Posted on 12/03/2004 12:40:37 AM PST by nickcarraway
Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) -- Dutch doctors are asking the Netherlands government for guidelines on so-called "mercy killings" after revelations surfaced this week that a hospital in the European nation has been killing several newborns a year it determines are not healthy enough to live.
The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has asked the Netherlands Ministry of Health to put together a panel to evaluate when euthanasia can be used on people "with no free will," CNN reports.
That would include both adults and children who are unable to make their own health care decisions because of severe disabilities.
The current legal standards in place only address patients who can decide whether they want to live or die.
Those standards indicate the patient must freely choose to die and make such a request on several occasions. The patient must be in severe pain and the patient's doctor must get a second opinion from another physician agreeing to the request.
Dr. Eduard Verhagen, of the hospital's pediatric clinic, told NPR that the babies who had been euthanized were born with incurable conditions so serious "(we) felt that the most humane course would be to allow the child to die and even actively assist them with their death."
"They are very rare cases of extreme suffering. In these cases, the diagnosis was extreme spina bifada," Verhagen added.
However, spina bifada can be diagnosed during pregnancy and some unborn children have had surgery to correct the damage the condition causes.
According to an Associated Press report this week, Groningen Academic Hospital has created guidelines for doctors there to euthanize newborns who are suffering from pain associated with incurable diseases or extreme physical deformities.
Known as the Groningen Protocol, and announced last month, it allows euthanasia when a baby's medical team and independent doctors agree there is no prospect for improving pain.
The child's parents also must agree to the request to end the child's life.
According to the AP report, the hospital carried out such euthanasia requests in the last few years and reported them to the Dutch government, which has taken no action against it.
Pro-life groups were shocked and saddened by the news.
"A society or culture that does not respect the innate dignity of every human life inevitably places value judgments on the worth of an individual's life," responded Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. "To decide that it is better to kill a person, regardless of how sick or helpless, than to care for that person is unconscionable."
"Unless this policy is rejected by the international community, the culture of death will have taken one more step into the modern world," Perkins added.
Holland was the first country to legalize the practice of euthanasia -- allowing doctors to end the life of a patient, with their consent, who is suffering from a terminal illness or incurable condition.
Approved in 2002, Dutch law allows adult patients suffering from incurable diseases to request assisted suicide. Teenagers under the age of 16 must have their parents approval, but the newly proposed measure would drop that to 12 years of age and would allow children to be euthanized.
The proposal to allow children to be euthanized has prompted Belgium to consider a similar law.
Belgian lawmakers are putting forward a measure that would expand the country's legal euthanasia law to allow doctors to end the lives of children without parental permission.
Eventually we had to do it to the Nazis who started out the same way.
Better to give them a merciful death than to keep them alive (thus making them suffer) just to appease some living big-haired Christian lady's moral vanity.
Isn't this one of the countries that won't extradite terrorists subject to the Death Penalty back to the US?
How do you know? Who made you God, to decide whose life is worth living? Why should some children die just so you can feel more comfortable sitting there in the comfort of your home?? Why should we appease your self-righteous, self-serving moral vanity?
let the slamonutzis take over
Quote: They're talking about children whose lives would be miserable.
Well that's what they say... (this week). But as the article points out there were no guidelines for the decision.
And children as old as 12 were subject to this.
Doctors asking about guidelines with euthanasia.
Alas, so much for the Hippocratic oath....
These people have lost their worth. Without the Love of God Life has no meaning. I don't think God has any use for animals of this ilk. They are lower than animals. This is what the Socialists have in store for us here in America, make no mistake!
The overthrow of the Socialist movement by the election of GW Bush in 2000 is the reason for Al Gore's ranting and raving. The Clinton's maneuvering to regain the white house. Hillary claims she is now an Evangelical Christian!!, Nancy Pelosi blabbering about passages from The Gospel according to Matthew. This so called Kerry Catholic, or Devout Kennedy Catholic are all Heretics and Liars. They are FOOLS!
Just look across the Atlantic and you will see your future and your childrens' future if these sicko's are allowed to stay in office.
This is probably just a start, my friend.
Euthanasia is a very slippery slope.
Because I do.
Who made you God, to decide whose life is worth living?
Nietzsche. There is no God, morality is for us to figure out on our own.
Why should some children die
...
so you can feel more comfortable sitting there in the comfort of your home??
No, they should die so they don't have to suffer needlessly. Children should not be confused with pets or homework assignments from God. Recognizing their humanity requires us to recognize their dignity, which is to say their right to die. And as rational adults, we should be the ones making these decisions.
Note that I'm not trying to choose for anyone else's child, only stating that I think it's the right choice to make and that parents should be allowed to make that choice if they so choose. If you want to act like a big-haired Christian lady, I won't stop you.
Why should we appease your self-righteous, self-serving moral vanity?
Sorry, but I can't help being self-righteous. It's a side effect of being right. Accusing me of being self-righteous is pretty self-righteous of you, isn't it?
Put on your irony spectacles and note carefully that the trend of this kind of thing (as with all screaming liberal brainrots) is to TAKE THE DECISIONS AWAY FROM THE PARENT. They're already trying to do it in Belgium. Should give you a big fat clue-by-4 about how this is evil, even if the Nietschian Novocain has numbed the rest of your noggin.
Here's some info that this story does not give:
"A 1997 study in the British medical journal, the 'Lancet', - revealed that doctors in the Netherlands were killing approximately 8 percent of all infants who die each year. One-fifth of these killings were done without the consent of the parents. The study found that 45 percent of neonatologists and 31 percent of pediatricians who responded to questionnaires had killed infants.
Another study revealed that in 1990 an average of three people per day were actively killed by doctors without the patients’ knowledge or consent.
The Netherlands went from physician-assisted suicide to voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia of incapacitated adults and children in less than 30 years. And it was all done in the name of patient autonomy."
Hell yeah, I say we kill anyone we deem to be miserable. Forget those people who say they want to live - Jim Rob would love to die, seeing as how these doctors would deem his life to be miserable. Jim Rob and everyone else in wheelchairs like him, including Charles Krauthammer, would love to die.
My friend in high school, David Ross, had spina bifida. Never mind that he had good looking girls hanging out with him, or never mind that his parents loved him, or never mind that he was funny and smart. Normal folks like you would deem him to be miserable since he couldn't walk without crutches, and he had shunts. He was miserable, dammit, he just didn't know. Why don't we kill him now?
They'd know I'd love to die. I was profoundly deaf for the first four years of my life. There are many people who would rather die than be deaf. Never mind that I was profoundly happy - that was just ignorance on my part. Why should I want to live when others deemed me miserable?
Kill me now to make up for my stupidity...
Hell, we shouldn't even take the time to ask. The Dutch won't, so why should we?
/SARCASM OFF
From the Lancet:
Parents were involved in 79% of decisions. End-of-life decisions never went against parental wishes in these cases. The most common reason for not involving parents was that "it was so obviously the only correct decision".What, you thought I wasn't going to look it up and see for myself? They're referring to extreme defects such that the babies couldn't have survived, even painfully, even with medical treatment.
Clearly, the doctors aren't trying to take away the rights from the parents: Parents were involved in 79% of decisions. End-of-life decisions never went against parental wishes in these cases.
When there was no question as to the outcome (infant death), doctors would sometimes not bother to bother the parents with the details of the euthanasia. But when there was a chance of survival, they would discuss it with the parents and the parents always had the final say. That doesn't sound to me like parents' rights are being stripped away.
But what about the mentally retarded who suffer painful afflictions? I couldn't stand to watch one of them suffer from a painful ailment. They don't have the same choices the rest of us do. Someone has to watch out for them. If that means that a doctor will try to convince their parents to euthanize them, I wouldn't complain.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.