Posted on 07/15/2005 12:01:21 PM PDT by Rutles4Ever
Dutch paediatricians have voted unanimously to adopt as national guidelines the so called Groningen protocol that covers the mercy killing of newborn babies who are incurably sick and are suffering severely. The Dutch Paediatric Society accepted that "in exceptional circumstances and under strict conditions... deliberate ending of life" of such newborns "can be an acceptable option."
The protocol gives exact details of the requirements doctors must follow and includes the mandatory reporting of all cases. The local protocol drawn up at Groningen University Hospital last autumn caused an international outcry. Its clinical director of paediatrics, Eduard Verhagen, told the BMJ at the time, "It is time to be honest; all over the world doctors end lives discreetly, out of compassion" ( BMJ 2005;330: 560[Free Full Text]).
The protocol, which the Groningen doctors agreed with the public prosecution service, enables doctors to report their actions without being prosecuted.
Its requirements include a clear diagnosis and prognosis; that the newborn baby must be suffering hopelessly and unbearably with no prospect for future treatment; that both parents must give their informed consent; that the decision must be confirmed by a second independent doctor; and that the death and treatment must be reported to the local coroner.
After the recent decision, Dr Verhagen, who chairs the society's ethics and law committee, said, "The society has agreed a clear and uniform approach to the decisions regarding deliberate life ending procedures in sick newborns." The "confirmation of the acceptability" of this practice was an important step for parents and doctors.
It "underlines accountability," Dr Verhagen said. "Dutch paediatricians have indicated their choice for a control mechanism based on self reporting and public review. They fully realise they themselves are the ones who need to report."
The society now stresses the urgent need for a system of reporting, in the first instance to a national committee of doctors, lawyers, and ethicists rather than to the public prosecutor. Such a system already exists under the euthanasia law but the system excludes newborns as a request for euthanasia from the patient is required.
It believes that a system of reporting to a national committee rather than to the public prosecutor would encourage doctors to report their actions and thus ensure legal and societal control. It estimates that currently 15 cases occur each year in the Netherlands and that on average only three are reported. The cases are thought to be babies born with severe spina bifida, involving brain damage, and babies who suffer severe hypoxia at birth.
The society points out that last year the government promised proposals to improve the reporting of life ending decisions for newborns, while calling on the medical profession to take initiatives too. "That is what the society has now done. The ball is now with the politicians," said Dr Verhagen.
Dutch opposition Labour MP and former health academic Godelieve van Heteren has now asked justice minister Piet Hein Donner in parliament if he supports the protocol. A health ministry spokeswoman said that she expects proposals for a national assessment committee to be drawn up by the Ministry of Justice after the summer.
It's like dropping some bleeding hearts from the American Left into one of our charming inner cities to spend the night.
You signed up just today so you could promote BABY MURDER!?! Let me guess: Things were a little slow over at DU now that the Rove affair has blown over?
The fact that this goes on in Europe is no secret. This is the main reason that the US has a higher infant mortality rate than many other countries. These births are not counted as live births.
"No hope of treatment" meaning that the so called doctors
are abdicating their profession. This means the implosion
or self destruction of the practice of medicine.
A statement for anyone who ever scoffed at the idea of a slippery slope starting from legal abortion.
This has all been predicted by the late Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. Coming to America soon! Next, withholding all medical care of people over sixty five (and euthanising them is further down the road). It's back down the road of "arbeit macht frei", just a little more technically advanced and "antiseptic".
"I always get a chuckle when I hear about the Dutch and their Islamic problems. I can't think of two people more deserving of each other"
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Excellent point. This is an alliance made in hell.
Your reservations are apt. This is an emotional document, intended to assuage the consciences of the killers and persuade the parents, not a scientific one. There is no objective definition for example, of what "unbearable" means- or what if the administration of analgesic or narcotic medicines can reduce the "suffering" to "bearable" levels.
It is akin to the fundamental Hitlerian concept of the "medicalization" of killing as elucidated by Dr. Robert Jay Lifton in his epic 1986 work The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.
This document is not intended to make it "legal" or "ethical," but to make it easy.
It's chilling.
Dutch Slide Down Euthanasian's Slippery Slope
By John Keown
Residents of Washington state are to cast their votes today on Initiative 119, which, if passed will permit a doctor to kill a "terminally ill" person upon his written request. Voters about to cast ballots in support of 119 may first want to take a look a the Netherlands, where euthanasia has abeen tolerated for around 10 years. They will not find the experience reassuring.
The latest research into Dutch euthanasia lends strong support to the argument that the dangers of legalizing voluntary euthanasia far outweigh any supposed benefits. It shows, in particular, that the dangers of the "slippery slope" from voluntary euthanasia to euthanasia without request are far from illusory.
"Regulating Death," by Carlos Gomez, was published by the Free Press in September. I provided a comprehensive and unsettling account of Dutch euthanasia. Dr. Gomez's research indicates that euthanasia in the Netherlands is effectively unregulated either by law or by the medical profession. He shows that the guidelines laid down by the courts and by the Dutch Medical Association (such as a free, informed and persistent request) are in reality both unenforced and unenforceable. He demonstrates that there is no effective protection for patients - let alone vulnerable patients such as the elderly - against being killed without request, and he cites actual instances of such killings.
Moreover, the recent report by a Dutch government committee of inquiry into euthanasia includes the disturbing results of a survey of Dutch doctors. The survey revealed that in 1990 there were 2,300 cases of voluntary euthanasia (1.8% of all deaths): 400 assisted suicides (0.3%), and more than 1,000 cases of euthanasia without a specific request from the patient (0.8%). Doctors acted with the intention (either "explicit" or "secondary") to hasten death in a further 16,850 cases - in 8,750 by withholding or withdrawing treatment and in 8,100 by administering pain-killing drugs. Further, in all of the 8,750 cases, and almost 5,000 of the 8,100 cases, the patient had not consented.
In short, Dutch doctors admitted that in 1990 they sought to kill some 20,000 patients and that, in a clear majority of cases, this was done without the patient's request.
The report also confirmed that more than 70% of euthanasia cases are dishonestly and illegally certified by doctors as "natural deaths." This gives little room for complacency: If doctors are flagrantly breaching the requirement of honest reporting, what guarantee is there they they are respecting the requirement of a free and informed request?
Confirmation of these worrying findings comes from my own two-year program of empirical research into the Dutch experience (soon to appear in the Law Quarterly Review in London). I found that, although euthanasia in Holland has been promoted under the banner individual self-determination, there is in fact little evidence that euthanasia is confined to those who freely request it.
In addition to those cases where there is no request at all, there are those where the voluntariness of the request in open to question. For example, I asked Herbert Cohen, one of Holland's foremost practicioners of euthanasia, if he would rule out euthanasia in the case of a patient who said he wanted to be killed because his relatives wanted him out of the way so they could enjoy his estate. Dr. Cohen replied that he would not.
That euthanasia without a free and informed request is widely practiced in Holland is hardly surprising, for it is clear that many supporters of voluntary euthanasia have openly embraced in principle non-voluntary euthanasia. In 1985, for example, a State Commission on Euthanasia recommended that it should be lawful to kill patients in persistent coma even though they had never requested it. In both principle and practice, therefore, the need for a request has now been jettisoned by many in the Netherlands. The Dutch are undoubtedly sliding, if not skiing, down the slippery slope.
Lest supporters of the 119 are tempted to disregard the Dutch experience on the assumption that the guidelines in Holland are looser than those proposed in Washington, it should be noted that the Dutch guidelines, vague and unenforceable though they are, are in fact stricter than those in 119. For example, the Dutch guidelines require that euthanasia be a "last resort."
Significantly, leading Dutch practitioners of euthanasia I interviewed were opposed to the legislation of euthanasia in the U.S. One told me that in view of the financial costs that the care of patients can impose on relatives and society under the U.S. health care system, the legalization of euthanasia in American would be an "open door to get rid of these patients." Another said that when American doctors asked him how to introduce euthanasia into the U.S., he always replied: "Don't . . . I wouldn't trust myself as a patient. If your medical profession, with their commrcial outlook, should have that power."
In short, it is hard to see how anyone with an accurate appreciation of the Dutch experience could support 119. As they enter the polls today, Washington voters should ask themselves whether 119 would take their state down the same slope as Holland, and whether a measure motivated by a desire to increase self-determination for some, would serve to diminish it for all.
Another point is that all medicine fails at some point. Men are born to die. Since we all are destined to have some incurable medical problem at some point, why not terminate peoples' lives as soon as they become sick? Or if the illness is not curable? Of if a person has tremendous pain that medicine cannot cure?
In other words, if some people can be killed because their medical condition will eventually kill them or cannot be cured, why have any limits at all about killing anyone?
As people up the thread have noted, it is EXACTLY like Nazi Germany. Precisely following their path of killing useless eaters.
The root cause is not understanding that their is a transcendent purpose to human life, and that each and every life has a meaning and purpose, even if a great doctor doesn't know it.
It is yet another example of the utter nihilism that lies at the heart of Western liberalism. For whatever tiny minority of Dutch Christians and Jews still clings to belief in the divine and transcendant, dhimmitude - horrible as it is - may very well be a more survivable option than living under the all-consuming culture of death that liberals have spawned.
They told you your economy is worse than expected, but didn't mention their solution? Those useless eaters are expensive.
They have medication for that little problem....
"mercy killing of newborns"
The slippery slope gets slippier.
WWHD?
What would Hillary do?
Guildlines for acceptable murder?
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