Posted on Saturday 14th October 2023 at 2:40am

I haven’t written for a while, but was prompted to do so by my friend and colleague Ian Wood. He pointed me to an email just sent about by Branka van der Linden of the anti-VAD “HOPE” blog site.

I've written about Ms van der Linden's musings before, including:

• 'HOPE' continues to pedal egregious misinformation
• Grotesque Catholic propaganda about Belgium
• 'Inhumane deaths': from unsubstantiated claim to full-on polemic
• Hiding their religious petticoats
• Anti-VAD suicide gaffes a major embarrassment

What’s the big deal?

In her email, Ms van der Linden wrote provocatively against the Netherlands’ voluntary assisted dying (VAD) law, citing a recently-published medical journal study of Dutch VAD cases that involved people with intellectual disabilities or autism spectrum disorder (or both). The study is a legitimate examination of cases published by the Dutch Euthanasia Commissions, and contains numerous observations and some qualifications.