Posted on 11/30/2004 12:28:41 PM PST by ICE-FLYER
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - 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.
Oh, I know, outrageous....or is it? These Netherlands folks, or should I say NEANDERTHALland folks, are simply following the next logical extension of their world view of the unwanted and their godlike status. In their arrogance they know better and thus must murder to make it so.
We will get to this point without a governing body that recognizes the right to life begins with being able to be born then staying that way.
This is right out of the Nazi playbook.
Create a perfect nationalist race, with no flaws.
Apparently, the people of the Netherlands make no distinction between human babies and puppies.
Oh, would I love to smack those imbeciles upside the head with a size 13 wooden clog!
I see no good reason not to give this country to the Muslims . . . if they want it.
They're so stupid. They play into the hands of their muslims who are multiplying like flies in order to take control of the "low" country.
This isn't news. They've been killing babies by the millions in this country legally since 1971.
Hopefully one day with euthenasia we can end all genetic defects. Such as non-white-blue-eyed-blond-haired-itis which has plagued the Aryan race for far too long...
/sarcasm.
Hey, as long as the "STATE" approves it, it must be OK (And moral). Those babies do cost a hell of a lot! The social program needs it for other things, like methadone treatment. Besides, technically the brain isn't even developed yet! Think of it as a real late term abortion.
NOOOOOOOOOOO- There is NO slippery slope in abortion issues! There is NO slippery slope in euthanasia. It’s good when the state gets involved in such issues and through a centralized/social medical system such practices can even manifest themselves.
YUK!
Red6
What do they mean, "excruciating ethical debate"?
The "debate" was over long ago when they authorized euthanasia. Now it is just a question of establishing some, if any, limits acceptable to this country of established euthanizers.
Don't expect any. That's not how this works.
"...people "with no free will,"..."
This is where the lie of free will goes every time. Those deceived they have it do nothing more than think they must use it. If they cannot, they see no 'reason' to go on living as they never saw beyond themselves. If they can't play or participate in the emotional economy of the world they see no 'reason' to go on. So it is inevitable that they see those who can't amass emotional wealth and can't contribute in a 'positive way' to anyone else's emotional wealth in the overall emotional economy as not merely worthless but detrimental and thus deserving of death. So they give them death in the guise of being 'compassionate' and both murder the innocent and get an emotional trinket for themselves in the act. Satan's lie of free will eats its own in the end. Every time.
People think 'free will' versus being genuinely born again as a real, literal new creation in Jesus Christ is just splitting hairs and merely arguing over nothing. Quite the contrary.
This article proves what happens, when a whole society buys into the free will lie, having been lead there from within the visible Church by the arminian/free will lie. Just take a look at the Netherlands Churches: pro-sodimite, pro-abortion, anti-doctrine and all in the name of 'love'. Now this. The whole society is rotten/fallen and needs genuine salvation/new birth by hearing the genuine Word of God. So does America.
Proverbs 11:11 By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Keen insight, thanks for this reply.....BTTT
International Task Force
on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Archives of News Items on Euthanasia and End-of-Life Decisions (2004)
Create a perfect nationalist race, with no flaws.
And no free will...
The cold blooded murder babies, both unborn and born, makes my blood boil.
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