The Patriot Post® · Belgium's Euthanasia Marketplace

Europe is an alarming case study in the irreparable consequences of assisted suicide. According to the International Business Times, “Euthanasia tourists are flocking to Brussels to get a lethal dose. Doctors at hospitals and clinics at Belgium’s capital are seeing an increase in number of euthanasia tourists who are travelling from across the world to their accident and emergency rooms.”

This has potentially scary implications closer to home as Americans are becoming increasingly supportive of the practice, including in California, where the practice was made legal last year. In March, Heritage fellow Ryan T. Anderson wrote that, in addition to fostering violent tendencies, detrimentally affecting the medical industry, paving the pathway to infanticide, and other cultural effects, “The evidence from Europe is disconcerting. It shows that assisted-suicide quickly leads to involuntary euthanasia.” He and Melody Wood have also documented how, contrary to the newfound narrative, physician-assisted suicide actually bolsters the overall rate.

Anderson says, “Doctors may help their patients to die a dignified death from natural causes and should administer palliative care, but that is very different than doctors killing their patients or helping them kill themselves. This is the reality that such euphemisms as ‘death with dignity’ and ‘aid in dying’ seek to conceal. Americans must insist that no one, especially a doctor, be permitted to intentionally kill, or assist in intentionally killing, an innocent neighbor.”

Belgium has a hard enough time preventing terrorists from taking innocent lives. It shouldn’t be promoting slaughter by another name. America should impede assisted suicide’s progression before euthanasia prospects come flocking to our own marketplaces. Meanwhile, IBT says “euthanasia in Belgium is usually free as the treatment is covered by the European Union’s health insurance card.” As Wesley J. Smith writes in National Review, “Yet another reason to support more Brexits.”