Posted on 04/08/2005 6:58:12 PM PDT by quidnunc
Brussels – Nearly half the newborn babies who died in Flanders over a recent year-long period were helped to die by their doctors, a new study reported yesterday.
Paediatricians in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium either discreetly stopped treating the babies or, in 17 cases, illegally killed them with lethal doses of painkillers.
The study, published in The Lancet, examined the deaths of every baby who died within a year of birth in Flanders between August 1999 and July 2000.
The results of a survey on the causes of death were stark: paediatricians who responded to the survey admitted they had taken "end of life" decisions in more than half the cases.
Most commonly, that involved withholding or withdrawing treatment because physicians believed the baby had no real chance of survival or the baby had no chance of a "bearable future".
In 40 cases, opiate pain killers were used in doses with a potentially life-shortening affect. In 17 cases, a lethal dose or lethal drugs were administered.
Overall, the research yielded information on 253 out of the total of 298 infant deaths in the region over the period. The lethal doses of painkillers, which broke Belgian law, were mainly administered to babies less than a week old.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Bump
Call me too black and white, but in my book, killing something or someone that is innocent is murder.
Helped to die? HELPED to die??? Oh, yeah, killed!!!
That's rather sobering. Can you imagine being a doctor and realizing that you and your fellow docs killed half the babies who died.
I agree.
shock ping
Maybe it would be better to try to figure out why so many babies are being born so defective. But that would involve tests which would lead to more defectives being killed by abortion.
There are no degrees of life. There is life, and there is death. Black and white is appropriate because it describes the difference between the two states. We must prefer life under the law in all cases if any of us are to be guaranteed that basic, inalienable right.
Not just Democrats but some Republicans and of course the Libertarians.
I can see the defense at Saddam's trial claiming he is innocent of murdering 300,000+ people because he was "helping them to die".
Nice phrase for those judging what's bearable, redolent of sulphur for those at the mercy of said judgement.
EUTHANASIA in Flanders has now become YOUTHANASIA.
And I can see people all over Europe and in the blue states agreeing with him and calling him a visionary.
In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between thecrossesbike paths, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid thegunssony walkmans below.We are the
deadbabes. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved,A burden discarded and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.
Belgium. The country of nuts, fruitcakes, pedophiles, and baby killing doctors that wants to indict Bush for war crimes.
Mainly, they were serially killing babies only a month old or younger, so it's okay in Eurotrashland.
Thanks for that very incisive and poignant post.
When I read articles like this one, I can't help but think about the young man from LA who, having bee born with no arms, played the guitar with his feet and sang for Pope John Paul II.
If many of those babies have no chance of making it.. should they keep doign painful operations, blood tranfusions, amputations etc.. until the baby eventually expires?
Or should they let the baby die without treatment..
Or give the baby enough painkillers to kill it?
Before we do that, it might be instructive to find out just exactly what they mean when they call a baby "defective." Something tells me it's a rather loose definition.
Coming to a nation near you...
I didn't know of the man you're speaking of, but I know of what you speak.
My goodness we have become a society that is made of absolutely nothing.
Several years ago I took a part-time job in a upscale grocery store, and I kept noticing that all these younger women, you know, between the ages of 13 and 18 looked oddly similar. Their noses all looked alike.
It took me a while to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that all these girls probably had plastic surgery. It was a very affluent area, and diverse in population so there's no way melting pot would produce those noses.
The reason I mention it is because we really have become slaves to the superficial. Superficial beauty, superficial intelligence and superficial goodness. And in my mind, none of this bodes very well. And isn't it amazing that in the never ending quest for and defense of diversity, everyone wants to look alike.
Made of nothing!
Your assuming they care..
I understand your point of view. I can tell you this, I don't want government doctors deciding to continue on, withhold treatment, or dispatch. That would be way too much power to put in the hands of government. Of course that's exactly what the liberals want.
Well, given they are growing up in a country where doctors kill babies, this is entirely plausible.
"Call me too black and white, but in my book, killing something or someone that is innocent is murder."
What ever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
Doctors were never to take life, ever. Then came abortion, then came 'right to die', then came the slippery slope...
Between the Roe effect and the euthanasia the libs are killing there party.
Do you really think 1/2 of those babies were seriously ill or deformed? I don't.
50% is a pretty high rate of babies who could not live.
If killing you is "help," gotta wonder what "hurt" is.
Good point. Remember the thalidomide babies? Maybe that was before your time. People felt sorry for them, and there was no talk about ending their lives. I fear we have been socially engineered since abortion became legal. That would never have been accepted by "people who dress nice" back in the 40's and 50's. It wouldn't have been accepted by people who didn't dress so nice either.
I think the medical profession has seen so much by the time their training is completed that they detach themselves. I also know it is really hard for some of them with what they have to deal with, sometimes outright abuse. All the waste, shootings they have to treat. And so many of the young are rude and demanding, not like it was a generation or two ago.
Still, it's no excuse to kill anyone. But it's hard for me, because I didn't have a defective child and considered myself blessed. I hate to sit behind a computer and pass judgments on people whose lives are turned upside down when they have to raise a defective baby. It is really devastating. Most ended up putting the child into an institution, and now I've met some and hear of many more of those "children" who were abused in those institutions . . .
Most of these voices who are so influential in shaping public opinion are coming out of our godless educational establishments of "higher" learning.
Too bad humans don't get the same protection.
They changed it awhile back to a watered down verison. It may have been in anticipation of what was to come.
"killed them with lethal doses of painkillers."
Well, the Docs here have done this to adults by "pushing" the morphine drip. It's supposed to only occur when the situation is terminal but how many will be Schiavoed before folks wake up to the reality of modern medicine.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1375664/posts
I still remember that poem.
Prayers. And many more prayers.
"Do you really think 1/2 of those babies were seriously ill or deformed? I don't.
50% is a pretty high rate of babies who could not live."
My reading of it was that 50% of the babies who died, were euthanized. I'd have to see a comparison of infant mortality between the Netherlands and America to know how many extras were put down..
As compared to merely ending the lives of some babies early.. who would never have made it anyway.
"I can tell you this, I don't want government doctors deciding to continue on, withhold treatment, or dispatch. That would be way too much power to put in the hands of government. Of course that's exactly what the liberals want."
That is exactly why I agreed with Judge Greer that the decision should be the guardian's. In those cases where recovery is hopeless.
Of course the danger is if they push it out, to say a down syndrome child or someone who is not going to die, but won't contribute to their society economically.
One irony is the left used to be the ones fighting against eugenics in general. And many in the left still do, there was a big outcry in England last year when a woman put down the reason for aborting her child.. as it was a down syndrome child. But they have no problem if a woman aborts the child because she doesn't want it.
They dont' like the genetic inequality of eugenics.. even as they do like the population limiting side, and how it makes their social programs more viable.
It isn't murder only in your book it's also murder in God's book, and his book is the one that counts.
Actually there is no difference in God's eyes between killing a baby after it leaves the birth canal and killing a baby in the mother's body. After legalizing the murder of the unborn, many people have become so blase about killing human life in the womb that they don't see anything wrong with killing humans after they're born as long as it's done for so-called "humanitarian" reasons. It's only a matter of time until it becomes perfectly acceptable to kill humans at any age or state of health as long as it can be somehow "justified" by calling it a humanitarian act.
I will bet that if you looked at those cases, you will find excessive deaths.
Once man justifies killing one, he goes on to then justify killing more and more. Why I don't know, but look at history.
The "save them from suffering needlessly" is purely a sales tactic to get the public to agree for physicians to have the power of determining when to kill. Sad that there are some who might be suffering - but - it shows how evil the proponents are when they use these innocents as justification to gain the power to kill.
We can not let them have that power.
We have to wake up and realize that there is much evil in this world and it is overtaking more and more men to do its work. What do we do - ignore it and let them kill?
Sickening. That's all I can say.
I may have to renounce my Flemishness and convert to Black Irish.
Your comment reminded me strongly of the sentiments expressed in the movie Fight Club:
"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh*t we don't need... We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, VERY pissed off about it."
"The "save them from suffering needlessly" is purely a sales tactic to get the public to agree for physicians to have the power of determining when to kill."
I believe there are some people, especially doctors who have to be constantly involved in these situations who honestly have the patients best interests in mind. And we often don't mind putting down an animal, even a beloved family pet, to avoid it from suffering.
Yet as you are saying there are others with strange agendas, like depopulating the earth, who use it as an excuse to push their death cultist agenda.
"We can not let them have that power."
That is why I would like it to stay in the guardians hands.. with some limitations imposed by the state.
In the netherlands their healthcare is government ran, and the governmetn could just refuse to treat if it wanted, and most likely does.
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