Healthy man euthanized because he was addicted to alcohol

A man in the Netherlands has ended his life by euthanasia because he was addicted to alcohol.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- A man in the Netherlands has ended his life by euthanasia because he was an alcoholic. Mark Langedijk, 41 chose to end his life because he could not simply stop drinking. According to his elder brother, who shared the story with the magazine "Linda," his brother even enjoyed a beer before dying.

Langedijk has had a problem with alcohol for the past eight years, and the addiction consumed his life. Aside from the addiction however, he was otherwise healthy. He spend about a year-and-a-half obtaining permission to be euthanized.

The story is the latest shocking episode of an otherwise healthy person ending their life using the nation's extremely permissive euthanasia law. Several healthy people have been permitted to end their lives because of mental anguish such as the loss of a close loved one, or in one case, a woman who had been sexually abused as a child and could not withstand the anguish any longer.

The law may have been intended to help terminally ill patients to end their lives with a minimum of suffering, but it has now been expanded to include virtually anyone at any time, even children.

This shows how such liberal laws that permit euthanasia in narrow cases tend to cascade into expansive laws that can be used to sanction suicide for any reason. The next step in the slippery slope is forced euthanasia.

According to officials, procedures are in place to ensure nobody is forced to euthanize themselves, but such pressures can be difficult to detect if the patient isn't truthful with doctors.

Killings such as these, and yes, these are killings, murders in fact, are legal yet grossly immoral.

Most of these people need other kinds of care and love, and they need to reevaluate their suffering in a Christian context. But without the presence of mind to do so, or the guidance of the Church, there is nothing to arrest the slide into euthanasia. And when a government encourages the practice, there is little hope left for those whose prescription should be love, not a lethal cocktail of drugs.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains euthanasia is morally unacceptable.

2276 Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible.

2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.

Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.

2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.

2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.

(Reference, CCC: 2276-2279)

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