WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHETHER THE DEPRESSED PERSON YOU KILL IS YOUNG OR OLD?:

“There will be casualties”: Euthanasia activists in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands have lost touch with reality. (Michael Cook, 19 February 2010, MercatorNet)

Australian euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke loves publicity. But whenever he opens his mouth, even the most progressive journalists avert their eyes in squeamish embarrassment. This week’s gaffe was to defend his barely legal promotion of a suicide drug for the elderly and terminally ill. It turns out that nearly two-thirds of the Australians who died after quaffing Nembutal – at least 51 over the past 10 years -- were under 60, and quite a few were in the 20s and 30s. This suggests that mental illness or depression, not unbearable pain, was the reason for the suicide. So how did Nitschke respond?

''There will be some casualties,” he said ....

Euthanasia, by definition, preys on the mentally ill. It ought be bno comfort that the victims are usually older folks who feel they've become too burdensome.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 19, 2010 1:59 PM