Posted on 11/30/2004 9:13:52 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
A HOSPITAL in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, before revealing it had already begun carrying out the procedures.
The announcement last month by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalise euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives.
Euthanasia opponents view the prospect with horror while advocates call it a natural evolution.
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.
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 organisations and the Vatican have reacted with outrage to Groningen's announcement, and US euthanasia opponents contend 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.
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 legalised euthanasia. In France, lawmakers today unanimously approved a proposed law to empower the terminally ill to refuse life-extending treatments.
The Senate is expected to examine it next year.
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 euthanise 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 Centre in the United States.
More than half of all deaths occur under medical supervision, so it's really about management and method of death, Prof Stell said.
"The announcement last month by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalise euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives. Euthanasia opponents view the prospect with horror while advocates call it a natural evolution."
It begins.
Sort of like the evolution of the mantra "a woman's right to choose" to a woman's duty to have an abortion (e.g. China and even here with some NARAL rhetoric.)
Thank you for your welcome.
A great deal in common.
There is a very BIG difference in not prolonging a life and euthanasia.
No offense, but I such things at "it begins" sounds a little on the fatalistic side, n'est ce pas?
Those who kill babies, the sick and old, have little time for the truth.
"No offense, but I such things at "it begins" sounds a little on the fatalistic side, n'est ce pas?"
Je ne comprends pas. Parlez Englais s'il vous plait.
i think the nazis started with "euthanizing" (a great term) psychiatric patients. i'm surprised no one has put them on the list yet.
i think the ss had mobile gas chamber vans that went around to the psych hospitals.
I wonder when the Dutch will suggest this "solution" to the AIDS crisis around the world which brings thousands of infected children into the world.
Only a matter of time.
Seems the Dutch are "terminal".
It's the State's right to choose. It is not a viable "human". < /sarcasm >
"Je ne comprends pas. Parlez Englais s'il vous plait."
Je ne peux pas tout faire :p
Please read the article, it's states quite plainly
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.
I would think this to be merciful and humane. I would rather die peacefully from a sedative than endure unending pain and suffering. If you prefer to keep a child alive, simply because we have the technology to stave off the enevitable, I must disagree with you. To keep a baby (or anyone else alive) using life support, knowing that every moment will be filled with unending pain, and knowing full well that the entire life of the person will continue in pain, is neither humane nor compassionate.
"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.
I would think this to be merciful and humane. I would rather die peacefully from a sedative than endure unending pain and suffering."
How good of you to deem your decision to die for all of the children of the world with spina bifida. God help us all if you find yourself with the power over the life of Stephen Hawking. or say these folks of various disabilities and challenges:
Albert Einstein
Abraham Lincoln
Teddy Roosevelt
Isaac Newton
Leonardo Da Vinci
Dr Temple Grandin
Henry Ford
Thomas Alva Edison
Alexander Graham Bell
Julius Caesar
Winston Churchill
Peter the Great
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harriett Tubman (leading 19th Century American Abolitionist)
George Washington
H.G. Wells
Charles Dickens
Isaac Asimov
Hans Christian Andersen
General George Patton
Ludwig von Beethoven
Glenn Gould
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Itzhak Perlman
Helen Keller
Lord Byron
Woodrow Wilson
In American Pop Culture:
Richard Burton
Tom Cruise
Lou Ferrigno
Danny Glover
Bob Hope
Robin Williams
Walt Disney
Marilyn Monroe
Paul Newman
Christopher Reeve
Sylvester Stallone
Elizabeth Taylor
Bruce Willis
Stevie Wonder
Kenny G
Meatloaf
Alice Cooper
Elton John
Elvis Presley
Michael Bolton
Cher
Carly Simon
Ray Charles
B.B. King
Hodar, the Nazis lost the war. Get over it.
STOP THAT!
:^)
"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."
Examples include, but are they limited to?
I would urge you to actually READ an article, and then READ the response. If necessary, have someone READ it for you; as you managed to jump over the post and then added a liberal dose of your own opinion to mine; and accredited it to me. Now, I do not blather an opinion and attribute it to you; I would expect the same courtesy.
If ANYONE is suffering unending pain, be it cancer, extreme burns, or one of any other lethal accidents in which there is NO CHANCE that the person will recover, and there is 100% chance that the person's existance will be in great pain; then I submit that the humane and compassionate thing is to kill them quickly and painlessly. I doubt you would hesisitate to show this mercy to a cat or dog. Why would you not extend a merciful death to a human? Just because we possess the ability to defy death, and extend life until a machine wears out; does not mean we are duty bound to do so.
The article didn't state what the limits were, the article just gave some examples. In the case of the examples given; I think the hospital and doctors are acting in a merciful manner.
If I were in a situation where my existance was filled with excruciating pain, knowing that I would NEVER recover, that the pain would either grow, or remain sustained until I died; I would certainly hope my wife would allow me to die peacefully. We would extend this mercy to our pets, why not show the same mercy to a human?
"Such human weeds clog up the path...We must clear the way for a better world; we must cultivate our garden."
Margaret Sanger -
Founder, Planned Parethood
Try this:
http://www.haciendapub.com/article29.html
I repeat what I said above: Thank God you are not in charge of deciding the fates of those who suffer such diseases. You should be ashamed of using the deathly ill to promote your agenda. I think your reaction above reveals yet another layer to your onion.
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