Rick
Santorum's comments of euthanasia in The Netherlands:
Proving
once again that when it comes to the 2012 Republican
presidential race, cluelessness never seems to go out of style.
NRC Handelsblad, The Netherlands
Rick Santorum Dead Wrong on Euthanasia in The Netherlands
"In
The Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the
bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in The
Netherlands, but half of the people who are euthanized - ten percent of all deaths
in The Netherlands - half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at
hospitals because they are older and sick."
This is how it began. It was three
weeks ago when Rick Santorum attended a forum discussion in Columbia, Missouri.
The subject of euthanasia came up, and Santorum, of course, used The
Netherlands to paint a frightening picture:
"In The Netherlands, people
wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not
euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in The Netherlands, but
half of the people who are euthanized - ten percent of all deaths in The
Netherlands - half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals
because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in The
Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country, because
they are afraid, because for budget purposes, they will not come out of that
hospital if they go in there with sickness."
So - euthanasia accounts for 10
percent of all deaths in The Netherlands - and half of those are performed
involuntarily. The American press let the statements speak for themselves, confirming that there was no truth to them. But the
issue really took off this week when the "War Room," the campaign
site of De Jaap, dedicated an article to it. The
author, BertineMoenaff, provides
a translation of an article from Buzz
Feed, which picked up the issue - and suddenly the story gathered steam in America.
"There appears to be not
a shred of evidence to back up Santorum’s claims about euthanasia in the
Netherlands. It is telling that his campaign did not even bother to defend his
comments."
In short, this is what
Santorum said. However, nowhere are the candidates more prone to hyperbole as with
foreign themes. Michele Bachmann spoke of Hezbullah bases in Cuba and Rick
Perry said Turkey is ruled by Islamist terrorists. Mitt Romney is more general:
he says President Obama wants to turn America into Europe. Foreign lands principally
symbolize all that is bad. It was in this vein that I suspect Rick
Santorum spoke of The Netherlands. This has become
such a natural part of the campaign that fact-checkers usually just let it go.
