In 1933 the National Socialist (Nazi) Party gained control of Germany. Under consideration was euthanasia. It had blossomed from physician-assisted suicide proposed a decade earlier, before Adolph Hitler and the Nazis came to power. In their book The Release of Destruction of Life Devoid of Value, Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding premised that there was such a thing as a life not worth living and society should have the option to end that life. Germany bought the idea in the 1920s.
Of course, patients were to be protected. Rigorous safeguards against accidental or purposeful misuse of physician assisted suicide were to be instituted. Its limited use was to end a life of intractable pain and incurable illness. But the mindset of a life not worth living had caught on and a progression toward euthanasia began under the new Nazi administration as reported in the New York Times (reprinted below). Nazi euthanasia was soon extended to disabled WWI German veterans and other unfortunates called “useless eaters” who were deemed a drain on the economy. It then became full-blown genocide at Auschwitz and other final destinations.
The proposed ‘safeguards’ noted in the Times article of 1933 are similar to those found in Calif. SB128 End of Life Option, which was passed solely by Democrat Senators in Sacramento June 4, 2015. The bill is now in the State Assembly.
Democrat Assembly Members would do well to heed the warning of Democrat Senator Joe Dunn in the past decade when casting his vote which stopped AB 651, the physician assisted suicide bill of that day. “In this society, in California and the United States, more often than not public policy decisions are driven unfortunately by money concerns,” Dunn told the packed hearing room where the Senate Judiciary Committee met. “With a heavy heart, I will be a ‘no’ vote.”
(As reported in the SF Chronicle 6-28-2006).
Will California State Assembly Democrats vote ‘no’ or set the stage for euthanasia? Call them and ask them. Link to find California legislators: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/
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Nazis Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain;
German Religious Groups Oppose Move
By The Associated Press.
BERLIN, Oct. 7 [1933]—The Ministry of Justice in a detailed memorandum explaining the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code today announced its intention to authorize physicians to end the sufferings of incurable patients.
The memorandum, still lacking the force of law, proposed that “It shall be made possible for physicians to end the tortures of incurable patients, upon request, in the interests of true humanity.”
This proposed legal recognition of euthanasia–the act of providing a painless and peaceful death–raised a number of fundamental problems of a religious, scientific and legal nature.
The Catholic newspaper Germania hastened to observe:
“The Catholic faith binds the conscience of its followers not to accept this method of shortening the sufferings of incurables who are tormented by pain.”
In Lutheran circles, too, life is regarded as something that God alone can take.
A large section of the German people, it was expected in some interested circles, might ignore the provisions for euthanasia, which overnight has become a widely-discussed word in the Reich.
In medical circles the question was raised as to just when a man is incurable and when his life should be ended.
According to the present plans of the Ministry of Justice, incurability would be determined not only by the attending physician, but also by two official doctors who would carefully trace the history of the case and personally examine the patient.
In insisting that euthanasia shall be permissible only if the accredited attending physician is backed by two experts who so advise, the Ministry believes a guarantee is given that no life still valuable to the State will be wantonly destroyed.
The legal question of who may request the application of euthanasia has not been definitely solved. The Ministry merely has proposed that either the patient himself shall “expressly and earnestly” ask it, or “in case the patient no longer is able to express his desire, his nearer relatives, acting from motives that do not contravene morals, so request.”
[Reprinted from New York Times, p. 1, Oct. 8, 1933]
[The preceding article is reproduced from a document published June 6, 2015 by Life Priority Network.]