Australian Christian Lobby: Desperate times, desperate measures

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Home of the bible society in Launceston, from where the ACL's latest media release was launched

"Bullshit!"

That was the reaction of Dutch Senator Erik Jurgens when I asked him about a Dutch euthanasia anecdote spread by Mr Paul Russell, then head of the Australian anti-VAD Catholic front organisation "HOPE". In 2011, Mr Russell had been spreading the story:

"I often use the story of the death of a 26 year old ballerina in Holland [sic]. She had contracted a form of arthritis at this young age and her dancing career and dreams were dashed. An American oncologist who spoke later to the killing doctor reported the Dutch medico as saying something like 'One doesn't like doing it, but it was her choice.'" — Paul Russell, "HOPE" [my emphasis]

(Note: "Holland" comprises just the two north-west provinces of the Netherlands. "Holland" and "the Netherlands" are not correctly substitutable terms. The Dutch euthansia Act applies to the whole of the Netherlands, not to just two provinces.)

Checking with authoritative sources

In 2012, I travelled across the Netherlands with camera in tow, interviewing key stakeholders in the nation's assisted dying law about its operation. Nobody had heard of the supposed ballerina case, including long-serving politicians, the Royal Dutch Medical Association, nor even Professor Theo Boer or the Dutch Patient Rights Association who actively oppose the law.

robinbernhoffoncamera.jpgUSA doctor Dr Robin Bernhoft muses about a Dutch ballerina nobody in the Netherlands has heard of

It turns out that the meme was a bit of unverified nonsense put about by USA Catholic radio- and televangelist Dr Robin Bernhoft in an early 1990s polemic anti-VAD video, "False Light", narrated by staunch Catholic actor Joseph Campanella. Dr Bernhoft has castigated believers in evolution as "sexually immoral, abortion supporters, racists and violators of each of the Commandments".

In the video, Dr Bernhoft often gazes nonchalantly into the distance, or at his hands, as he narrates his stories. It's all very third-hand and mysterious, conspicuously devoid of even the faintest whiff of evidence. But Dr Bernhoft doesn't claim to have actually spoken to the doctor, as Mr Russell states. Perhaps the confidently stated direct-contact idea is a signal of confirmation bias.

Those little Dutch cards

Confidence was also common amongst VAD opponents, like Oregon Nurse Donna Howell also featured in "False Light", spreading the nonsense that the Dutch wander around carrying little cards pleading for protection from being killed.

"It's gotten so bad in Holland [sic] that people have in their wallets little cards that say 'Do not euthanise me without my permission'." — Nurse Donna Howell

donnahowelloncamera.jpgUSA Nurse Donna Howell confidently says the Dutch carry little cards saying 'do not euthanise me'

Just like the supposed ballerina, nobody I interviewed across the Netherlands, including the anti-VAD Patient Rights Association which would be the natural source of "little cards" for patients, had ever heard of the little cards, either.
 

Update 13-Oct-2020

A colleague reminds me of an event that's important and very revealing in this context. On 23rd February 2012, the President of the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) wrote to the President of the American Medical Association in response to "inadequacies" in Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum's statements about assisted dying practice and its supposed consequences in the Netherlands.

Mr Santorum, amongst other things, claimed that the Dutch wear bracelets saying "do not euthanise me". Notice how there can be random small, yet conspicuous, mutations in misinformational anecdotes.

The KNMG was unequivocal in its professional advice: "'Do not euthanise me' bracelets do not exist." The KNMG President closed with the observation that:

"Interpretations about the practice of euthanasia in other countries should not be biased by personal opinions whether or not euthanasia is justificed in situations of unbearable suffering without prospect of improvement."

The architect of the Dutch euthanasia law, Dr Els Borst, arguably the most informed stakeholder of the era, responded to the "little cards" claim in plainer language:

"That is an absolute lie." — Els Borst

A diet of evidence-less anecdotes

Anecdotes — devoid of verifiable evidence — about supposed dangers are a favourite diet of VAD opponents, like the nonsense put about by the Vatican, and Catholic Professor Margaret Somerville, that Dutch elderly are streaming into Germany for hospital treatment for fear of being euthanised in the Netherlands; that Els Borst supposedly regretted her law reform; or that there's some kind of slippery slope from VAD to non-voluntary euthanasia — which Rick Santorum handily mutated into involuntary euthanasia.

The anecdote is a favourite snack of opponents for dishing out when they've run out of other confectionery.

Back to now

One's being served up again in Tasmania right now, and it smacks of desperation. In its most recent media release, the Australian Christian Lobby, from the home of the Bible Society in St John Street, Launceston, launched its latest shrill warning with the claim that:

"In a conversation with a member of the British Parliament, one Dutch doctor explained what it was like when euthanasia laws first came to the Netherlands. He said, 'We agonised over our first case of euthanasia all day, but the second case was much easier and the third was a piece of cake.'"

So let's reflect: on some unspecified date ("when euthanasia laws first came to the Netherlands": but that would be the mid 1980s) some unnamed British MP once said that an unnamed Dutch doctor once told him or her… that their third euthanasia case "was a piece of cake".

Who what now?

One only has to glance at readily-available records to see what a load of, um, how shall we put this?... bollocks, the claim is. The Australian Christian Lobby is not referring to a recent, documented, verfied fragment of evidence. Rather, the ACL has jauntily appropriated a statement from May 1998, by Lord McColl of Dulwich in the British parliament. Straight from the Hansard's mouth:

"The Dutch doctors told us: 'We agonised over our first case of euthanasia all day, but the second case was much easier and the third was a piece of cake.'" — Lord McColl

"Dutch doctors": plural. However, the statement is not of the kind that would be said by a broad collective of doctors as Lord McColl story relates.

Indeed, in 2006 his Hansard story mutated to "when a Dutch doctor was asked...". Suddenly from multiple doctors to just one; from direct, personal receipt of the claim, to the claim being made to an unspecified audience, stated in the tell-tale passive voice. If it were really said to you and you wanted to punch home a key point in a spirited on-the-record debate, you wouldn't forget, and you'd make a point that it was said to you, wouldn't you?

Piling up the anecdotes

What else has Lord McColl had to say about the Holland [sic] experience on the Hansard record in 2006? Ah, the "little cards" anecdote, still doing the rounds more than a decade after its invention:

"Many elderly people in Holland [sic] are so fearful of euthanasia that they carry cards around with them saying that they do not want it." — Lord McColl

An anecdotal claim without at least one independent, verifiable source isn't really evidence at all. It's just a myth. A handy but hollow sound bite. It reveals little about the subject... but rather a more about the claimant.

The "piece of cake" anecdote, like those before and since, are just myths conjured up to curry fear, uncertainty and doubt. Piling them up doesn't make them any more true.

Conclusion

As I put one anecdotal claim after another to each of my interviewees across the Netherlands, including VAD opponents, they'd roll their eyes and give courteous replies to the effect that, as one interviewee generously put it, "nobody in the Netherlands takes such commentary seriously."

But I think I prefer Senator Erik Jurgens' parsimony: Bullshit.

And if history is any guide it won't be long before the next re-moistened cowpat is heaved at the political reform fan in the hope that some of it sticks.


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