Santorum has some... interesting ideas about what's going on in the Netherlands

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To add to Lief's point:

Life expectancy in "culture of death" Netherlands: 79.8
Life expectancy in "culture of life" USA: 78.3

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This could turn into a major gaffe by Santorum if the other candidates attack him on it.  Not only does it show some ignorance on a social issue, but it makes him look terrible from a foreign policy standpoint, if he's going to blatantly lie about what's happening in the Netherlands.

meh. I think "Mainline Protestant churches have been corrupted by Satan, are no longer Christian" has more legs.

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That's what the man said isn't it?

Here's the funny part. We're expecting doctors to report on themselves....

You did read Gustaf's post, didn't you, where it said that there are about 3000 cases of euthanasia a year in the Netherlands, not involuntary euthanasia, which is not legal there. Of those 3000-odd cases, nine were found to be not according to protocol.


So the list of possible cases of euthanasia that did not meet the strict protocols in place was not 3500, but nine.

And if Dutch doctors were killing off elderly patients left, right, and center, it would be odd that their life expectancy should be 18 months higher than that in the United States.

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Here's a bonus question. Is that age cohort the same in the Netherlands as it is in the US? What are some intrinsic factors that would explain the differences? All else being equal - I would expect the Netherlands to have higher life expectancy.

Why is anyone surprised that Catholic Santorum opposes euthanasia. Conception to natural death..

The average age in the Netherlands is 40.8, compared to 36.8 in the US. Age pyramids are here: http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us/Age_distribution and here: http://www.nationmaster.com/country/nl-netherlands/Age_distribution.

I'd be curious to hear what your conclusions are.

In the meantime, keep in mind that the infant mortality rate in the Netherlands is 4.48 per 1000 live births; in the US, it's 6.81 -- slightly better than Chile (7.19), slightly worse than Lithuania (6.45).

It would be really nice if the whole "culture of life" included doing something about this.