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.
If you don't see the similarities to Nazi Germany, then you're blind.
Barbara Boxer must be thrilled.
It's too bad the Israelis couldn't have grabbed him before he died like they did with Eichmann. It makes me sick how many Nazi war criminals have never been caught.
Withholding extreme and unusual treatment when it would not aid or extend a person's life, even a newborn, is lightyears different from injecting a drug which actually causes death. One is recognition of the nearness of natural death and the other is murder.
The Church began its opposition of the culture of death with opposing birth control because it was the start of the long slippery slope that does not value life at all. We are sliding headfirst now, gaining speed as the landmarks of a moral and just world flash past. What remains but the crash at the bottom?
He died of a heart attack in Brazil in 1978. At least that is the most widely accepted theory. Mengele escaped Nazi Germany and fled to South America where he lived as a hermit. The Massaad tracked him for a long time. He apparently died of a heart attack while swimming one morning.
I was thinking the same thing.
We are further along on the slippery slope, I fear.
This is as good a place as any to bring up a point about the "right to die." The argument that "people should be able to do whatever they want with their lives" only goes so far. Let's say we're talking about an adult, old and terminally ill, but still hith his mental faculties. If euthanasia is legal, would it really be 100% his choice? Or, since it was legal, would it be a situation where there would be more pressure from his children, etc. (possible heirs) to end his suffering and stop spending money on medical treatment by "doing the right thing" and taking the hemlock, so to speak.
In my mind, legalized prostitution is vaguely akin to this. People say it's a victimless crime, but if it's legal would there be less of a stigma, and more pressure to become a prostitute? Many welfare, unemployment programs, and student work programs require you to find a job. Yes there could be a specific exception written into the law, but wouldn't the attitude be "hey, it's legal, and so if you REALLY needed the money you could get it."
Just some thoughts.
Some acts are so repulsive that society setps in and expresses itself by making them illegal. Even in the case of "victimless" crimes.
But of course the story you posted goes beyond even that. These are people who can't decide for themselves, or who someone in authority SAYS cannot or will never be able to decide for themselves. We could clear out a lot of jails, mental institiutions, homeless shelters and senior citizen homes prety quick with a few tweaks of the standards, once people get used to the general concept.
Truly horrific.
Sorry to be such a downer, but how can I not be?
When the war began Hitler ordered the killing of the mentally handicapped.
I think they even found his skeleton and confirmed it was him. Too bad he couldn't have faced trial for his crimes.
"Lunatic Fringe," Red Ryder
The whole concept of the left, the individual is nothing and the state is everything.
Well, there's already been an abortion in England because the child had a cleft palate. Oh the suffering the parents' abortionist ended/sarc
Amsterdam could prove to be a good fit for the UN after we kick its sorry arse off US soil.
Except that they then use those kids as human shields, suicide bombs, homosexual objects...
Besides, not so sure I believe they don't still commit abortions. The ancient Arabs made their little ones "pass through the fire", and the Bible scholar Hester says that archeologists found jars and jars of tiny human skeletons in execavations of ancient Arab settlements, the Baal worshippers. These are the ancestors of the modern Baal (Allah) worshippers. I am not convinced they have changed that custom any more than the rest of their hateful odious practices. For example, homosexuality is forbidden, but widely practiced, and acceptable as long as you are the the penetrator. (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1277756/posts, and "The Sword of Islam" by Trifkovic)
Don't rule Davidson out too quickly; there are still some decent elements and there is a very active group of conservative Christian students. The CR's are great, too.
If a conservative kid wants to go to Davidson College, I can make sure they hook up with the right kids.
I hear you. I also hear the ones wary of the slippery slope. I know that if I were terminally ill, and there was no way to relieve my pain, I do not want to linger nor do I want someone forcing me to.
Sick. My cousin was born with this and it is correctable with surgery.
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