Forbes Blasts Dutch Over Euthanasia

George W. Bush has been taking a constant beating from Republican presidential rival Steve Forbes--but he’s gotten off lightly compared to Holland.

In one of the odder tangents of the 2000 political season, the European country’s euthanasia policy was dragged into the campaign as Forbes answered a question about abortion Friday at a Manchester High School. And now the candidate finds himself in a back-and-forth debate with the Dutch.

Forbes, who has made his opposition to abortion a cornerstone of his candidacy, told his student audience he believes life is sacred “from conception to natural death”--then segued into the euthanasia issue.

“Holland, for example, now allows doctors to practice euthanasia, and they now routinely kill patients without the patients’ permission because they want a hospital bed,” Forbes said.

He went on: “They say, ‘That patient’s going to die anyway, suffering. Like a dog, put it out of its suffering.’ Everyone is vulnerable when you have that kind of society. I don’t want that to happen here. I want all of us to be protected.”

At a news conference afterward, a Dutch reporter adamantly challenged Forbes, saying, “I don’t think that’s accurate. Euthanasia, yes. But not killing people for their hospital beds.”

“There are abuses,” Forbes countered, saying he had obtained information on the subject from the Internet. “It’s well documented, and I think it’s a disgrace. I don’t think patients who do not give permission should be killed.”

Contacted for a response, Peter Bootsma, the health counselor at the Dutch Embassy in Washington, also disputed Forbes’ allegations. He said the euthanasia policy in the Netherlands is heavily regulated, and he charged it is being deliberately misrepresented, most recently on the Web sites of some Christian conservative groups.

Many of these groups back Forbes, attracted by the strong anti-abortion stance that he spotlighted during his recent Iowa campaign.

Bootsma said Dutch doctors can only euthanize patients who demonstrate long-standing, “unbearable suffering,” and that the vast majority of cases involve terminally ill people. Doctors must go through a stringent process to verify the patient’s claims and must defend a decision to euthanize before a government board.

“There’s no way physicians can just do what they want to make space in a hospital,” he said.

Undeterred, Forbes discussed euthanasia again Saturday. Asked the best way to discuss abortion with children, he said, “If the weak of us are vulnerable, all of us are vulnerable. You see it in the euthanasia movement, where they want the infirm and the elderly to be put to death, or assisted suicide, where if you’re in a very troubled moment in your life, they want to help push you over the ledge. That’s a dark and dreary society. I don’t want that to happen in America.”