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Knauer Later? History Is Repeating Itself in Europe (“Austeritywitz” Health Care)

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. [1] (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: For decades, we have dis­cussed the rela­tion­ship between eugen­ics, euthana­sia, the Nazi T‑4 pro­gram and the geno­cide that grew out of these. 

Actu­al­iz­ing eugen­ics think­ing that pre­dom­i­nat­ed in pow­er­ful elite cir­cles in the West, the T‑4 pro­gram began with the state-autho­rized killing of a bad­ly deformed infant named Knauer. Eco­nom­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly stress­ful for his par­ents, “baby Knauer” became the test case and pro­to­type for the Third Reich’s exter­mi­na­tion pro­grams.

Baby Knauer’s par­ents and fam­i­ly peti­tioned Hitler for per­mis­sion to have him elim­i­nat­ed and Hitler, in his benef­i­cence, grant­ed that per­mis­sion. This test case became insti­tu­tion­al­ized. 

The pro­fes­sion­als who staffed the T‑4 killing cen­ters grad­u­at­ed to staff the exter­mi­na­tion camps such as Auschwitz.

Recent leg­isla­tive pro­pos­als in Bel­gium and the Nether­lands are dis­turbing­ly rem­i­nis­cent of what hap­pened in the 1930’s and there­after.

In the Nether­lands, author­i­ties are con­sid­er­ing the euthana­sia of chil­dren to relieve the emo­tion­al suf­fer­ing of their par­ents! This is unnerv­ing­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the Knauer case.

With aus­ter­i­ty the order of the day in Europe and sure to be imple­ment­ed in the Unit­ed States when the Naz­i­fied GOP [2] regains con­trol of the White House and both hous­es of Con­gress (which will hap­pen at some point), the eco­nom­ic pres­sure to accel­er­ate the ter­mi­na­tion of incon­ve­nient and eco­nom­i­cal­ly bur­den­some indi­vid­u­als will sure­ly accel­er­ate.

It is beyond the scope of this post to ful­ly delin­eate this dynam­ic. Please check the tags and access the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed on this web­site.

The Knauer case is set forth in a num­ber of shows, includ­ing FTR #32, Part I, side a. [3]

For a lengthy, detailed dis­cus­sion of the pro­gres­sion from “mer­cy killing” to geno­cide, we rec­om­mend Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M12: Part 1 [4]; Part 2 [5]; Part 3 [6]; Part 4 [7]; Part 5 [8].

We also note that the so-called pro­gres­sive sec­tor is only too sus­cep­ti­ble to “Knauer Hour” think­ing. The Peak Oil [9] crowd man­i­fests just such ide­ol­o­gy [10].

“Bel­gium and the Nether­lands Con­sid­er Per­mit­ting Euthana­sia for Chil­dren – Includ­ing to Relieve ‘Suf­fer­ing for the Par­ents’ ” by Tim Stan­ley; The Tele­graph; 6/19/2013. [11]

EXCERPT: Of all the social/moral ques­tions fac­ing us, euthana­sia is one of the tough­est to draw a con­clu­sion on. On the one hand, nobody likes to think of a patient being left to suf­fer. As indi­vid­u­als we have a right to con­trol our own way of liv­ing and, by that log­ic, our own way of dying. On the oth­er hand, there’s a wor­ry that legal­iz­ing euthana­sia encour­ages a cul­ture of death. Sad­ly, the news com­ing out of Bel­gium and the Nether­lands con­firms the crit­ics’ worst fears.

Bel­gium adopt­ed euthana­sia in 2002, one year after the Nether­lands, and its laws were designed to help adults rid­dled with “unbear­able phys­i­cal or men­tal suf­fer­ing”. Today, rough­ly one per cent of all deaths in Bel­gium are due to euthana­sia – and the grounds on which it is car­ried out are becom­ing loos­er and loos­er. As the Tele­graph recent­ly report­ed, two deaf broth­ers opt­ed to die after they start­ed to go blind. They were young and their con­di­tion wasn’t ter­mi­nal. They couldn’t bear the thought of liv­ing alone and in dark­ness, which is entire­ly under­stand­able – but the case bends the spir­it of the orig­i­nal law.

Now Bel­gium is weigh­ing up some changes. One would allow patients diag­nosed with Alzheimer’s and oth­er dis­eases lead­ing to demen­tia to sign an agree­ment per­mit­ting a doc­tor to allow them to die when the con­di­tion enters an advanced stage – even if they appear per­fect­ly hap­py and phys­i­cal­ly sta­ble. Anoth­er reform is to allow Bel­gians under 18 to choose euthana­sia, too. This means that chil­dren who can’t dri­ve, mar­ry, vote or drink alco­hol will be regard­ed as com­pe­tent enough to decide whether or not they can die.

There’s an even more trou­bling devel­op­ment in the Nether­lands. Since 2005, the Dutch have per­mit­ted doc­tors to euth­a­nize minors so long as they act in accor­dance with a set of tight med­ical guide­lines – 22 babies with spina bifi­da have been giv­en lethal injec­tions. But now the Roy­al Dutch Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion (KNMG) is advis­ing that a new test be estab­lished for euth­a­niz­ing the new­born: if their suf­fer­ing dis­tress­es the par­ents. In a recent pol­i­cy doc­u­ment, the KNMG states that a lethal injec­tion might be appro­pri­ate if “the peri­od of gasp­ing and dying per­sists and the inevitable death is pro­longed, in spite of good prepa­ra­tion, and it caus­es severe suf­fer­ing for the par­ents.” . . . .

. . . . This is killing jus­ti­fied not by reliev­ing the suf­fer­ing of the patient but by reliev­ing the suf­fer­ing of those around them. It is anoth­er step down that slip­pery slope towards mak­ing euthana­sia far more com­mon and eas­i­er to obtain than even many of its sup­port­ers would wish it to be. . . .