Posted on 11/30/2004 11:17:14 AM PST by Pyro7480
Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Raising the stakes in an excruciating ethical debate, a hospital in the Netherlands — the first nation to permit euthanasia — recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures in a handful of cases and reporting them to the government.
The announcement last month by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives — a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates.
In August, the main Dutch doctors' association KNMG urged the Health Ministry to create an independent board to review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people "with no free will," including children, the severely mentally retarded, and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident.
The Health Ministry is preparing its response to the request, a spokesman said, and it may come as soon as December.
Three years ago, the Dutch parliament made it legal for doctors to inject a sedative and a lethal dose of muscle relaxant at the request of adult patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief.
The Groningen Protocol, as the hospital's guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities.
The guideline says euthanasia is acceptable when the child's medical team and independent doctors agree the pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when parents think it's best.
Examples include extremely premature births, where children suffer brain damage from bleeding and convulsions; and diseases where a child could only survive on life support for the rest of its life such as spina bifida and epidermosis bullosa, a blistering illness.
The hospital said it carried out four such mercy killings in 2003, and reported all cases to government prosecutors — but there have been no legal proceedings taken against them.
Catholic organizations and the Vatican have reacted with outrage to Groningen's announcement, and U.S. euthanasia opponents contend that the proposal shows the Dutch have lost their moral compass.
"The slippery slope in the Netherlands has descended already into a vertical cliff," said Wesley J. Smith, a prominent California-based critic, in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Child euthanasia remains illegal everywhere. Experts say doctors outside of Holland do not report cases for fear of prosecution.
"As things are, people are doing this secretly and that's wrong," said Eduard Verhagen, head of Groningen's children's' clinic. "In the Netherlands we want to expose everything, to let everything be subjected to vetting."
According to the Justice Ministry, four cases of child euthanasia were reported to prosecutors in 2003. Two were reported in 2002, seven in 2001 and five in 2000. All the cases in 2003 were reported by Groningen, but some of the cases in other years were from other hospitals.
Groningen estimated the protocol would be applicable in about 10 cases per year in the Netherlands, a country with 16 million people.
Since the introduction of the Dutch law, Belgium has also legalized euthanasia, while in France, legislation to allow doctor-assisted suicide is currently under debate. In the United States, the state of Oregon is alone in allowing physician-assisted suicide, but this is under constant legal challenge.
However, experts acknowledge that doctors euthanize routinely in the United States but that such practice is hidden.
"Measures that might marginally extend a child's life by minutes or hours or days or weeks are stopped. This happens routinely, namely, every day," said Lance Stell, professor of medical ethics at Davidson College and staff ethicist at Carolinas Medical Center in the United States. "Everybody knows that it happens, but there's a lot of hypocrisy. Instead, people talk about things they're not going to do."
More than half of all deaths occur under medical supervision, so it's really about management and method of death, Stell said.
God can be a relativist if He wants, but I didn't know that He posted here!
I bet He's not on DU.
"Geez, that statement just DRIPS with irony... in more than one way.
Do you even see it?"
LOL - now that you mention it - yes! I only used him as a model for less gov't, but yeah - it's kind of a nice tie in to stem cell research too!
I'm thoroughly enjoying your responses, btw.
It is the same morality as that of the Third Reich, absent the racism and militarism.
.......EU.....NATO......to rule the world with their rules.....Serbia is their main enemy?
/sarcasm
Godwin in 21.
My bottom line: I disagree with your sentiment to get rid of the "nanny state" in this situation. If our laws reenforce the sense that life is to upheld, then if parents aren't able to pay for the costs of a severely-handicapped person, then the government, whose primary duty is to protect life, should assist. This is not a "quality of life" issue (welfare), but a case of protecting life itself.
I'm not in favor of big government, don't get me wrong. But for the hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars that goes to pork in this government, no one's going to tell me it's not worth doing what's noble and re-affirming to humanity.
There are certain people who want NO governemnt whatsoever. That's delusional. If there's going to be any kind of welfare line, it should start with those who cannot fend for themselves.
Also, the definition of the word "vegetable" seems to have grown of late...
W&L remains pretty conservative overall but they are very much more into the diversity thing than they used to be. This is fairly recent. Average SAT there is near 1400 and average GPA is near 4.0, but you catch a break of you're Jewish, black, or even from "underrepresented" states.
There was also a recent study showing that female students get groped and unwanted sexual advances a lot more often than the national average. Sigh. That certainly hasn't changed much since I was there 30 years ago, even though the student body is now 50 percent female (0 percent female when I was there).
The professor who is being quoted seems to be commenting on the situation, not describing the situation itself. It seems that the Netherland are leaning towards actively terminating these lives, since they allow it for adults.
I just wonder if Bill Clinton would have quickly signed into law a bill that would allow euthanizing advanced Alzheimer's patients like Ronald Reagen (at that time).
It's a worthy debate. I think the difference is that I see the historic nobility of America, our Constitution, and our laws (which are all eroding) as the guarantor of Divine blessings. Someone who does not believe in God (I'm not saying that you're one of them) would of course immediately throw out the notion that morality trumps economics.
I just happen to think our miraculouos nation has reaped what it's sowed - respect for life, freedom, and wealth.
We're going downhill now (and in that order).
One was a student teacher at the college I went to, the other was a fraternity brother.
Untrue, I am silent about lots of things. Murder ain't one of 'em.
The English baby that was aborted for having a cleft palate was 28 weeks gestation. That baby was "born" too- into the hands of a butcher who ageed to abet the mother's vanity by killing a baby with a correctable facial deformity.
Did you even consider that? Is that a cruel way to look at it? I'm not saying it was wrong to try, but I'm just saying you'd (we'd) better be facing the facts of what that type of decision does. We live in a capitalist society and so maybe it doesn't matter, if you have the money to pay for a doctor...but some people would say you have an obligation not to waste a doctor's time when there are others in need.
It's difficult to not take that chance, and my parents always told me "where there's life, there's hope," but where there's life, there's also responsibility, and let's not ignore that...no matter what decisions we make. (Some might say the "responsibility" is to try whatever can be tried, regardless of cost to themselves or others.)
(Disclaimer: IANAD, IANAL, and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I have some close friends who are in obstetrics, and I have known some who have left the field...)
Exactly, even here in America. When I was born in the early 1970's, I had a cleft-lip and palate and some hearing loss. The doctors kept telling my mother to discontinue feeding me and let me die, because if I lived I would be so severely mentally retarded that I would "be a burden to society." My father was convinced to let them starve me to death, but my mother refused and my plastic surgeon backed her up. He even told my mother "If you don't want the responsibility, don't kill her, let me adopt her." Of course my mother didn't want to give me up, but his comments showed that he loved me more than my father did. My parents divorced a few years later. BTW, I'm finishing my MA degree and start my PhD next year in Ancient History, I'm fluent in several languages and my wonderful husband is certainly glad the doctors didn't have the final say. This kind of thing angers me beyond all sense of reasonableness.
"I disagree with your sentiment to get rid of the "nanny state" in this situation."
Thank you. That is all I was looking for.
I understand your reasoning of the gov't protecting life and thank you for your response.
As one mullah said to the parents of a teenage suicide bomber: "They blow up so fast, don't they?"
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