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| User: "Barbarossa" |
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| Title: Re: Groningen Academic Hospital |
30 Nov 2004 10:35:49 PM |
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"Su Zanadu" <tugbertswife@webtv.net> schreef in bericht
news:3564-41AD463D-34@storefull-3212.bay.webtv.net...
Michael wrote:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/200411
30/D86MD4DG1.html
Brave New World, eh?
It's about time we started giving ourselves the same humane treatment
that we do for our pets.
SuZanne
What is happening in Groningen, The Netherlands? I lived there for 7 years.
I tried the link, it did not work.
Kind Regards,
Barbarossa
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| User: "Su Zanadu" |
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| Title: Re: Groningen Academic Hospital |
30 Nov 2004 11:08:22 PM |
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Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies
=A0Email this Story
Nov 30, 3:03 PM (ET)
By TOBY STERLING
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - 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, which
include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.
The announcement 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, which could come as soon
as December, a spokesman said.
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 severe
cases of spina bifida and epidermosis bullosa, a rare blistering
illness.
The hospital revealed last month it carried out four such mercy killings
in 2003, and reported all cases to government prosecutors. There have
been no legal proceedings against the hospital or the doctors.
Roman Catholic organizations and the Vatican have reacted with outrage
to the announcement, and U.S. euthanasia opponents contend 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
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 of 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 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."
More than half of all deaths occur under medical supervision, so it's
really about management and method of death, Stell said.
=A0=A0
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