Holland to allow 'baby euthanasia'
Sunday Times ^ | March 5, 2006 | Matthew Campbell

WHEN Frank and Anita's daughter Chanou was born with an extremely
rare, incurable illness in August 2000, they knew that her life would
be short and battled against the odds to make it happy.

They struggled around the clock against their baby's pain. "We tried
all sorts of things," said Anita, a 37-year-old local government
worker. "She cried all the time. Every time I touched her it hurt."

Chanou was suffering from a metabolic disorder that had resulted in
abnormal bone development. Doctors gave her no more than 30 months to
live. "We felt terrible watching her suffer," said Anita at their home
near Amsterdam. "We felt we were letting her down."

Frank and Anita began to believe that their daughter would be better
off dead. "She kept throwing up milk that was fed through a tube in
her nose," said Anita. "She seemed to be saying, 'Mummy, I don't want
to live any more. Let me go'."

Eventually, doctors agreed to help the baby die at seven months. The
feeding was stopped. Chanou was given morphine. "We were with her at
that last moment," said Anita. "She was exhausted. She took a very
deep last breath. It was so peaceful. It made me feel at peace inside
to know that she wasn't suffering any more."

Even so, they felt that the suffering had gone on too long. Child
euthanasia is illegal in Holland and doctors were afraid of being
prosecuted. "It was a long road to find the humane solution that we
reluctantly decided we wanted," said Frank, a bank worker.

Each year in Holland at least 15 seriously ill babies, most of them
with severe spina bifida or chromosomal abnormalities, are helped to
die by doctors acting with the parents' consent. But only a fraction
of those cases are reported to the authorities because of the doctors'
fears of being charged with murder.

Things are about to change, however, making it much easier for parents
and doctors to end the suffering of an infant.

A committee set up to regulate the practice will begin operating in
the next few weeks, effectively making Holland, where adult euthanasia
is legal, the first country in the world to allow "baby euthanasia" as
well.

The development has angered opponents of euthanasia who warn of a
"slippery slope" leading to abuses by doctors and parents, who will be
making decisions for individuals incapable of expressing a will.

Others welcome more openness about a practice that, according to
doctors, goes on secretly anyway - even in Britain - regardless of the
law. "It is a giant step forward and we are very happy about it," said
Eduard Verhagen, clinical director of paediatrics at the University
Medical Centre in Groningen, northern Holland.

Anti-euthanasia campaigners have been addressing hate mail to "Dr
Death", as they call him, ever since he admitted having personally
overseen four "assisted neo-natal terminations". He then began drawing
up guidelines for doctors carrying out euthanasia on babies.

It forced the government to confront the issue and Verhagen's
so-called "Groningen protocol" has been adopted as the standard to be
upheld by the regulatory committee.

It emphasises that life can be ended only in cases involving
"unbearable suffering", with parental consent and after consultation
with other physicians.

"If a child is untreatably ill," Verhagen explained, "there can be
horrendous suffering that makes the last few days or weeks of this
child's life unbearable. Now the question is: are you going to leave
the child like that or are you going to prevent that suffering?" He
went on: "Does the child have to sit it out until the end? We think
that the answer is no. There can be circumstances where, under very
strict conditions, if all the requirements are fulfilled, active
ending of life can be an option - but only in cases of untreatable
disease and unbearable suffering."

A visit to Groningen's intensive care unit for children last week
demonstrated how rare it is for infants, in an age of extremely
sophisticated, high-tech medical treatment, to experience extreme
pain. Even so, life and death decisions are made by doctors every day.
Consider Maryline, only a few hours old, who lay in an incubator on
Wednesday afternoon after being born prematurely. With feet smaller
than adult thumbs, she was breathing through a respirator as doctors
struggled to get her little lungs working on their own.

"At some point," said Verhagen, observing this battle for life, "we
will have to decide whether it is pointless from a medical point of
view and whether we should not prolong treatment."

This, he agreed, was a form of "passive euthanasia" practised in
countries all over the world. But from a moral point of view, he
argued, it was no different from administering a lethal dose of
morphine, since the result of withdrawing treatment would also
eventually be death.

"Is there any difference between watching someone drowning without
doing anything and pushing them into the lake?" he asked.

Verhagen, a 42-year-old father of three who has spent years tending
sick children in underdeveloped countries, became a paediatrician with
the intention of saving children's lives, not ending them. Then along
came a case that changed his entire way of thinking.

Sanne had a severe form of Hallopeau-Siemens syndrome, which meant
that her skin would detach itself from her body if anyone touched it.
The membranes inside her mouth and oesophagus fell away whenever they
tried to feed her through a tube.

To experts, it is obvious when babies are in pain, and not only
because of the type of shrieking. The way they clench their fists is
another indicator. This was a child in great pain but pain relievers
seemed to make no difference; and every time nurses replaced her
bandages a little more of her skin fell off. She came to resemble a
mummy. Verhagen did not know what to do.

Her parents demanded an end to her suffering and, for the first time
in his career, Verhagen considered euthanasia. Fearing prosecution,
however, he sent the child home, where she died of pneumonia six
months later.

Verhagen believed he had let down the girl and her parents by allowing
such suffering. "We were very unhappy," he said. He and his colleagues
began liaising with the local prosecutor, even inviting him to come on
hospital rounds to familiarise himself with some of the issues
involved.

The hospital began reporting cases of euthanasia in newborns with
spina bifida between 2002 and 2004. Verhagen authorised and sometimes
witnessed the procedure without any criminal charges being brought
against him.

"It is in some ways beautiful," said Verhagen, describing the moment
when severely pain-racked children relax for the first time since
birth. "But it is also extremely emotional and very difficult," he
added.

"No doctor likes to do this. You will always ask yourself, 'Is there
something I have not thought of?' That is why it needs to be done
under a spotlight: you can never, ever be wrong."

His approach has enraged a vociferous pro-life movement, particularly
in America where it has been compared to a campaign by the Nazis to
dispose of handicapped infants in the interest of building a master
race. Dutch doctors, wrote one commentator in the conservative Weekly
Standard magazine, were engaging in "the kind of activities that got
some German doctors hanged after Nuremberg".

In liberal Holland, criticism is more muted. But Bert Dorenbos,
chairman of the Cry for Life organisation, called tolerance of child
euthanasia "very scary".

"It is a terrible thing," he said. Under the new system "patients,
particularly children, will need protection from euthanasia-minded
doctors. It is very worrying indeed". Verhagen accepts that not
everybody feels as he does about euthanasia. "So that's why we say
that deliberate ending of life is never a must. But it can be an
option, so long as parents as well as physicians and others are in
agreement that it should be an option."

If it were one of his own children, he would not hesitate to ask a
doctor to step in, although he would not be able to combine the role
of father and doctor. "I would go to see my doctor and say I think my
child is better off dead than alive and the option would be there. So
it gives me a certain peace of mind."

Frank and Anita see doctors such as Verhagen as heroes for being brave
enough to advocate death in cases such as the suffering of their
daughter. "Ultimately, why should such a tiny little girl have to
suffer such unbearable pain?" said Frank.

Nevertheless, it had been "a real struggle to arrive at this position
and then to decide to act on it".

After her daughter's death, Anita became pregnant again but a test at
11 weeks showed her child to be suffering from the same metabolic
disorder as Chanou and she had an abortion. Then she gave birth to
Damian, a healthy toddler.

The couple planted a lime tree for Chanou in a park in southern
Holland and go there often to remember their "brave little fighter". A
photograph of her, taken during a lull in her battle with pain, shows
a faint smile on her face.

Anita has no regrets about what happened: "She is playing in heaven
now."



--
"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing
their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and
let them rewrite history." -- ***** Cheney 11/16/2005

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce

"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." -- John Updike

"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it
takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of
trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain
Compassion

"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant

Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net

Holland to allow 'baby euthanasia'
Sunday Times ^ | March 5, 2006 | Matthew Campbell

WHEN Frank and Anita's daughter Chanou was born with an extremely
rare, incurable illness in August 2000, they knew that her life would
be short and battled against the odds to make it happy.

They struggled around the clock against their baby's pain. "We tried
all sorts of things," said Anita, a 37-year-old local government
worker. "She cried all the time. Every time I touched her it hurt."

Chanou was suffering from a metabolic disorder that had resulted in
abnormal bone development. Doctors gave her no more than 30 months to
live. "We felt terrible watching her suffer," said Anita at their home
near Amsterdam. "We felt we were letting her down."

Frank and Anita began to believe that their daughter would be better
off dead. "She kept throwing up milk that was fed through a tube in
her nose," said Anita. "She seemed to be saying, 'Mummy, I don't want
to live any more. Let me go'."

Eventually, doctors agreed to help the baby die at seven months. The
feeding was stopped. Chanou was given morphine. "We were with her at
that last moment," said Anita. "She was exhausted. She took a very
deep last breath. It was so peaceful. It made me feel at peace inside
to know that she wasn't suffering any more."

Even so, they felt that the suffering had gone on too long. Child
euthanasia is illegal in Holland and doctors were afraid of being
prosecuted. "It was a long road to find the humane solution that we
reluctantly decided we wanted," said Frank, a bank worker.

Each year in Holland at least 15 seriously ill babies, most of them
with severe spina bifida or chromosomal abnormalities, are helped to
die by doctors acting with the parents' consent. But only a fraction
of those cases are reported to the authorities because of the doctors'
fears of being charged with murder.

Things are about to change, however, making it much easier for parents
and doctors to end the suffering of an infant.

A committee set up to regulate the practice will begin operating in
the next few weeks, effectively making Holland, where adult euthanasia
is legal, the first country in the world to allow "baby euthanasia" as
well.

The development has angered opponents of euthanasia who warn of a
"slippery slope" leading to abuses by doctors and parents, who will be
making decisions for individuals incapable of expressing a will.

Others welcome more openness about a practice that, according to
doctors, goes on secretly anyway - even in Britain - regardless of the
law. "It is a giant step forward and we are very happy about it," said
Eduard Verhagen, clinical director of paediatrics at the University
Medical Centre in Groningen, northern Holland.

Anti-euthanasia campaigners have been addressing hate mail to "Dr
Death", as they call him, ever since he admitted having personally
overseen four "assisted neo-natal terminations". He then began drawing
up guidelines for doctors carrying out euthanasia on babies.

It forced the government to confront the issue and Verhagen's
so-called "Groningen protocol" has been adopted as the standard to be
upheld by the regulatory committee.

It emphasises that life can be ended only in cases involving
"unbearable suffering", with parental consent and after consultation
with other physicians.

"If a child is untreatably ill," Verhagen explained, "there can be
horrendous suffering that makes the last few days or weeks of this
child's life unbearable. Now the question is: are you going to leave
the child like that or are you going to prevent that suffering?" He
went on: "Does the child have to sit it out until the end? We think
that the answer is no. There can be circumstances where, under very
strict conditions, if all the requirements are fulfilled, active
ending of life can be an option - but only in cases of untreatable
disease and unbearable suffering."

A visit to Groningen's intensive care unit for children last week
demonstrated how rare it is for infants, in an age of extremely
sophisticated, high-tech medical treatment, to experience extreme
pain. Even so, life and death decisions are made by doctors every day.
Consider Maryline, only a few hours old, who lay in an incubator on
Wednesday afternoon after being born prematurely. With feet smaller
than adult thumbs, she was breathing through a respirator as doctors
struggled to get her little lungs working on their own.

"At some point," said Verhagen, observing this battle for life, "we
will have to decide whether it is pointless from a medical point of
view and whether we should not prolong treatment."

This, he agreed, was a form of "passive euthanasia" practised in
countries all over the world. But from a moral point of view, he
argued, it was no different from administering a lethal dose of
morphine, since the result of withdrawing treatment would also
eventually be death.

"Is there any difference between watching someone drowning without
doing anything and pushing them into the lake?" he asked.

Verhagen, a 42-year-old father of three who has spent years tending
sick children in underdeveloped countries, became a paediatrician with
the intention of saving children's lives, not ending them. Then along
came a case that changed his entire way of thinking.

Sanne had a severe form of Hallopeau-Siemens syndrome, which meant
that her skin would detach itself from her body if anyone touched it.
The membranes inside her mouth and oesophagus fell away whenever they
tried to feed her through a tube.

To experts, it is obvious when babies are in pain, and not only
because of the type of shrieking. The way they clench their fists is
another indicator. This was a child in great pain but pain relievers
seemed to make no difference; and every time nurses replaced her
bandages a little more of her skin fell off. She came to resemble a
mummy. Verhagen did not know what to do.

Her parents demanded an end to her suffering and, for the first time
in his career, Verhagen considered euthanasia. Fearing prosecution,
however, he sent the child home, where she died of pneumonia six
months later.

Verhagen believed he had let down the girl and her parents by allowing
such suffering. "We were very unhappy," he said. He and his colleagues
began liaising with the local prosecutor, even inviting him to come on
hospital rounds to familiarise himself with some of the issues
involved.

The hospital began reporting cases of euthanasia in newborns with
spina bifida between 2002 and 2004. Verhagen authorised and sometimes
witnessed the procedure without any criminal charges being brought
against him.

"It is in some ways beautiful," said Verhagen, describing the moment
when severely pain-racked children relax for the first time since
birth. "But it is also extremely emotional and very difficult," he
added.

"No doctor likes to do this. You will always ask yourself, 'Is there
something I have not thought of?' That is why it needs to be done
under a spotlight: you can never, ever be wrong."

His approach has enraged a vociferous pro-life movement, particularly
in America where it has been compared to a campaign by the Nazis to
dispose of handicapped infants in the interest of building a master
race. Dutch doctors, wrote one commentator in the conservative Weekly
Standard magazine, were engaging in "the kind of activities that got
some German doctors hanged after Nuremberg".

In liberal Holland, criticism is more muted. But Bert Dorenbos,
chairman of the Cry for Life organisation, called tolerance of child
euthanasia "very scary".

"It is a terrible thing," he said. Under the new system "patients,
particularly children, will need protection from euthanasia-minded
doctors. It is very worrying indeed". Verhagen accepts that not
everybody feels as he does about euthanasia. "So that's why we say
that deliberate ending of life is never a must. But it can be an
option, so long as parents as well as physicians and others are in
agreement that it should be an option."

If it were one of his own children, he would not hesitate to ask a
doctor to step in, although he would not be able to combine the role
of father and doctor. "I would go to see my doctor and say I think my
child is better off dead than alive and the option would be there. So
it gives me a certain peace of mind."

Frank and Anita see doctors such as Verhagen as heroes for being brave
enough to advocate death in cases such as the suffering of their
daughter. "Ultimately, why should such a tiny little girl have to
suffer such unbearable pain?" said Frank.

Nevertheless, it had been "a real struggle to arrive at this position
and then to decide to act on it".

After her daughter's death, Anita became pregnant again but a test at
11 weeks showed her child to be suffering from the same metabolic
disorder as Chanou and she had an abortion. Then she gave birth to
Damian, a healthy toddler.

The couple planted a lime tree for Chanou in a park in southern
Holland and go there often to remember their "brave little fighter". A
photograph of her, taken during a lull in her battle with pain, shows
a faint smile on her face.

Anita has no regrets about what happened: "She is playing in heaven
now."



--
"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing
their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and
let them rewrite history." -- ***** Cheney 11/16/2005

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce

"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." -- John Updike

"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion

"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant

Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net

Holland to allow ‘baby euthanasia’
Sunday Times ^ | March 5, 2006 | Matthew Campbell

WHEN Frank and Anita’s daughter Chanou was born with an extremely
rare, incurable illness in August 2000, they knew that her life would
be short and battled against the odds to make it happy.

They struggled around the clock against their baby’s pain. “We tried
all sorts of things,” said Anita, a 37-year-old local government
worker. “She cried all the time. Every time I touched her it hurt.”

Chanou was suffering from a metabolic disorder that had resulted in
abnormal bone development. Doctors gave her no more than 30 months to
live. “We felt terrible watching her suffer,” said Anita at their home
near Amsterdam. “We felt we were letting her down.”

Frank and Anita began to believe that their daughter would be better
off dead. “She kept throwing up milk that was fed through a tube in
her nose,” said Anita. “She seemed to be saying, ‘Mummy, I don’t want
to live any more. Let me go’.”

Eventually, doctors agreed to help the baby die at seven months. The
feeding was stopped. Chanou was given morphine. “We were with her at
that last moment,” said Anita. “She was exhausted. She took a very
deep last breath. It was so peaceful. It made me feel at peace inside
to know that she wasn’t suffering any more.”

Even so, they felt that the suffering had gone on too long. Child
euthanasia is illegal in Holland and doctors were afraid of being
prosecuted. “It was a long road to find the humane solution that we
reluctantly decided we wanted,” said Frank, a bank worker.

Each year in Holland at least 15 seriously ill babies, most of them
with severe spina bifida or chromosomal abnormalities, are helped to
die by doctors acting with the parents’ consent. But only a fraction
of those cases are reported to the authorities because of the doctors’
fears of being charged with murder.

Things are about to change, however, making it much easier for parents
and doctors to end the suffering of an infant.

A committee set up to regulate the practice will begin operating in
the next few weeks, effectively making Holland, where adult euthanasia
is legal, the first country in the world to allow “baby euthanasia” as
well.

The development has angered opponents of euthanasia who warn of a
“slippery slope” leading to abuses by doctors and parents, who will be
making decisions for individuals incapable of expressing a will.

Others welcome more openness about a practice that, according to
doctors, goes on secretly anyway — even in Britain — regardless of the
law. “It is a giant step forward and we are very happy about it,” said
Eduard Verhagen, clinical director of paediatrics at the University
Medical Centre in Groningen, northern Holland.

Anti-euthanasia campaigners have been addressing hate mail to “Dr
Death”, as they call him, ever since he admitted having personally
overseen four “assisted neo-natal terminations”. He then began drawing
up guidelines for doctors carrying out euthanasia on babies.

It forced the government to confront the issue and Verhagen’s
so-called “Groningen protocol” has been adopted as the standard to be
upheld by the regulatory committee.

It emphasises that life can be ended only in cases involving
“unbearable suffering”, with parental consent and after consultation
with other physicians.

“If a child is untreatably ill,” Verhagen explained, “there can be
horrendous suffering that makes the last few days or weeks of this
child’s life unbearable. Now the question is: are you going to leave
the child like that or are you going to prevent that suffering?” He
went on: “Does the child have to sit it out until the end? We think
that the answer is no. There can be circumstances where, under very
strict conditions, if all the requirements are fulfilled, active
ending of life can be an option — but only in cases of untreatable
disease and unbearable suffering.”

A visit to Groningen’s intensive care unit for children last week
demonstrated how rare it is for infants, in an age of extremely
sophisticated, high-tech medical treatment, to experience extreme
pain. Even so, life and death decisions are made by doctors every day.
Consider Maryline, only a few hours old, who lay in an incubator on
Wednesday afternoon after being born prematurely. With feet smaller
than adult thumbs, she was breathing through a respirator as doctors
struggled to get her little lungs working on their own.

“At some point,” said Verhagen, observing this battle for life, “we
will have to decide whether it is pointless from a medical point of
view and whether we should not prolong treatment.”

This, he agreed, was a form of “passive euthanasia” practised in
countries all over the world. But from a moral point of view, he
argued, it was no different from administering a lethal dose of
morphine, since the result of withdrawing treatment would also
eventually be death.

“Is there any difference between watching someone drowning without
doing anything and pushing them into the lake?” he asked.

Verhagen, a 42-year-old father of three who has spent years tending
sick children in underdeveloped countries, became a paediatrician with
the intention of saving children’s lives, not ending them. Then along
came a case that changed his entire way of thinking.

Sanne had a severe form of Hallopeau-Siemens syndrome, which meant
that her skin would detach itself from her body if anyone touched it.
The membranes inside her mouth and oesophagus fell away whenever they
tried to feed her through a tube.

To experts, it is obvious when babies are in pain, and not only
because of the type of shrieking. The way they clench their fists is
another indicator. This was a child in great pain but pain relievers
seemed to make no difference; and every time nurses replaced her
bandages a little more of her skin fell off. She came to resemble a
mummy. Verhagen did not know what to do.

Her parents demanded an end to her suffering and, for the first time
in his career, Verhagen considered euthanasia. Fearing prosecution,
however, he sent the child home, where she died of pneumonia six
months later.

Verhagen believed he had let down the girl and her parents by allowing
such suffering. “We were very unhappy,” he said. He and his colleagues
began liaising with the local prosecutor, even inviting him to come on
hospital rounds to familiarise himself with some of the issues
involved.

The hospital began reporting cases of euthanasia in newborns with
spina bifida between 2002 and 2004. Verhagen authorised and sometimes
witnessed the procedure without any criminal charges being brought
against him.

“It is in some ways beautiful,” said Verhagen, describing the moment
when severely pain-racked children relax for the first time since
birth. “But it is also extremely emotional and very difficult,” he
added.

“No doctor likes to do this. You will always ask yourself, ‘Is there
something I have not thought of?’ That is why it needs to be done
under a spotlight: you can never, ever be wrong.”

His approach has enraged a vociferous pro-life movement, particularly
in America where it has been compared to a campaign by the Nazis to
dispose of handicapped infants in the interest of building a master
race. Dutch doctors, wrote one commentator in the conservative Weekly
Standard magazine, were engaging in “the kind of activities that got
some German doctors hanged after Nuremberg”.

In liberal Holland, criticism is more muted. But Bert Dorenbos,
chairman of the Cry for Life organisation, called tolerance of child
euthanasia “very scary”.

“It is a terrible thing,” he said. Under the new system “patients,
particularly children, will need protection from euthanasia-minded
doctors. It is very worrying indeed”. Verhagen accepts that not
everybody feels as he does about euthanasia. “So that’s why we say
that deliberate ending of life is never a must. But it can be an
option, so long as parents as well as physicians and others are in
agreement that it should be an option.”

If it were one of his own children, he would not hesitate to ask a
doctor to step in, although he would not be able to combine the role
of father and doctor. “I would go to see my doctor and say I think my
child is better off dead than alive and the option would be there. So
it gives me a certain peace of mind.”

Frank and Anita see doctors such as Verhagen as heroes for being brave
enough to advocate death in cases such as the suffering of their
daughter. “Ultimately, why should such a tiny little girl have to
suffer such unbearable pain?” said Frank.

Nevertheless, it had been “a real struggle to arrive at this position
and then to decide to act on it”.

After her daughter’s death, Anita became pregnant again but a test at
11 weeks showed her child to be suffering from the same metabolic
disorder as Chanou and she had an abortion. Then she gave birth to
Damian, a healthy toddler.

The couple planted a lime tree for Chanou in a park in southern
Holland and go there often to remember their “brave little fighter”. A
photograph of her, taken during a lull in her battle with pain, shows
a faint smile on her face.

Anita has no regrets about what happened: “She is playing in heaven
now.”