements of morals therefore man is the master even of morals.
Morals is reality based not supernatural.
From where do morals come? an excerpt from the book Braintrust states the following:
source:
http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2011/06/where-do-morals-come-from.htm
“The question of “where morals come from” has exercised philosophers, theologians and many others for millennia. It has lately, like many other questions previously addressed only through armchair rumination, become addressable empirically, through the combined approaches of modern neuroscience, genetics, psychology, anthropology and many other disciplines. From these approaches a naturalistic framework is emerging to explain the biological origins of moral behaviour. From this perspective, morality is neither objective nor transcendent – it is the pragmatic and culture-dependent expression of a set of neural systems that have evolved to allow our navigation of complex human social systems.”
This makes common sense to me and I rely more on my common sense then on your belief system from ancients who knew practically nothing about themselves, health, disease or their environment, yet knew everything about the supernatural and an entity out of mythology called the Gods. How God made man and woman, why he made us to grovel in worship like some maniacal ego, what foods to eat, fabrics to wear, when and how and whom to love. Oh yes and he communicated to people through dreams and endowed certain other people like Daniel and Joseph with interpretive ability to tell Pharaoh and the masses what God was communicating through dreams.
I often try to figure out what dreams I have point to, if anything, what they mean, but I wouldn’t go to a psychic or a religious person to find out from them what my dreams mean to me, would you? If you believe the ancients knew what dreams meant for everybody you’re thousands if not millions of years behind the times, unchanging, absolute, at a dead end.
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