by Stephen Chapman

About the author: Stephen Chapman is a syndicated columnist.

In Michigan, Dr. Jack Kevorkian continues to defy the law by helping people kill themselves.

In the Netherlands, things are different. Here, doctors have government permission to assist patients who want to commit suicide—and to euthanize those who are unable to do it themselves.

Institutionalized Abuse

By sanctioning and regulating such practices, the Dutch might be expected to avoid the sort of dangers represented by renegade doctors like Kevorkian. Instead, they have ingeniously managed to institutionalize abuses on a mass scale. Allowing patients to choose their own end may sound fine in principle, but it’s been a ghastly mess in practice.

Proposals to allow “aid-in-dying,” as it is coyly referred to by its supporters, have already made headway...