Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Tuesday 24th September 2024 at 11:54pm
The Dutch LZA-LP has just published its latest annual report.
Nearily two decades ago...
It seems like such a long time.
The Groningen Protocol
Back in 2005, the Dutch Paediatric Association (NVK) ratified what is known as the Groningen Protocol. It was adopted into the nation's regulations in 2006. It allows for the termination of a neonate's life in very particular circumstances, via strict processes, and reported to the regulating authority, the LZA-LP.
Only the most grave, extremis circumstances are eligible, for example Herlitz type epidermolysis bullosa, an untreatable condition that causes extreme internal and external blistering, and then death.
Then in 2013, the Dutch medical association (KNMG) released a medical media statement saying that each year, some 650 of 175,000 Dutch neonates will die not long after birth.
VAD opponents become enraged
Opponents of voluntary assisted dying (VAD) immediately became enraged, joining dots that didn't exist.
"After a decade of legalized assisted dying in the Netherlands, it is estimated that as many as 1 in 3 deaths in the country are from euthanasia [itself false] – including 650 babies each year." — Anti-VAD correspondent
The flood of false associations continued at least until 2016. It was then that I conducted a scholarly, forensic and exhaustive investigation into the Groningen Protocol, its history and its use, as well as documenting the trail of religious institutions running the "650 babies" association story up the media flagpole. I published a paper on it.
What's happened since then?
For appropriate reference, in the nine years immediately preceding the Protocol, there were 22 cases of neonatal euthanasia in the Netherlands.
That's not per year. It's the total over nine years. An average of a bit over two a year. Not 650.
And since regulation?
The LZA-LP has just released its 2022-23 report on neonatal euthanasia cases, so we're now up to date. And the figures are:
That is, in 9 years prior to the Groningen Protocol there were 22 cases, while in twice the period after its introduction (18 years), there were 3.
The findings show that shining a light on practice helps improve it. And that VAD, whose numbers have increased in the Netherlands, is not associated with a concomitant rise (but rather a major drop) in the small number of neonatal euthanasia cases.
I've yet to see any of the sources who spread "650 babies euthanised every year" misinformation publish a correction or refer to the LZA-LP annual reports. I wouldn't hold my breath, either.
More of the same
The "650 babies" caper is still doing the rounds.
Take Lord Alton of Liverpool for example. Last year he gave an address to a Catholic Social Thought forum, in which, after invoking Nazi Germany, he said:
"For those who would contend that infant euthanasia in the Netherlands is only permitted for rare and exceptional, cases, a Dutch commission on euthanasia argued in 2013 that as many as 650 infants should be eligible for the practice in the country each year." — Lord Aston of Liverpool
Actually, it was the Dutch medical association, not the Dutch euthanasia commission. It was 650 babies die, not "should be eligible for euthanasia". And the already small numbers have radically dropped, not risen.
But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Saturday 13th March 2021 at 11:57pm
"HOPE's" Branka van der Linden and the ACA misrepresent figures, again
Here we go again. Branka van der Linden of Catholic anti-VAD website “HOPE”, and the Australian Care Alliance — endorsed by a number of well-known, committed Catholic doctors — have just published more egregious misinformation against VAD. This time they've collectively piled it on Victoria's general suicide statistics, recently updated by the Victorian Coroner. So what did they say, and how did it misrepresent the actual situation? Let's take a look.
The reason the statistics are being discussed is because in 2017, Victoria's parliament legalised voluntary assisted dying (VAD) for the terminally ill. The law came into effect halfway through 2019, and 2020 was the first full year of its operation.
Australian Care Alliance gets the basics wrong
Here's the Australian Care Alliance's (ACA) splashy page trumpeting that Victoria's suicide rate has jumped 21.2% from 694 in 2017 to 842 in 2020.
Figure 1: ACA's splashy page trumpeting a 21.2% increase in Victorian suicides
That's... interesting. According to the Victorian coroner's official figures, there were indeed 694 suicides in Victoria in 2017. However, in 2020 the coroner's figure is actually 698, not 842 as claimed by the ACA. According to the ACA, Victoria's suicide count data looks like this (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The ACA polemically claims that Victoria's suicide count has increased 21.2%
So, how did the ACA reach a count of 842? Well, their argument is to shamefully and humiliatingly disrespect Victoria's terminally ill who died peacefully under its VAD law in 2020 — 144 of them according to the official 2020 reports of Victoria's Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board — and add them to the coronial count of 698 suicides.
The ACA points out that VAD supporters have said that legalising VAD should decrease Victoria's general suicides by about 50 cases a year, but say the count's gone up substantially instead. See how they craftily deploy logical fallacy to fabricate a crisis?
Arguing that VAD law must reduce the suicide count by 50 cases a year (but seemingly didn't) and at the same time adding VAD cases to the suicide count to complain that it's gone up, requires at least three assumptions:
that all terminally ill violent suiciders now automatically qualify for and easily gain access to VAD; and
that nobody else with a terminal illness who would not have chosen violent suicide, should or would use the law; and
that no other factors make a significant difference to trends in general suicides.
All these assumptions are patently false.
Obviously, some people will not legally qualify for VAD; for example, amongst its restrictions it requires death to be expected with 6 months; 12 months for a small set of specific illnesses.
Obviously, some who would not have suicided but instead would suffer intolerably and against their wishes until death, will now choose to pursue VAD.
And obviously, well-known factors such as rates of mental illness, substance abuse, intimate relationship troubles, bullying, financial or legal difficulties, and other factors are major influencers of general suicide rates. But to the ACA, the only factor that supposedly has any effect is the one they are ideologically opposed to: VAD.
It's worrisome that this nonsense is sold to the public by ACA's supposed experts: “health professionals and lawyers”.
Cherry-picked overseas data, too
The ACA's ideological bias is further revealed by their website page about the “social contagion of suicide”. In it, they cite as authoritative, the 2015 Jones and Paton (both firm Catholics) article purporting to show 6.3% suicide contagion from VAD to the general population. I've comprehensively exposed that article as an ideologically-driven mathematical farce fuelled by no fewer than ten major scientific offenses. It's interesting that the ACAs methodology is just like Jones' and Patons': reporting VAD supporter statements that legalisation should decrease the general suicide rate, and then adding VAD deaths to conclude the opposite.
They also commit one of Jones' and Patons' other offences: selectively quoting data from other studies that might be seen to support their theory, but excluding critical alternative information from the same study that runs counter to the theory.
The ACA cites a Swiss study to breathlessly report that 6.5% of those who witnessed an assisted death in that country experienced sub-threshold PTSD, and 13% full PTSD. The ACA expressly states:
“Like any other suicide, assisted suicide can profoundly affect surviving family members and friends.” — The Australian Care Alliance
There you have it: the ACA draws a direct equivalence between peaceful VAD deaths in the face of terminal illness and with loved ones present, and lonely, violent deaths by general suicide.
The ACA cites no other relevant material from the Swiss article. That's revealing, because the article clearly reported that the PTSD rates were higher than in the general population. There's what the ACA left out: the PTSD rates were higher than for almost everyone else who hadn't just suffered the loss of a loved one.
To draw valid and meaningful interpretations, it is necessary to compare the bereavement challenges of VAD family versus families of general deaths, deaths in the face of extreme suffering without hastened death, and cases of violent suicide. As I've published before from peer-reviewed studies, bereavement symptoms of VAD family are at least as good as, and can be better than those where the deceased has suffered in extremis at the end of life, and certainly relative to violent suicides.
The ACA also doesn't mention that the Swiss study found a "prevalence of complicated grief ... comparable to that reported for the general Swiss population". It's not like the information was hard to find. It's right there in the Abstract on the front page of the article.
That the ACA cherry-picked a couple of Swiss data points while omitting key “unhelpful” information, and argued, by linking the selected cherries with the above quote, that said Swiss data established something it clearly did not (that VAD deaths supposedly cause similar family trauma as violent suicides), suggests an astonishing degree of ignorance.
The ACA's cherry-picking of data, while omitting key unhelpful information, suggests an astonishing degree of ignorance.
Enough of that.
Branka van der Linden cherry-picks, too
I've crossed pens (or is that keyboards?) with Ms van der Linden several times before in regard to misinformation. She misinforms on this matter, too.
Curiously, like the ACA and also without explanation, she cherry-picks just the 2017 and 2020 suicide counts from the Victorian coroner's report (Figure 3). You'd think this was the only data in the report, but no, it isn't.
Figure 3: Branca van der Linden's version of Victorian suicide counts by year
She uses these two figures to argue that said drop of 50 cases per year hasn't happened. This employs the same fallacies as the ACA: suggesting that two single data points strongly support a hypothesis, and assuming that the thing one is ideologically opposed to, VAD, is the only thing to alter the rate of general suicides over time.
Like the ACA, she also suggests adding the VAD figures to the coroner's general suicide data to say that in that case, suicides have increased significantly.
Both the Australian Care Alliance and Branca van der Linden cherry-pick just two data points from more full and robust longitudinal data to try and argue their case against VAD.
So what does the coroner's full data set look like?
The actual numbers
The Victorian coroner's 2021 report into suicides contains data for all years 2016 to 2020 inclusive. And it looks like this (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The complete set of data from the Victorian coroner's report on suicide counts per year
Now we're beginning to see a possible reason as to why the ACA and Ms van der Linden chose just two data points. Remember that VAD was legalised by the Victorian parliament in 2017. The law was not in effect for 2017, 2018, or the first half of 2019.
Well, the data clearly suggests an increasing suicide count trend up to 2018. The upward trend stops in 2019, when VAD was in operation for the second half of the year. And in 2020, the first full operational year of VAD, the upward trend has been interrupted by a downward result. Neither the ACL nor Ms van der Linden mention this.
Neither the Australian Care Alliance nor Branca van der Linden mention the fuller, longitudinal data that doesn't support, and indeed appears hostile to, their hypothesis.
Update 19-Mar-2021
I thought it so obvious that I didn't write it up, but a colleague points out it's important to highlight, that in picking just two data points to stake their claim, the ACA and Ms van der Linden chose 2017, and not 2018, as their reference year. To compare “after” with “before” in the most basicly valid manner (full longitudinal data is better), it is appropriate to compare the last data point that completely excludes the new condition (VAD law in operation), with the first data point that fully includes it.
Those years are 2018 (none of the year) and 2020 (all of the year). But the ACA and Ms van der Linden didn't pick 2018, they picked 2017.
What possible reason might explain that? Well, by comparing 2017 with 2020, they got to say that the general suicide count increased by 2 from 694 to 698. However, had they more validly compared 2018 with 2020, they would have had to report a drop of 19 from 717 to 698.
And that would have contradicted their flimsy confection that suicides hadn't gone down after VAD was introduced.
But even the raw suicide count statistics are a bit misleading.
Interpreting suicide data correctly
Using raw counts to compare suicide statistics (e.g. year to year or place to place) is lazy and wrong. All other things being equal, if you had twice the population, you'd expect twice the suicide count. To make valid comparisons, you have to compare rates, not raw counts. This is relevant because populations obviously change over time, and Victoria between 2016 and 2020 was no exception.
I've retrieved the official Victorian population figures by year and computed the standard official suicide rate statistic: suicides per 100,000 population. The Victorian suicide rates look like this (Figure 5):
Figure 5: Victorian suicides per 100k population by year
The data shows a rising suicide rate from 2016 to 2018, a levelling off in 2019 in which VAD was operational for half the year, and a fall back to the 2016 rate in 2020, the first full operational year of VAD.
Computing from the rate drop between 2018 (11.4 with no VAD law) and 2020 (10.8, first full year of VAD law), the equivalent count of suicide decrease in 2020 was 38 persons. And that's without assuming the general suicide rate would have continued its rising trend.
The equivalent suicide decrease from 2018 to 2020 was 38 persons.
Getting all the numbers right
The ACA correctly cites then Minister for Health, Ms Jill Hennessy, as stating in 2017 that "Evidence from the coroner indicated that one terminally ill Victorian was taking their life each week." That would be 52 cases a year, which the ACA rounds out to 50 a year. The headline figure from the coroner's report actually calculates to 48. No biggie, just round numbers.
But the figure is quite wrong. You have to read the coroner's special 2017 report to the Victorian parliament regarding suicides in cases of illness, to calculate the correct numbers.
The coroner's report didn't just include suicide data for terminally ill people. It also included cases of advanced incurable but not terminal illness, and cases of severe suffering resulting from injuries. So the terminal illness data (to which the VAD law is relevant) is a fraction of the total. We can calculate from the Tables in the report that 23% of the cases were in respect of injuries, so that leaves 77% for terminal and other advanced illnesses.
Of the illnesses listed, the relevant one as a proxy measure for terminal illness is “cancer”, and that comprises 50% of the illness cases. So, 50% of 77% of 48 cases a year = 19 cases a year in respect of terminal illness.
So that's an actual likely decrease of 19 suicide cases a year, compared with an equivalent drop in the actual data of 38 persons in the first full year.
The actual annual count of general suicides in respect of terminal illness, as reported to the Victorian parliament by the state coroner in 2017, was 19 persons a year, and not 50 as widely stated.
Don't get carried away
It's imporant to note that citing this interesting numeric analysis as “proof” of the law's effectiveness in respect of reducing Victoria's suicide rate, would, at present, be an overconfident claim. While far more firmly based in proper forms of evidence than the vapid nonsense promoted by the ACA and Ms van der Linden, this is a correlation. Correlation does not equal causation: the ACA and Ms van der Linden should remember that. For example, 2020 was a very unusual, Covid-19-dominated annus horribilis, which may have affected suicide rates in unexpected ways.
While the coroner's fuller data set so far is consistent with reasoned expectations of suicide substitution, it is premature to conclude the data proves the principle. More years' data, and more detailed, causative analysis involving the control of confounding factors, is necessary before reaching greater certainty in the association.
But as I've published in detailed and extensive analyses based on robust official data, so far all the longitudinal data on suicide rates in jurisdictions where VAD is lawful is consistent with suicide substitution, not suicide contagion. Some VAD opponents just cherry-pick their way through tidbits to try and argue the opposite.
To date, all the robust, longitudinal data on suicides in jurisdictions where VAD is lawful is consistent with suicide substitution, not suicide contagion.
Conclusion
The Australian Care Alliance and Ms van der Linden disgracefully cherry-pick and misrepresent Victoria's recent suicide data in a manner consistent with their own theories, while proper and appropriate analysis of the full data available shows results inconsistent with their hypothesis, and currently consistent with the opposite.
To paraphrase Ms van der Linden's own statement: “It is unfortunate that the deaths of terminally ill Victorians were politicised so shamelessly by [anti-]euthanasia activists for their own ends.”
These continued cherry-picked data gaffes are an embarrassment to their promoters.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has released a grotesque and appalling video that blatantly misrepresents Belgium's non-voluntary euthanasia practices as being 'caused' by their voluntary assisted dying law. They're not.
“Belgian scholars have researched the country's non-voluntary euthanasia rate (or NVE) over a number of years.
Their findings unambiguously show that Belgium's NVE rate was much higher BEFORE it legalised voluntary assisted dying (or VAD), and dropped significantly afterwards.
Yet the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has released a grotesque video which cherry-picks just the 2007 figure to claim that Belgium's VAD law has caused its NVE practices.
But the NVE drop is no secret: it's expressly stated in the very research the Church cites.
It's no wonder that lead researcher, Assistant Professor Kenneth Chambaere, called the Church’s video “cherry-picked", “a blatant misrepresentation”, “scaremongering” and “appalling”.
The video casts serious doubts over the Church's competence in assessing scholarly evidence, and calls into question its desire to avoid misinformation.
To conclude, Belgium's NVE rate dropped dramatically, and has remained lower, after it legalised voluntary assisted dying.”
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Monday 1st April 2019 at 9:59pm
A forensic analysis exposes Theo Boer's smoke and mirrors on 'suicide contagion'
In my most recent article in the Journal of Assisted Dying, I forensically analyse Dutch ethicist Professor Theo Boer’s 2017 paper purporting to find suicide contagion from assisted dying in the Netherlands. It doesn’t go well for Professor Boer, to put it mildly. You can find the full article here.
I also find an astonishing coincidence that occurred in 2014, the year Boer went feral against the Dutch euthanasia law.
Multiple fatal flaws
In the ‘analysis’ outlined in his article, Boer commits a number of fatal scientific no-noes, including failing to analyse the variable he actually surmised might cause suicide contagion, cherry-picking data that supported his conclusion while ignoring or offhandedly dismissing data at odds with his conclusion, and wrongly forming a causative conclusion from a simple correlation while failing to control for any confounding variables of which there are many.
A litany of scientific offences
In addition to the fatal flaws, Boer’s article contains numerous other scientific and academic offences. My forensic analysis concludes:
“In summary, Boer’s article contains a litany of scientific and scholarly failures. Its speculations are ill-informed, poorly-assembled, incoherent in places and mostly uncited, the data cherry-picked and invalidly interpreted, and the laissez faire methodology incapable of validly supporting its conclusion.
Boer conjures up mere smoke and mirrors to argue suicide contagion from VAD in the Netherlands. The article should be retracted.”
The article also reflects badly on the journal that published this smoke and mirrors: the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health. Neither peer review nor editorial effort identified or attempted to correct any of the nonsense in the article.
What was he thinking?
Professor Boer is an expert in Reformist Protestant theology. As a religious ethicist, it’s astonishing that he considered himself suited to conducting and publishing a ‘causative’ scientific study.
In his article, Boer proposed VAD as the only factor to contribute to changes in the Netherlands’ general suicide rate (and dismissed the Belgian data which contradicted his theory).
In reality, numerous risk and protective factors affect the suicide rate, and in the Netherlands as I’ve established using their official government data, just one factor — unemployment — explains 80% of the variance in the Dutch suicide rate since 1960. Boer casually dismisses this without providing the faintest fume of an empirical analysis himself.
Boer’s article did little but amply demonstrate his underlying anchoring and confirmation bias on the subject, his unfamiliarity with the complexity of suicide, and ignorance of proper scientific principles.
For good measure, he casually threw in a comment about “suicide contagion” or copycat suicides, without understanding that in suicide, copying is the method of causing death. But by definition, general suiciders don’t follow the provisions of the euthanasia Act.
His endeavour made as little sense as me writing a conclusive article about Reformist Protestant theology, about which I know very little.
A copycat analysis?
Coincidentally, the structure of the storyline, the litany of scientific offences committed, and the conclusions reached in Boer’s article were surprisingly similar to those in an ‘analysis’ of Oregon’s suicide rate in another paper by Jones and Paton. Like Boer, Jones and Paton start out by surmising that assisted dying ought to lower the general suicide rate, and conclude the opposite.
Boer approvingly cites the Jones and Paton article, even though a forensic analysis found no fewer than ten major scientific flaws in it and provided multiple sources of empirical evidence at odds with the article’s conclusions.
But Boer manages to cock even the citation up, referring to the article’s authors as Holmes and Paton.
Will the real Theo Boer please stand up?
Boer notes that he’s always been a euthanasia sceptic. Nevertheless, as a Reformist Protestant, he had long accepted assisted dying in “emergency” situations, of which intolerable and otherwise unrelievable suffering is a ‘qualifying’ criterion, and which is the substance of the Dutch euthanasia law (it’s regarded in legal circles as a law of “necessity”). He also opined that the Dutch model was a decent one that other jurisdictions could emulate.
Boer served as the ethicist member of one of the five Dutch euthanasia review commissions, examining every case reported to it between 2005 and 2014.
In 2014 he publicly quit his post on the review committee, slamming the Dutch assisted dying system. He’s been badmouthing it to anyone who will listen, since.
In preparation for this analysis, I asked Boer if his vocal opposition to the Dutch assisted dying model was now based on an in-principle opposition to assisted dying, or only in regard to more recent practice under the Dutch euthanasia Act. Despite a couple of iterations, I didn’t get a specific answer.
The law hasn’t changed
Here’s the point. While Boer repeatedly opines that things changed radically in the Netherlands around 2007, the country’s euthanasia Act hasn’t changed since it was passed in 2001 (and came into effect in 2002). Not. One. Word.
In addition, the Dutch Supreme Court determined in 1994 that individuals with mental (in the absence of concomitant physical) illness could qualify under the then regulatory euthanasia framework, and it was found that cases occurred every year.
And the 2001 Act formalised in statute the regulatory framework that had existed since at least 1984, when the Dutch medical association first published guidelines for euthanasia.
Thus, the Act reflects very long-standing practice, and it hasn’t changed since it was enacted, in contrast to Boer’s claim that things have radically changed.
Flimsy and incoherent ‘ethics’ part 1
This brings us to the first fatal incoherence of Boer’s “ethics”: that he now opposes the law because people with psychiatric illness and other conditions are, in slightly increasing numbers, availing themselves of the euthanasia law. It is these cases against which Boer rails, despite having previously said the Dutch model is a good example for the world, and having actively participated in the system.
Boer’s flip flop is to argue that a law that permits assisted dying under a range of medical conditions (and has done so for decades) is a good law, provided some of those who might qualify (like psychiatric cases) never use it.
Try and explain the ethics behind that position.
Flimsy and incoherent ‘ethics’ part 2
The second fatal incoherence of Boer’s ‘ethics’ is his repeated complaint that until around 2007, the numbers of euthanasia cases was “somewhat steady”, but increased after that. Never mind that the majority of the increase was still in relation to terminal cancer: Boer simply railed at the increased numbers as a major problem.
But, try and explain using ethical principles, why it is appropriate for 2,000 people a year to avail themselves of the euthanasia law, but inappropriate for 4,000 (who all qualify)?
Indeed, the Dutch euthanasia Act makes no mention of numbers: there is no legislated limit on the count of people who might choose to use the law. Rather, it is based on due care criteria, outlining the circumstances of who may qualify, and the process by which they may.
The legislature’s intent remains unchanged and is still being adhered to, though more people, the majority of whom have terminal cancer, are using the law.
It’s astonishing that a Professor of Ethics fails to reflect on the fatal incoherence of his own ‘ethical’ arguments.
What happened?
Boer, who had supported and promoted the Dutch euthanasia model suddenly and incoherently changed his position to vocally opposed in 2014. What happened?
One factor might shed some light. In 2014, Boer was appointed to the endowed professorship of Lindeboom Chair in Ethics in Healthcare at Kampen Theological University.
While Kampen Theological University is a Dutch Reformist Protestant institution and therefore may support assisted dying in “emergency” cases, the Lindeboom Institute, which endows Boer’s eponymous professorship, is less understanding.
The Lindeboom Institute was co-founded by several orthodox Christian institutions and cooperates with the Netherlands Evangelical University which studies science from an creationist Biblical perspective.
The Institute demands “biblically sound medical ethics” along with “Christian norms and values”. You’d be left wondering what that actually means, until you find on its website that the Board’s role is “the protection of people at all stages of life”.
In addition, participating organisations that fund the Lindeboom endowment, like the Dutch Patients Association, Pro Life Health Insurance and the Foundation for Christian Philosophy, are strongly opposed to assisted dying in any form.
It turns out that the authors of that other ‘analysis’ that commits numerous similar scientific offences which generate smoke and mirrors, Jones and Paton, are devout conservative Catholics.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Saturday 3rd September 2016 at 4:44am
Mr Steve Jalsevac of the Catholic LifeSiteNews blog who made a shocking and vile attack.
I recently exposed (another) piece of misinformation published by LifeSiteNews, and wrote courteously to them to request withdrawal of the offending article. While I wasn’t hopeful the request would be accepted, I wasn’t prepared for the shocking and vile response I received.
Exposing bull about assisted dying is a key purpose of DyingForChoice.com and it will continue to do so as long as bull is published or publicly spoken, and especially when it makes claims or generates innuendo that is at odds with the readily-available facts, as a smokescreen for fundamentally religious objections.
The specific request to withdraw
In a recent article I factually rebutted the allegation by Mr Brad Mattes that there is suicide contagion (from assisted dying to general suicide) in Belgium, in addition to other statements that were wrong in fact in his opinion piece published by LifeSiteNews. I wrote a courteous letter to the editor of LifeSiteNews to point out the errors and to seek withdrawal of the article.
My full email to LifeSiteNews
Dear LifeSiteNews,
Clearly we are on different sides of the assisted dying conversation. I’m sure that we can mutually appreciate that different people bring different perspectives and apply some largesse in terms of world views.
However, one must draw the line (as your primary Principle does and upon which I think we agree) at the publication of information, however accidental, on your website that is in places fundamentally misleading and elsewhere quite false.
In this regard may I request that you withdraw the article by Mr Brad Mattes, Assisted suicide no longer just for the terminally ill, that contains multiple errors of evidential fact as well as fundamentally misleading statements, as I point out in this post?
Kind regards
Neil Francis
The shocking response
A firm believer in courteous debate even when one disagrees profoundly on important matters, I thought the most likely outcome would be a polite letter declining my request. But I received instead this response from LifeSiteNews Managing Director, Mr Steve Jalsevac.
Full response by Mr Steve Jalsevac of LifeSiteNews
Dear Neil,
I find it somewhat amusing that an advocate for legislation to allow people to kill themselves is demanding that we withdraw an article for supposedly publishing "misleading" or "false" information.
After many years of covering organizations such as yours which, typically cruelly manipulate vulnerable persons, violate or liberally interpret laws, understate their longer term objectives, have an extremely unhealthy and dangerous satisfaction in personally seeing people die before their eyes before their natural time, devastate family members whose loved ones had, unknown to them, been guided to kill themselves, and who have such perverse and wrong views on Christian beliefs and much more, I find it despicable that you would be so concerned about supposed accuracy. You, sir, are a hypocrite of the very worst kind.
It is our view that you should be behind bars for what you advocate and for your dangerous manipulation of vulnerable persons.
I realize that you will not agree with anything that I write given how blinded your conscience and intellect have become by your death preoccupation. So, I just conclude that your claims, views and interpretations are all rejected because no one should trust anything that you say or do on this subject.
Steve Jalsevac
LifeSite
Who is LifeSiteNews, anyway?
LifeSiteNews is an online blog established by the conservative Christian Campaign for Life Coalition. It promotes that it “emphasizes the social worth of traditional Judeo-Christian principles.” Its principles are all very courteously worded and sound “respectful” (its principles expressly use that word several times) whilst indicating that it is a pro-life blog.
I’ve read its articles on assisted dying for several years and have not found a single one that is at odds with the position of the Vatican. That’s hardly surprising.
LifeSiteNews publishes a significant proportion of articles about the Catholic Church, as is its right. It is also the sole publisher of Faithful Insight, in its own words “hard-hitting,” “100% faithful” and “fearless Catholic news coverage from the Vatican and beyond.” I argue strongly for the right to publish material of faith. That is not a source of complaint. (Fair disclosure—I’m agnostic.)
LifeSiteNews' hard-hitting and 100% Catholic-faithful publication.
And, Mr Jalsevac gives a clear indication that he’s at the 'Old School' end of the Catholic spectrum. He admires in multiple blogs the writings of conservative African Catholic Bishop Robert Sarah, noting John Paul II’s teachings as “definitive” and expressing disappointment in the current Pope. And that's entirely his right I again affirm.
Mr Jalsevac’s editor-in-chief, Mr John-Henry Westen has also published a number of articles critical of Pope Francis, also referring to previous Popes as more authoritative.
What do they claimto stand for?
LifeSiteNews’ first principle, in full, is this:
“1. Accuracy in content is given high priority. News and information tips from readers are encouraged and validated. Valid corrections are always welcome. Writing and research is of a professional calibre.”—LifeSiteNews.com
Mr Jalsevac's response highlights these claimed principles in stark relief by comprehensively breaching them.
The statements Mr Jalsevac makes about me are vile. And false. While I’m calling out his blogs’ misinformation for what it is, he’s calling for me personally to be thrown in jail for sins he falsely thinks I’ve committed. That’s squarely known as the ad hominem attack: attacking the person rather than the argument. It conveniently provides him with the excuse to totally ignore solid evidence that contradicts his beliefs.
Interestingly, an article by LifeSiteNews Editor Mr Westen quotes Pope Francis as saying,
“We Catholics have some — and not some, many — who believe in the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation…”—Pope Francis.
Quite.
Conclusion
LifeSiteNews is an 'Old School' Catholic blog, and, I argue, has every right to be.
However, it has demonstrated by publishing multiple articles containing serious errors of fact as well as highly misleading statements, and by a gratuitous ad hominem attack on someone pointing this out, that it is not interested in evidence, reason or even civility as it claims. In my view it has unambiguously demonstrated itself to be a biased and unreliable Catholic source on matters of assisted dying.
I will continue to call out misinformation in LifeSiteNews when I see it.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Sunday 28th August 2016 at 12:58am
Brad Mattes' blog containing misleading and evidentially false statements.
The latest misinformation employed by assisted dying opponents is to imply that Belgium’s general suicide rate is high as a consequence of its assisted dying law: i.e. to argue the discredited 'suicide contagion' line which has in the past been peddled about the USA state of Oregon. I have demonstrated that it was false in Oregon, and I equally demonstrate here that it's false in Belgium.
Mr Brad Mattes recently published emotional anti-assisted-dying nonsense in LifeSiteNews. (LifeSiteNews is a Canadian blog site that was established by the conservative Christian Campaign for Life Coalition and which has a primary principle of promoting “traditional Judeo-Christian principles”. Mr Mattes is radio host for Ohio’s Life Issues Institute, an anti-abortion lobby group established by conservative American John C. Willke who claimed that women’s bodies were resistant to pregnancy as a result of rape.)
Putting on the misinformation running shoes
In his blog Mr Mattes quickly establishes a practice of communicating misinformation by first claiming that assisted dying laws have “devastating effects” around the world including Japan and Albania—which don’t have such laws.
He then sprints onwards to the ‘650 babies euthanized in the Netherlands’ claim—which I have already comprehensively exposed as fake in the Journal of Assisted Dying—and then onto the bogus claim that the Netherlands has descended into a mire of ‘killing’ without the patient’s ‘consent,’ contrary to empirical evidence I've published that such actions occur around the world regardless of assisted dying laws, and which have decreased significantly in the Netherlands and Belgium since their assisted dying statutes came into effect in 2002.
Let’s add fries to that
Having served up a lot of fat and salt that might appeal to those on a fast-food anti-assisted-dying diet, he then offers the unqualified statement:
“By the way, Belgium has the second-highest suicide rate (nonrelated to euthanasia) in Western Europe.” — Brad Mattes
The ‘informational’ consequence is unequivocal: by Mr Mattes failing to contextualise this ‘incidental factoid’ in any way, the reader is destined to deduce that it is Belgium’s euthanasia law that causes Belgium’s suicide rate to be the second-highest in Western Europe. In other words, Mr Mattes is another poorly-informed commentator using the 'suicide contagion' line.
But what are the facts?
Depending on the source and year of data, one can certainly argue that Belgium’s general suicide rate is the second-highest in Western Europe. Setting aside for now the serious question of why it is valid to exclude all of the world’s other countries from the comparison, WorldLifeExpectancy.com reports figures that were published in 2014 (Table 1).
Table 1
Country
Suicides*
Finland
15.11
Belgium
14.64
Iceland
14.06
France
12.84
Austria
11.87
Sweden
11.43
Ireland
11.06
Germany
9.59
Switzerland
9.56
Norway
9.28
Denmark
9.19
Luxembourg
9.14
Netherlands
8.54
Portugal
8.49
Turkey
7.92
UK
6.28
Malta
5.75
Spain
5.23
Italy
4.76
Greece
3.86
* Suicides per 100k population, age-adjusted
The table includes all the countries in the wider definition of “Western Europe”, bar four: no suicide statistics are published for Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra or San Marino.
As you can see, Belgium is indeed the second-highest. But this begs the question:
If the reason Belgium is the second-highest is due to its assisted dying law, how come Finland, which Mr Mattes doesn't mention by name and which has no such law, is higher?
It also begs the question:
If assisted dying law were the fundamental cause of a high general suicide rate, how come Switzerland (statute since 1942), Luxembourg (statute since 2009) and the Netherlands (practice since the early 1980s and statute since 2002) have rates that are muchlower, all key facts that Mr Mattes also fails to mention?
These are of course indications that the factoid has been included as a cherry-picked morsel of 'proof' because it sounds so compelling as a throw-away sentence amongst the other (false) statements.
But wait, there’s more
We can go further than merely wondering about the country comparisons, by comparing Belgium’s general suicide rate before and after assisted dying law reform. A critical step in establishing causation is to first establish correlation. If there is no correlation, there can be no causation.
Published OECD data shows that in 2013 (the most recent available data), Belgium’s general suicide rate was 16.7 per 100,000 population. What was it before their 2002 law reform? Well in 2000 it was 20.5, in 1990 it was 19.2, … you get the idea.
Has Belgium’s general suicide rate soared (or even increased modestly) since their 2002 assisted dying law came into effect? No. It’s dropped. Indeed, the slight downward trend apparent before the statute came into effect in 2002 has accelerated downward since (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The Belgium general suicide rate before and after assisted dying law reform
Even the headline is misleading
Mr Mattes fails to point out in his blog that assisted dying statutes in Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) never restricted access to only the 'terminally ill,' that is, those imminently dying. He also fails to point out that USA states whose laws do restrict assisted dying to the terminally ill—most notably Oregon and Washington—have not changed their statutes in this regard since they came into effect.
Therefore, his headling implying that lawful jurisdictions have broadened their laws from 'only the terminally ill' is also wrong.
Conclusion
Mr Mattes makes multiple false and misleading claims and it’s easy to see his opinion for what it is: an emotional dump that fails to engage with and indeed flies in the face of actual evidence. The latest 'suicide contagion' implication, that assisted dying law causes Belgium’s general suicide rate to be the “second-highest in Western Europe” is evidentially false.
I call on LifeSiteNews to withdraw Mr Mattes' article because it breaches their primary principle:
“1. Accuracy in content is given high priority. News and information tips from readers are encouraged and validated. Valid corrections are always welcome. Writing and research is of a professional calibre.” — LifeSiteNews
Summary of facts
Belgium's general suicide rate is one of the higher ones in Western Europe. However:
At least one country without an assisted dying law has a higher suicide rate, inconsistent with 'suicide contagion' theory.
Other Western Europe countries with assisted dying laws have suicide rates much lower than Belgium's, also at odds with 'suicide contagion' theory.
But the clincher is that the suicide rate in Belgium has dropped, not risen, since their 2002 assisted dying law came into effect.
The F filesPosted on Monday 8th August 2016 at 7:02am
Back in 2013 the High Court of Ireland rejected a legal bid by multiple sclerosis sufferer Marie Fleming to achieve a lawfully-assisted peaceful death.
The Court naturally relied on expert testimony in reaching its judgement, yet its conclusions included a statement containing significant errors of fact.
The erroneous statement
In its judgement,1 the Court made the following statement:
“Above all, the fact that the number of LAWER (“legally assisted deaths without explicit request”) cases remains strikingly high in jurisdictions which have liberalised their law on assisted suicide (Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium) — ranging from 0.4% to over 1% of all deaths in these jurisdictions according to the latest figures — without any obvious official response speaks for itself as to the risks involved.” [My emphases in bold]
In fact, the Court's judgement is wrong on not one, not two, but three significant matters. But that hasn't stopped opponents of assisted dying law reform from quoting the judgement as though it were factual and persuasive, when it isn't: relying on it because it was made by a High Court—the 'authority bias.'
Consequences
Here are just a few examples of the Court's statement being wielded by assisted dying opponents as though it were conclusive evidence against law reform:
Family First’s submission opposing assisted dying law reform in New Zealand.
Catholic lobbyist Paul Russell and Catholic NSW MP Greg Donnelly in submissions to the Victorian (Australia) Parliament inquiry into end-of-life choices.
Catholic Professor Margaret Somerville in the New England Journal of Medicine,2 repeated by Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition as well as by Catholic-founded National Right To Life News; and Somerville again in the (Catholic) Newman Rambler.3
These examples illustrate the frequency of quoting the misinformation and how it feeds into and wrongly shapes public policy formation.
Three strikes
So what are the three counts on which the Court's judgement was seriously wrong?
Strike 1: Wrong concept
First, let’s get the concepts right. LAWER is not “legally assisted deaths without explicit request.”
Such nomenclature is an oxymoron. To ‘assist’ is to accommodate, serve or help someone accomplish something. But if there has been no request then one cannot be helping. You can’t ‘assist’ a little old lady across the road if she has expressed no interest in going there: you’d be forcing her across the road. Equally, you can’t ‘assist’ a death if there’s no proper ‘request.’
LAWER in fact stands for “Life-ending Acts Without Explicit Request” (of a competent patient).5 And with the exception of the possible ‘lawfulness’ of the doctrine of double effect, such acts are illegal.
Further, if such acts were legal as the Court’s statement posits, then there would be no need for an “obvious official response” as the Court then concludes. The statement lacks fundamental coherence.
Strike 2: Not ‘strikingly high’
The Court's judgement states unequivocally that LAWER (otherwise known as Non-Voluntary Euthanasia or NVE) rates in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium are ‘strikingly high’, though no comparative yardstick is recorded in the judgement by which one might draw or justify that subjective judgement. Similar 'strikingly high' statements also appear in sections 102 and 104 of the judgement.
There is in fact a scientific study, published in The Lancet in 2003, that provides sound empirical evidence that could have properly informed the Court (Figure 1).6
Figure 1: The non-voluntary euthanasia (NVE) rates of seven European countries in late 2001/early 2002
As revealed by this study, the NVE rates in Switzerland and the Netherlands were in fact lower than in Denmark, a country which has never had an assisted dying law.
The only country which did appear to have an NVE rate notably higher than the others was Belgium. The research study collected the data for analysis between June 2001 and February 2002. However, Belgium’s Euthanasia Act was not passed by its Parliament until 28th May 2002, well after data collection was complete. Thus, even in describing Belgium’s NVE rate as ‘strikingly high’ compared to a number of other European countries, it cannot be attributed to an assisted dying law because none existed at the time.
In fact, the NVE rate in Belgium had been found to be high back in 1998,7 well before the Bill for the country's Euthanasia Act was even tabled in Parliament.
Further, if assisted dying laws had such effects, it might be expected that the NVE rate would increase the longer that assisted dying laws were in place. In that case the NVE rates in Switzerland (statute since 1942) and the Netherlands (regulation since the early 1980s) would have NVE rates much higher than Belgium’s (statute since 2002). But the exact opposite is true.
Indeed, Rietjens and colleagues8 further concluded in their review of NVE in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland that “the use of drugs with the intention to hasten death without an explicit request of the patient is part of medical end-of-life practice in the studied countries, regardless of their legal framework, and it occurs in similar fashion.” The study, published in 2007, would also have been important evidence before the Court.
Strike 3: Not ‘remaining’ high
The Court's judgement states unequivocally that the LAWER (NVE) rate of the three countries ‘remains’ strikingly high. No specific evidence was supplied in the judgement to support this statement. Indeed, the judgement notes:
In section 28 that Dutch NVE had been “consistently declining.”
In section 91 that “the number of LAWER deaths has significantly declined in both [Dutch and Belgian] jurisdictions.”
In section 94 that “the trend in [Dutch] LAWER cases are declining in numbers (from 1,000 in 1990 to 550 in 2005)” and that in Belgium “the number of LAWER cases has declined since legalisation of assisted death.”
In section 101 that the NVE rates of both the Netherlands and Belgium had dropped.
Despite this clear and repeated evidence, the Court summarises in section 96 that the evidence cannot be “regarded as encouraging or satisfactory.”
But what does empirical research tell us about the NVE trends? In both the Netherlands and Belgium, since assisted dying was enshrined in statute and became effective in 2002, the rate of NVE has decreased significantly (Figure 2).7,9-11 In fact, the rate in the Netherlands is now similar to that in the UK, a country which has never had an assisted dying law and which provides the world’s gold standard in palliative care practice.
Figure 2: Empirical trends in NVE rates before and after legalisation of assisted dying
These are critical yardsticks by which to judge practice in jurisdictions that have assisted dying laws with jurisdictions that don't. The UK study was published in 2009 and was readily available prior to the High Court’s hearings, yet appears not to have been presented in evidence.
The final (2010) Dutch NVE statistic in Figure 2 may or may not have been available to the Court: it was published in 2012 around the time the Court was taking evidence. The final (2013) Belgian statistic would not have been available to the Court as it was published in 2015.
Conclusion
While the High Court worked diligently within the scope of evidence brought before it:
The Court’s definition of LAWER is incorrect and incoherent;
Its statement that the NVE rates of the Netherlands and Switzerland are ‘strikingly high’ are evidentially wrong when compared with other countries without assisted dying laws;
Its implication that the higher NVE rate in Belgium was caused by assisted dying law reform is evidentially wrong; and
Its statement that the rates remain high is evidentially wrong.
The High Court's judgement does not provide defensible evidence or argument against assisted dying law reform.
Many lobbyists have repeated these incorrect statements, significantly misleading media, policy makers and legislators.
Now that the facts are readily available it’s appropriate to avoid repeating evidentially wrong statements, regardless of the apparent 'authority' of their source.
Summary of facts
LAWER stands for "Life-ending Acts Without Explicit Request". Its practice is similar in countries with and without assisted dying laws.
The NVE rates in the Netherlands and Switzerland are lower than the rate in Denmark, a country which has never had an assisted dying law.
The NVE rate in Belgium appears higher, but was so long before assisted dying law reform and so cannot have been caused by such a law.
The NVE rates of the Netherlands and Belgium have both decreased significantly since their assisted dying statutes came into effect in 2002.
References
High Court of Ireland 2013, Fleming v Ireland & Ors - Determination, [2013] IEHC 2, Dublin.
Boudreau, JD, Somerville, MA & Biller-Andorno, N 2013, 'Physician-assisted suicide: should not be permitted/should be permitted', New England Journal of Medicine, 368(15), pp. 1450-1452.
Somerville, M 2016, 'Killing as kindness: The problem of dealing with suffering and death in a secular society', The Newman Rambler, 12(1), pp. 1-26.
Keown, J 2014, 'A right to voluntary euthanasia? Confusion in Canada in Carter', Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, 28(1), pp. 1-45.
Pijnenborg, L, van der Maas, PJ, van Delden, JJM & Looman, CW 1993, 'Life-terminating acts without explicit request of patient', Lancet, 341(8854), pp. 1196-1199.
van der Heide, A, Deliens, L, Faisst, K, Nilstun, T, Norup, M, Paci, E, van der Wal, G & van der Maas, PJ 2003, 'End-of-life decision-making in six European countries: descriptive study', The Lancet, 362(9381), pp. 345-350.
Bilsen, J, Cohen, J, Chambaere, K, Pousset, G, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, Mortier, F & Deliens, L 2009, 'Medical end-of-life practices under the euthanasia law in Belgium', New England Journal of Medicine, 361(11), pp. 1119-1121.
Rietjens, JA, Bilsen, J, Fischer, S, Van Der Heide, A, Van Der Maas, PJ, Miccinessi, G, Norup, M, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, Vrakking, AM & Van Der Wal, G 2007, 'Using drugs to end life without an explicit request of the patient', Death Studies, 31(3), Mar, pp. 205-21.
Seale, C 2009, 'End-of-life decisions in the UK involving medical practitioners', Palliat Med, 23(3), pp. 198-204.
Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, A, Penning, C, de Jong-Krul, GJF, van Delden, JJM & van der Heide, A 2012, 'Trends in end-of-life practices before and after the enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands from 1990 to 2010: a repeated cross-sectional survey', The Lancet, 380(9845), pp. 908-915.
Chambaere, K, Vander Stichele, R, Mortier, F, Cohen, J & Deliens, L 2015, 'Recent trends in euthanasia and other end-of-life practices in Belgium', N Engl J Med, 372(12), pp. 1179-1181.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Wednesday 3rd August 2016 at 4:15am
Mr Max Bromson (seated) at Parliament House Canberra in June 2014. He died not long afterwards.
Assisted dying critic Mr Paul Russell has done it again. I’m beginning to think that he’s a tremendous asset to the pro-assisted-dying movement. Why would I say that?
Well, this time his pronouncements appear in National Right To Life News, the online newspaper of the USA Catholic-founded National Right To Life Committee, and in which Mr Russell represents ‘HOPE,’ his anti-euthanasia lobby platform founded by the Australian Family Association—itself Catholic-founded and backed.
The complaint
In his opinion piece, Mr Russell complained that Mr Max Bromson of Adelaide, Australia, who ended his own life after a long period of serious suffering from advanced cancer, lived far longer than his doctors had estimated.1
“That he outlived his diagnosis by more than four years confirms the observation that qualifying periods in euthanasia and assisted suicide about ‘six months to live’ or similar, are really meaningless.” — Paul Russell
The pro-assisted-dying message
Mr Russell, in a single sentence, unequivocally demolishes the foundation of his own arguments in opposition to legalising assisted dying. He is a huge fan of the ‘vulnerable’ argument: that once legalised, people will quickly be pressured into assisted dying.
If his ‘vulnerable’ argument held true (a hypothesis that peer-reviewed scientific research contradicts), those with the means to peacefully end their lives would do so. And they wouldn’t take four years to think about it.
By explicitly pointing out that Mr Bromson had survived for much longer than expected (as fellow assisted-dying critic Mr Wesley Smith pointed out in another case), Mr Russell directly disproves the rhetoric of his ‘vulnerable’ argument.
People will quickly end their own lives... but survive far longer than expected: It's a spectacular flip-flop.
Conclusion
Thanks, Mr Russell, for pointing out that people don’t want to die—that they live as long as they can possibly bear it—and disproving your own nonsense. Keep up the good work!
-----
Footnote: Blind ignorance?
I’m also curious as to whether Mr Russell advances misinformation in blind ignorance, or whether the situation is worse. Who can say?
I have on a number of occasions explained simply and clearly why the west-coast-USA state assisted dying laws require that for the patient to qualify for assisted dying, one of the conditions is that the patient’s doctor must assess that the patient is likely to die within six months.
The reason is not that those with five months to live are deserving of the choice, but those with ten months to live are not, as Mr Russell bizarrely assumes.
The very important outcome is that when the doctor makes that assessment, the patient then automatically qualifies for free hospice care. It takes monetary considerations out of the equation, which is important in the context of the expensive USA healthcare system.
So, Mr Russell demonstrates profound ignorance at best by opining that the prognosis of time remaining must be superbly accurate, when it can’t be except possibly in the last days.
It’s about quality of life, not quantity; framed by hospice care being readily and freely available.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Sunday 26th June 2016 at 2:05am
Schadenberg and Russell falsely call the Oregon Medical Association the "assisted suicide lobby" in contradiction of the facts.
Last week, Alex Schadenberg wrote—and Paul Russell republished—another nonsense article, this time about medical associations going neutral on assisted dying. They opine that there is no such thing as neutrality. And start out by getting their facts wrong... again.
Got the facts wrong yet again, lads
Messers Schadenberg and Russell claim that the Oregon Medical association is an "assisted suicide lobby" group. Had they bothered to check the rudimentary facts before sounding off, they would have known that the Oregon Medical Association remains neutral toward assisted dying. It reconfirmed its neutral stance as recently as early this month. It does not hold a 'supportive' stance.
How did Schadenberg and Russell come to their conclusion?
American Medical Association AGM
They refer to a motion that the Oregon Medical Association put to the recent annual general meeting of the American Medical Association. The motion sought to establish a process by which the American Medical Association would consult in order to re-evaluate its opposed stance to assisted dying, given that assisted dying is legal in a number of USA States and there are already many doctors who in good conscience provide assistance to die to qualifying patients.
Heavy-handed partisanship
In their usual style of heavy-handed partisanship, Schadenberg and Russell describe the Oregon motion as the "assisted suicide lobby" applying "pressure" to the American Medical Association.
They fail to level the same criticism at another group, the Louisiana Medical Society who put another motion to the meeting. The Louisiana motion sought to expressly confirm and entrench the American Medical Association's currently opposed stance. Schadenberg and Russell fail to criticize the Louisiana motion as "pressure," despite the fact that Oregon's motion was for open consultation, while Louisiana's was for a closed position.
Good sense prevails
In fact, they don't mention the Louisiana motion at all. Why? Because wiser heads prevailed at the national conference. The Louisiana motion was defeated and the Oregon motion was passed as I reported last week.
Desperate hyperbole
Schadenberg and Russell then desperately argue that you can only support or oppose assisted dying. There is no neutral, they say.
In the language of 'influence' we call this rhetoric "the sucker's choice." You put up just two options and demand folks pick one or the other.
"You're either for us or agin us!"
No other options, no nuances, no consideration of different options for different folks. Hardly the kind of stuff that would pass even a junior high school debate.
Back to the real world
Of course it's possible to be neutral.
Individually, a doctor may be personally opposed to assisted dying, but appreciate that another doctor, having equally examined their conscience, may support choice. Thus, the first doctor opposes for themselves but remains neutral to the position of other doctors. Indeed, an individual doctor may neither support nor oppose choice.
Collectively, it makes sense for a professional medical body to hold a neutral stance. How can it justify respecting the deeply-held beliefs and values of some of its members at the same time as explicitly disrespecting other members' views that are as closely examined and deeply held?
Conclusion
The best that opponents running the global charge against assisted dying can do is to first get their facts wrong (again), develop their false assumptions into shrill hyperbole, and then try to press the false dichotomy of a "suckers choice" into doing some heavy lifting: an exercise that falls flat on its face.
The evidence is crystal clear: they provide no real argument at all.
Bulldust is often advanced by opponents of assisted dying law reform—a reform which most citizens want—to scare or bamboozle us against the reform.
Why is there so much misinformation about? The answer is straightforward: because so far it's worked.
More than academic niceties
This isn't just an academic argument about getting the facts right. It's a fundamental battle between different world views, where misinformation against assisted dying law reform has often held sway. Here are just two real examples:
Examples of real impacts of misinformation
In Australia, in every Parliamentary debate over an assisted dying Bill before them, numbers of opposed politicians have quoted the rhetorical sham "the vulnerable will be at risk" (see why it's a sham here). With the exception of the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in 1996, every Bill before Australian Parliaments has been lost or filibustered until the end of the Parliamentary term on this fearmongering. And the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was annulled by the Federal Parliament in 1997 on the same grounds.
In Ireland, the High Court made a determination as to whether Marie Fleming, with advanced multiple sclerosis, was constitutionally allowed to receive assisted dying (Fleming v. Ireland and Ors 2012 10589 P). The court rejected Fleming's claim, saying that the "strikingly high" rates of non-voluntary euthanasia in Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium "speaks for itself as to the risks involved". But sound research shows that the rates in these countries are similar to rates in other countries without assisted dying laws: evidence of the high degree of 'evidential' bull that was served up to their Honours.
It's time to stop the bull in its tracks
DyingForChoice.com believes it's time for the bull, the misinformation, to stop. It is unacceptable for rational citizens to be denied freedoms on the basis of scaremongering and erroneous information. This is the purpose of the F files. It provides citizens, politicians, policy advisors, healthcare workers, media professionals, researchers and others the evidence, arguments and resources to be properly informed and to avoid misinformation.