|
Unraveling
the
Reasons
Behind
the
Dutch
Suicide
Craze
--
Part
One
of
Two
Colleen
Carroll
Campbell
is a
fellow
at
the
Ethics
and
Public
Policy
Center
in
Washington,
DC,
a
scholar
whose
work
I
have
followed
and
admired
for
several
years.
Bioethicist
Wesley
Smith,
well
known
to
readers
of
TN&V
and
National
Right
to
Life
News,
sent
out
an
email
yesterday
alerting
us
to a
piece
she'd
written
about
a
dangerous
outbreak
of
teen
infatuation
with
suicide
in
the
Netherlands.
Campbell
begins
by
placing
the
"teen
suicide
fever"
in
context.
Euthanasia
has
been
legal
for
adults
and
teenagers
since
2002
"and
the
Dutch
Royal
Medical
Association
recently
made
international
headlines
by
persuading
the
Dutch
government
to
establish
a
committee
to
regulate
infant
euthanasia."
This
was
pro
forma,
as
Campbell
notes.
"By
their
own
accounting,
Dutch
physicians
had
already
been
euthanizing
about
15
sick
babies
each
year."
For
euthanasia
advocates,
the
Netherlands
are
kind
of
secular
heaven,
a
haven
to
test
the
limits
of
how
far
a
society
can
go
in
routinizing
the
killing
of
the
vulnerable
before
the
impressionable
conclude
it's
cool
to
die!
Which
appears
to
be
happening
among
Dutch
teenagers.
Campbell
writes,
" A
few
days
ago,
news
reports...
surfaced
about
a
group
of a
dozen
12-
to
15-year-old
Dutch
girls
who
were
using
text
messages
on
their
cell
phones
and
taunting
e-mails
to
urge
each
other
on
to
suicide,
peppering
friends
with
messages
like
'Who
dares
to?'
One
student
finally
grew
frightened
enough
to
contact
authorities.
An
army
of
police,
physicians,
and
social
workers
soon
pounced
on
the
case
and
did
their
best
to
unravel
the
reasons
behind
the
suicide
craze.
"Experts
speculated
in
the
press
about
the
pernicious
power
of
peer
pressure,
the
insidious
influence
of
the
Internet,
and
the
bizarre
teenage
impression
that
suicide
is
glamorous.
As
one
Dutch
psychiatrist
mused
to a
reporter,
suicide
seems
to
carry
a
certain
degree
of
prestige
among
teenagers
but,
'We
don't
know
why.'"
Really?
How
about
considering
how
powerful
an
educator
the
law
is?
When
something
is
"legal,"
the
message
is
unmistakable.
At a
minimum
that
the
behavior
is
okay,
indeed,
perhaps
is
even
noble.
I
don't
pretend
to
understand
the
Dutch
culture.
I
suspect
even
if I
was
immersed
in
its
laws,
mores,
and
folkways,
I
could
never
grasp
what
Campbell
describes
as
its
"radical
and
sweeping
embrace
of
suicide
as
an
answer
to
the
problem
of
human
suffering,
and
the
elevation
of
euthanasia
to
the
status
of a
basic
human
right."
She
concludes
with
a
lesson
and
a
warning.
"Adults
can
preach
all
they
want
about
the
evils
of
suicide
to
their
teenage
charges,
but
when
asked
why
suicide
is
wrong
for
some
people
in
some
situations
while
fine
for
others,
supporters
of
Dutch
euthanasia
laws
will
be
hard
pressed
to
offer
an
answer
that
passes
muster
with
any
reasonably
intelligent
12-year-old,"
Campbell
writes.
"So
Dutch
children
will
continue
to
see
suicide
as a
reasonable,
even
admirable
solution
to
the
difficulties
of
daily
life.
And
the
culture
of
death
in
the
Netherlands
will
march
on.
The
question
is:
Will
we
learn
from
their
mistakes?"
If
you
have
any
questions
or
comments,
please
send
them
to
Dave
Andrusko
at
dandrusko@nrlc.org.
Part
2 |
