I was told recently that the Netherlands could actually be used as a model for healthcare in this country. Obama suggested the Netherlands as a model for the U.S. to emulate a few months ago in Colorado. People who knew something of the true state of healthcare and bioethics (or lack thereof) in that country were appalled. Want to know why? Read these articles: Killing Babies Compassionately: The Netherlands Follow In Germany’s Footsteps (from 2006; yes, it’s been going on that long, and longer), and The Netherlands?! A Good Bad Example (from this past August 2009), written by Wesley J. Smith. Smith is a bioethics attorney, author and speaker, writer of the blog Secondhand Smoke at First Things, and writer/speaker of the podcast What It Means To Be Human, and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute.
Learn more:
- Read the articles about the Netherlands from 2006 and 2009.
- Read more articles by and information about Wesley J. Smith at the Discovery Institute.
- Visit his blog, Secondhand Smoke: Your 24/7 Seminar on Bioethics and The Importance of Being Human.
- Listen to or subscribe to Wesley J. Smith’s podcast, What It Means To Be Human.
Catholic Heart and Mind 
Yeah, I would prefer not to be more like a country that I see as the height of immorality (not that we don’t have enough of our own to begin with).
Another thing I want to note that is on topic but a different look at it- how is it that we think we can somehow compare other countries’ health care systems to our own as though they are interchangeable? Just because some country has a “good” health care plan doesn’t mean we can copy it in the U.S. Think of how many logistical differences there would be between, well, any country and the U.S. They are monumental. You can’t just plug in some version of health care from another country here and think it will be the same.
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That is an interesting point, JW. But the ethics of the plan bothers me much more. And I use the term “ethics” very loosely when referring to the Netherlands. Have you read the articles I pointed to? Reading and listening to Wesley J. Smith has been an eye-opening experience for me. I have been shocked at what I have learned over the last few months. Shocked.
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