“In 2000, a total of 39 prescriptions for lethal doses of medication were written, compared with 24 in 1998 and 33 in 1999. Twenty-six of the third-year prescription recipients died after ingesting the medication; eight died from their underlying disease; five were alive on December 31, 2000. In addition, one 1999 prescription recipient died in 2000 after ingesting the medication. In total, 27 patients ingested legally prescribed lethal medication in 2000 (26 patients who received prescriptions in 2000; 1 patient who received a prescription in 1999). During 1998 and 1999, 16 and 27 patients, respectively, died after ingesting the medications.”

(Source: “Oregon's Death with Dignity Act 2000 Annual Report: Three years of legalized physician-assisted suicide,” Oregon Department of Human Services, Health Division, 21 February 2001.)

“[I]n the Netherlands, Dutch doctors report in excess of some 3,000 cases of euthanasia each year, or about 3% of all Dutch deaths, with conservative estimates positing just as many unreported episodes. In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that in 1995, there were 35,000 requests for euthanasia in the Netherlands, resulting in an actual death toll of 9,700 physician-assisted deaths, with less than one-half that number being reported.

…The 1995 Remmelink Report shows marginal improvement in compliance with Dutch restrictions, recounting 6,368 deaths from euthanasia. Still, nearly a thousand (948) patients died at the hands of physicians who characterized their actions as ‘Ending life without request.’ Another 1,500 deaths occurred from intentional pain medication over-dosage, again without request or consent.

This tendency to move from quasi-voluntary euthanasia to non-voluntary euthanasia is further demonstrated by the Belgian experience, namely: even before the measure decriminalizing euthanasia was on the table, of all of the cases where Flemish patients were euthanized, fully three-quarters (75%) were killed with-out any consent being given.”

(Source: Karl John Shields, “Dropping the Other Wooden Shoe: The Legalization of Euthanasia in the Netherlands,” Crux, The Newsletter of the Center for Bioethics in the Church, 1:1 [Spring 2001]: 5-6)

Analyzing the language used in the current euthanasia debate, C. Ben Mitchell of Trinity International University has re-discovered the roots of the Holocaust. By comparing the language used by proponents to describe, advocate, and justify euthanasia and so-called “assisted suicide,” Mitchell finds frightening similarities between the current debate and the euphemisms used by Nazi physicians.

Mitchell, a bioethicist and theologian, takes great pains to describe accurately the Nazi propaganda, including transcripts from, and commentary on, actual German wartime films: “In a pseudo-humane tone, the lecturer uses religious language of mercy killing to help ‘liberate’ these creatures, while simultaneously denying these individuals their humanity. How cruel it would be to maintain these spiritually dead people as ‘living corpses.’ It is a sacred demand of charity that we eliminate the suffering of these helpless individuals, the film advocates.” If the above rhetoric is at all familiar, Mitchell drives the point home, “For anyone acquainted with the contemporary debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide, these are familiar word pictures and arguments. The film makes use of the euphemisms for euthanasia: ‘right to die,’ ‘caring,’ make the poor woman’s end less painful,’ ‘I delivered my wife,’ and others.”

Today, Mitchell maintains, the same arguments and rhetoric are resident in the language of euthanasia advocates: “…popular culture is suffused with euphemisms for euthanasia. ‘Mercy killing,’ ‘merciful death,’ ‘death with dignity,’ ‘painless end to suffering,’ ‘termination of life,’ ‘humane treatment,’ and even ‘comfort care’ are part of the public conversation. Recently, neologisms such as ‘managed death’ have crept into the glossary of terms for euthanasia (itself a euphemism)."

If a rose, by any other name, will still smell as sweet, we must remember that, under whatever guise, euthanasia will still stink.

(Source: C. Ben Mitchell, “Of Euphemisms and Euthanasia: The Language Games of the Nazi Doctors and Some Implications for the Modern Euthanasia Movement,” Omega Journal of Death and Dying, Vol. 40, No. 1 [2000]: 255-265.)