{"id":1677234,"date":"2022-10-07T03:34:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T07:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1677234"},"modified":"2022-10-07T03:35:57","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T07:35:57","slug":"a-world-that-misunderstands-suffering-thinks-euthanizing-healthy-people-is-a-cure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-world-that-misunderstands-suffering-thinks-euthanizing-healthy-people-is-a-cure\/","title":{"rendered":"A World That Misunderstands Suffering Thinks Euthanizing Healthy People Is A Cure"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-world-that-misunderstands-suffering-thinks-euthanizing-healthy-people-is-a-cure%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1677234&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p> In April 2012, a renowned Belgian oncologist and cancer survivor agreed to euthanize 64-year-old Godelieva de Troyer, an otherwise healthy woman battling depression. Her son, Tom Mortier, found out the next day when a Belgian hospital asked him to make postmortem arrangements for his estranged mother.<\/p>\n<p>Mortier knew his mother suffered from depression her entire life but had no idea she was considering euthanasia. \u201cMy mother \u2026 was treated for years by psychiatrists and, sadly, she and I lost contact for some time,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was during this time that she died by way of lethal injection. Never could I have imagined that we would be parted forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>De Troyer\u2019s psychiatrist of 20 years initially denied her request for euthanasia in September 2011 because she didn\u2019t meet the threshold under Belgian law, which required that to be euthanized, a person be in a \u201cmedically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident.\u201d But after de Troyer made a large monetary donation to Life End Information Forum \u2014 an organization the doctor himself co-founded \u2014 he agreed to proceed. And the three other physicians who examined de Troyer\u2019s case not only knew her medical history tenuously at best but were also intimately involved in the forum. This transpired in spite of Belgian law requiring independent, disinterested inquiries into the cases of patients seeking death by lethal injection.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest gut punch, though, is that a major contributor to de Troyer\u2019s depression was her persistent estrangement from her family \u2014 yet at no point did anyone involved in her care attempt to mend her familial relationships.<\/p>\n<h2>European Court of Human Rights Stops Short<\/h2>\n<p>When Mortier brought a case before the European Court of Human Rights, claiming a lack of independent scrutiny of the circumstances of his mother\u2019s killing, the court agreed. Its Oct. 4 <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/Users\/alexa\/OneDrive\/Desktop\/Writing%20Drafts%20for%20Submission\/Articles\/HUDOC%20-%20European%20Court%20of%20Human%20Rights%20(coe.int\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">decision<\/a> hinged on Article 2 of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.echr.coe.int\/Documents\/Convention_ENG.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">European Convention on Human Rights<\/a>, which states:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Everyone\u2019s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The issue before the court was not, explicitly, whether de Troyer\u2019s case violated a broader \u201cright to life.\u201d Rather, it was that Belgium\u2019s Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia did not act independently in its <em>a posteriori <\/em>evaluation of de Troyer\u2019s death:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n[T]aking into account the crucial role played by the Commission in the a posteriori control of euthanasia, the Court considers that the control system established in the present case did not ensure its independence.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In so stating, the court essentially held that Belgium failed to fulfill its procedural investigatory responsibility under Article 2. However, it stopped there: The judges concluded, 5-2, that there were no underlying violations of the country\u2019s legal framework for granting a euthanasia request \u00a0\u2014 despite de Troyer\u2019s physical health and the fact that given her familial estrangement, it seems unlikely she\u2019d exhausted her treatment options.<\/p>\n<h2>No Safeguards to Mitigate Dangers <\/h2>\n<p>Advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom\u2019s International Deputy Director Robert Clarke represented Mortier in the case before the court. Clarke rightly bemoaned the court\u2019s insistence that more \u201csafeguarding\u201d can adequately protect the right to life under the convention. \u201cThe reality,\u201d said Clarke, \u201cis that there are no \u2018safeguards\u2019 that can mitigate the dangers of the practice [of euthanasia] once it is legal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to the ruling, Mortier expressed his hope of igniting awareness of the \u201cimmense harm\u201d euthanasia inflicts on patients and their families. \u201cThe big problem in our society,\u201d he said, \u201cis that, apparently, we have lost the meaning of taking care of each other.\u201d Rather than reconnect an aggrieved patient with the family that could uplift and sustain her, de Troyer was offered virtually unfettered access to a \u201clegal\u201d practice that, in an instant, absolves everyone involved of their responsibilities: the family\u2019s responsibility to care for her, a physician\u2019s obligation to provide necessary care (even if palliative), and, ultimately, the patient\u2019s responsibility to bear the burden that is guaranteed to befall every human person \u2014 suffering.<\/p>\n<h2>The Lost Meaning of Suffering<\/h2>\n<p>Mortier is right, except we haven\u2019t just lost the meaning of caring for each other; we\u2019ve also lost the meaning of suffering.<\/p>\n<p>Once it becomes rampantly and universally accepted, euthanasia guarantees that none of us needs to endure suffering if we don\u2019t want to. But if suffering is the single thread weaving us together, inviting us to bear one another\u2019s burdens, opening a portal to a world that promises eternal, enduring relief, what do we lose when we cultivate a world where it\u2019s no longer necessary? We might not need to suffer, but what else will we lose?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a question well worth asking, and the court\u2019s decision, while igniting a small spark of hope, does not even begin to plumb its depths.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Alexandra Macey Davis is an attorney, author, and speaker. She has written for The Carolina Review, Public Discourse, Verily Magazine, and FemCatholic, and has been a guest speaker on The First TV, From the Median, and NC Family Policy Matters. She lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and two sons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In April 2012, a renowned Belgian oncologist and cancer survivor agreed to euthanize 64-year-old Godelieva de Troyer, an otherwise healthy woman battling depression. Her son, Tom Mortier, found out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1423,"featured_media":1677236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1677234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1677234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1677234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1677234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1677236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1677234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1677234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1677234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}