Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies

Tony said:
I don't have a problem with it, as long as parents aren't being forced to euthanize their terminally ill child or baby.

At what age would the parents loose the right to decide euthanasia for the child? IMO, I think it should be fairly young, like 3, or 4.
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Yikes. I was thinking 3 or 4 weeks should be the cutoff. If the kid has a chance to live to be 3 or 4, then I would say that the kid should not be eligible for being killed.
 
My understanding of Groningen Protocol is that parents' wishes may be respected but it's ultimately up to the doctors. Said another way, the doctor's don't have to get consent at all.

Which means I can revise my list of things never to ask from the Dutch:

1) Peacekeeping (See Srebrenica)

2) Life-saving medical treatment (See Groningen Protocol)
 
shuize said:
My understanding of Groningen Protocol is that parents' wishes may be respected but it's ultimately up to the doctors. Said another way, the doctor's don't have to get consent at all.

Which means I can revise my list of things never to ask from the Dutch:

1) Peacekeeping (See Srebrenica)

2) Life-saving medical treatment (See Groningen Protocol)
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where did you get that understanding from?
 
The Fool said:
where did you get that understanding from?
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This article Is it not a good source?

From the Article:

The Groningen Protocol is the proposal of doctors in the Netherlands for the establishment of an "independent committee" charged with selecting babies and other severely handicapped or disabled people for euthanasia. The original article provides some of the key details:

Under the Groningen protocol, if doctors at the hospital think a child is suffering unbearably from a terminal condition, they have the authority to end the child's life. The protocol is likely to be used primarily for newborns, but it covers any child up to age 12.

The hospital, beyond confirming the protocol in general terms, refused to discuss its details.

"It is for very sad cases," said a hospital spokesman, who declined to be identified. "After years of discussions, we made our own protocol to cover the small number of infants born with such severe disabilities that doctors can see they have extreme pain and no
hope for life. Our estimate is that it will not be used but 10 to 15 times a year."

A parent's role is limited under the protocol. While experts and critics familiar with the policy said a parent's wishes to let a child live or die naturally most likely would be considered, they note that the decision must be professional, so rests with doctors.
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Jocko said:
The reality is assisted suicides happen. I understand it's a necessary thing. I am against legitimizing it because it should not be so easy to commit. If you are concerned about your rights, draft a living will. Talk to a relative you can trust. Do what you must for your circumstances... but as much as you say I am projecting my morality onto the issue, you are doing the same thing. I don't want that position to shape the circumstances of my life or those I care about.
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Well, I don't really see where in my post you think I was projecting my personal morality; I was just trying to point out another side. But this is happening in the Netherlands and I thought you were an American. It doesn't really affect you or your loved ones.

Just a side rant to no one in particular. This is the second thread about Dutch end of life decisions. I just want to mention that the highest expenditure in Dutch national healthcare is for the mentally retarded. When I compare that to Texas, which ranks near the bottom in the US and still has tens of thousands of retarded people on waiting lists for services, it breaks my heart. Anyone want to hate the world, just look up the rates of female sexual abuse of the retarded in group homes in the state of Texas- it's over 80%. I had occasion to learn of this when a family friend's daughter, who can't even speak, was diagnosed with chlamydia within months of going to a group home. But hell, that's what you get in a low-tax, low-service state. Compare that to the euthanizing of 10-15 hopeless patients yearly in the Netherlands and who really gives a ◊◊◊◊ about the most vulnerable members of their society? If I had to guess which nation's health system would be more open to abuse of the severely disabled, I would pick the American. If I got to pick which health system I would want myself and my family in, I would pick the Dutch.
 
Originally posted by kimiko

... I just want to mention that the highest expenditure in Dutch national healthcare is for the mentally retarded...
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Not for long.

Dutch Doctor: Who in their right mind would want to continue to live in that condition?

Dutch Politician: I don't know, but it sure is getting expensive.

Dutch Protestor: Hey, don't look at me. As long as you're not executing convicted murderers -- we all know that's wrong -- I really don't mind. We already euthanize "defective" babies now, don't we?
 
rdtjr said:
And if I'm denied this decision what's next? If I'm brain dead and have a living will that in such a state I want no machines doing my living for me... would I be denied that right to a decision too?
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If you're brain dead, then whatever they do to you is not euthanasia. You can only do euthanasia to someone who's alive, and brain dead people are, well, dead.
What if I didn't even want intravenous feeding? Does that cross a line, do you still want to impose your religious views on me? Frankly, I don't want the gov't or someone who does not share my personal beliefs about religion making those decisions for me.
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These are all issues about how much treatment you want - how much you want doctors to work to keep you alive. There's an important difference between doctors allowing you to die at your own request and doctors hastening the process.
Conversely, if my child should be born with his brain outside his skull, which is 100% fatal over a very short timeline, I should not be forced to keep my child alive for weeks on end through the use of machinery to do his breathing, etc. for him.
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And I don't think anyone is proposing that. What they are proposing (in the Nertherlands) is that the doctors and family be allowed to say, "This is a lost cause, so let's finish it up."

If a child is going to die in a short time with or without a doctor's help, why should it be with the doctor's help? Why should not the doctor instead do whatever can be done to make the child as comfortable as possible for the short time it has on earth?
 
a_unique_person said:
I'm going to have a living will. When I longer have any mental faculties, stop the torture, for this is what I would see it as.
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And there's nothing unreasonable about a living will - we have them here in the U.S., too. But a living will simply specifies how far you want the docs to go in treating you - not under what conditions they can give you a lethal injection. Don't confuse the issue.
 
AtheistArchon said:
If someone can tell a real zinger about me at my own funeral, I'll be well pleased.
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I bet you won't, unless you're actually 1inChrist's sock puppet... :p
 
AWPrime said:
-At least one independed must have been consulted and he/she must have given the patient the opinion in writting.
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"Go see Doctor van den Hoff - he'll certify anyone as being hopeless..."
-It must have been shown that the patient has no chance of recovery and is serverly suffering.
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Shown by whom? Shown to whom? And what is the standard of proof?
-All cases must be reported to a commission and judged by them.
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Before or after the deed is done? Who appoints this commission? How do you get on it? How do you make sure the commission doesn't get stacked with Doctor van den Hoff and his buddies?
 
Apropos of nothing: U.S. Social Security payments are made the month after the month of entitlement, e.g., the payment for February would be made in March.

When I was a claims representative at the Social Security Administration, it was commonly observed that people tended to die more often on the first day of a month than on the last day.

There is no Social Security payment made for the month of death, i.e., if you die a few seconds before midnight on February 28, the Social Security check that would come on March 3 would have to be returned.

Of course, nobody ever asked the survivors, "Did you tell the doctors to keep your dad on life support for an extra day so you could get that last Social Security check, you disgusting piece of filth?"
 
Link to longer discussion of same article
Slightly interesting. :)

See especially:
However, experts acknowledge that doctors euthanize routinely in the United States and elsewhere, but that the 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 in Davidson, N.C., and staff ethicist at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C. "Everybody knows that it happens, but there's a lot of hypocrisy. Instead, people talk about things they're not going to do."
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So the "slippery slope" cry is actually a reason to be open and pass laws on this subject. This happens, start dicussing it.

Babies in hellish pain. No chance of surviving longer than, say, two weeks. Horrid, incurable rotting disease. Every moment is also a suffering for the parents, who must watch their child inevitably slip closer towards a death where it will not even be recognizable as a human being.
Do you really want to force them to suffer this?

I'm not saying there is no slippery slope. I'm saying there is a very valid case for this law, and a blanket ban is inappropriate.

I support this, but it will need clarification, which will unfortunately only come after somebody abuses it... :(


Does suicide belong in here, or is that too tangenital? I have some things to say, but I'd rather not derail the thread too much.


-Circon,
who just remembered that he registered here at some time in the past.
 
Circon said:
However, experts acknowledge that doctors euthanize routinely in the United States and elsewhere, but that the 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 in Davidson, N.C., and staff ethicist at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C.
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Stopping treatment that would only prolong the dying process is not euthanasia.
Does suicide belong in here, or is that too tangenital? I have some things to say, but I'd rather not derail the thread too much.
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Start a new one - you're allowed.
 
BPSCG said:
Start a new one - you're allowed.
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But be sure to put "Palestine", "Israel", or "Guns" in the thread title to ensure participation. Although you do run the risk of seeing your thread become a debate over the probability of finding a hypothetical Starbucks. I'm not kidding. If a thread on kidnapped exotic dancers can turn into that, anything can.
 
BPSCG said:
Stopping treatment that would only prolong the dying process is not euthanasia.
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This reminds me of the old immuring technique that the church used to use on nuns they wanted to kill. They didn't want to spill their blood, so they walled them up and let them get on with dying.

Fundamentally, what's the difference between giving someone a fatal injection and letting somebody die that you could otherwise keep alive? Don't they boil down to the same thing?
 
Ladewig said:
Yikes. I was thinking 3 or 4 weeks should be the cutoff.
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Keep reading, I explained what I meant in a later post.
 
richardm said:
This reminds me of the old immuring technique that the church used to use on nuns they wanted to kill. They didn't want to spill their blood, so they walled them up and let them get on with dying.
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Never heard of this. Assuming it's true (trans: got proof?), how did the church distinguish this from murder?
Fundamentally, what's the difference between giving someone a fatal injection and letting somebody die that you could otherwise keep alive? Don't they boil down to the same thing?
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One starts you down the slippery slope that leads to killing anyone who enough of the right people decide is too expensive/inconvenient to keep alive. The other does not.
 
kimiko said:
Well, I don't really see where in my post you think I was projecting my personal morality; I was just trying to point out another side. But this is happening in the Netherlands and I thought you were an American. It doesn't really affect you or your loved ones.
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True, but precedents are precedents. When I mentioned projected morality, it was not intended as an insult, but saying "a baby shouldn't suffer like that" is a value-based comment based on your own experiences and tolerance for suffering. It's still a personal standard, arbitrary by nature (as is mine, I concede). On charged issues like this, truly emotionless arguments are probably impossible.
 
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