Dear Cal Thomas,
I recently had a chance to read your December 6th column titled "Does history repeat itself?" about euthanasia on newborn babies in The Netherlands. I am from The Netherlands and as much as I respect your view on the matter and your values I would like to inform you that I believe your column shows little knowledge possessed or fieldwork done about the practice conducted regarding euthanasia, about this country and its people and about the moral values and standards of our government. While I do not feel personally offended by wrong and small-minded opinions from a right-wing journalist such as yourself, I do find it very shocking that you compare the death of Anne Frank to practice of euthanasia.
The practice of euthanasia on newborns is merely conducted in cases of severe, hopeless and endless suffering. These cases are extremely rare and the ones you hear about are probably the only ones there. The Groningen hospital which requested permission for this practice expects it to be used only in ten to fifteen cases on a yearly basis. The patients in question have been deemed incurable and suffering without any hope for survival by doctors.
As you probably know, in the United States babies born to disadvantaged and poor - often black or Latin - families do not even get the chance to be euthanized because they frequently die at birth because of poor - or even no - health care. For example, in the Bay Area of San Francisco babies born in disadvantaged neighborhoods die as often as those in much poorer countries. With not as much of a stretch as your comparing thís practice to the killing done by the Nazis, it could easily be claimed the United States is systematically ignoring the problem of poor and often black or Latin people and their babies receiving little to no health care.
Furthermore, your remark about the alleged declassification of categories of life and the lack of seeing their intrinsic value is sad, not to say offensive. Rather than looking at a practice, look at what is in people's hearts. Do you believe that these doctors, trained to save lives on a daily basis, have contempt for this category of life and euthanize these sick and suffering children because they award them no intrinsic value?
If you truly believe this, you've not only not done your homework, you also must be blind. No, because of the value we award these precious little lives we allow them, once a terminal diagnosis has been made, to go back to their maker without having to suffer anymore. If you have a dog, or a cat, which is terminally ill, will you let that precious body, not capable of understanding pain, unable to speak, suffer or will you make the decision that it has had the most beautiful life possible but that there's nothing worthwhile that can be done for them now? I understand that you may value a baby more than you do a dog or a cat, but does that truly matter in this situation?
I know it is a widely spread opinion that God will end suffering as he chooses, but if the American nation truly stood behind that opinion, why did it have to safe the suffering and poor people of Iraq? Couldn't God have killed Saddam Hussein? No, George W. Bush, who is entitled to his view on that matter, believes that he is Godsend and that it was his place, in the name of the Lord, to end that suffering. Can you tell me why you do not allow for the doctors to use the same argument, on even more severely suffering little children?
In your column you say: 'Holland is a perfect example of what happens when there is no governing moral standard. The Dutch have decriminalized most drugs and people smoke dope openly in venues set aside for the practice. Prostitutes display their wares like mannequins in department store windows. And now we have at least one hospital murdering already born babies because someone has decreed them unworthy of life.'
Now, from your point of view you consider it "bad" for a country not to have a governing moral standard. In fact, this is a moral standard but it is just different from yours. For example, murder is still considered a felony and is punished by imprisonment. Euthanasia can only be conducted following certain guidelines, such as that there is no further hope for a worthy continuation of life. I find your last sentence quoted very provocative and simply wrong. In fact, these babies are decreed most worthy óf life, but incapable of háving a worthy life. Now because we wish for all individuals to have a worthy life, and because we consider them worthy of life, we have allowed for euthanasia as a practice when that goal becomes beyond reach.
We call this freedom. The freedom to live life but to also end it as soon as it cannot be lived to a decent standard. Of course, this decision cannot be made by all individuals, such as newborn babies, so then we allow specialists, doctors, and, I believe, their parents to make that decision for them. These are not people looking for a life to take, looking for their patient or their child to die.
It goes without saying that the moral standard here is far more lenient than in your country. At least the free and accepting nature of the Dutch has allowed for us to import radical practicers of religion rather than for it to be our own nature. I would have to say that it is that radical and conservative religious view, of the exact same level of radicalism of which you criticize our Muslim fellow country men, that has lead you to blindly compare a loving treatment of terminally ill babies to the Holocaust in which Anne Frank lost her life, which, by the way, did not take place in Holland but in Germany, in a concentration camp where she died of an illness, for which there was no medicine.
Next time, please think carefully before you write. And do some homework. Truly, who would not be embarrassed reading a column so full of untrue and provocative words, based neither on knowledge or wisdom. I was.
*naam verwijderd*
Gaat voor de BHFH-award 2005!
Humanitas est in bestias bonitas.
I am the hole I can't get out of.