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The next step of abortions

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by saltyone, May 1, 2006.

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saltyone So Mote It Be

AMSTERDAM — The Netherlands is expanding its controversial euthanasia policy with guidelines on when doctors may end the lives of ill infants with the parents’ consent.

A draft of the new regulations will be presented to the Dutch parliament for debate in October. However the expansion of the policy will not require a change of the law, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health told news agency AP on Thursday.

The move follows controversial cases in which doctors ended the lives of terminally-ill children.
The change could also set a precedent for how doctors handle other cases in which patients are unable to give informed consent due to learning disability or dementia.

The Netherlands became the first nation to legalise euthanasia for adults under some conditions in 2001.

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"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".
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"It's time to be honest about the unbearable suffering endured by newborns with no hope of a future," said Dr Eduard Verhagen, head of paediatrics at Groningen hospital, in a statement last week. "All over the world doctors end lives discreetly out of compassion without any kind of regulation _ This is a subject that nobody likes to acknowledge, let alone discuss."

Behind the scenes paediatricians in the Netherlands have been making tacit deals with local prosecutors' offices for years, promising to report cases of "life-ending treatment for newborns" in return for guarantees that the doctors will not find themselves hauled into the dock facing charges of murder.

Last year Dr Verhagen's clinic in Groningen carried out three terminations of newborns and reported the cases to the prosecutor's office, which decided not to bring charges.

Leendert De Lange, an official at the national prosecutor's office in The Hague, says there have been 18 such cases of "neo-natal" deaths reported to the judicial authorities in the past four years, none of them resulting in prosecution.

The doctors say this is about one third of the total number of such cases, with most cases going unreported because of the doctors' fears.
Two test cases in the mid-90s set the precedent. Two doctors, one a neurologist, the other a GP, reported the killing of two newborns and were tried for murder. They were acquitted and appeal courts in both cases confirmed the acquittals. Since then there have been no more trials.

"In fact the prosecutors are not prosecuting these cases," says Professor John Griffiths, author of the 1997 book, Euthanasia and Law in The Netherlands, and an expert in euthanasia law at the University of Gronignen, in the north-east of the country.
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:dis:

Christine Rosen, the author of "Preaching Eugenics" (Oxford University Press, 2004), a book on America's experience with euthanasia, says that, "The Netherlands' embrace of euthanasia has been a gradual process aided by the growing acceptance (in a much more secular Europe) that some life is ‘unworthy of life."'

Indeed, Europe is doing just that. According to the Associated Press, 73 percent of French doctors have admitted to using drugs to end an infant's life, with between 2 and 4 percent of doctors in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany and Sweden confessing the same.
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The United States should join the Netherlands in legalizing euthanasia, especially for infants.

Abortion has already been legal for decades. Why not give parents the option to terminate the life of a child who is destined for a life of suffering and misery?

Euthanasia is a perfectly humane treatment for suffering individuals with no hope of recovery. People can be put to death in a professional manner and without discomfort by injection of sedatives and lethal doses of muscle relaxants, which is how doctors have been killing terminally ill patients in the Netherlands. Established guidelines would ensure humane procedures for killing infants, and ensure that hospitals weren't needlessly killing babies or terminating the lives of infants because of sinister ulterior motives of the parents.

Possible reasons for euthanizing infants may include being born with severe deformities, incurable diseases where afflicted children would spend their entire life on life support and/or in the hospital, diseases that would cause constant pain throughout the life of the child and extremely premature births where bleeding and spasms are causing brain damage.

When we have a pet that is suffering, and that we know stands no hope of recovery, most of us do the right thing and take the pet to the veterinarian and have the animal put to sleep. There's no reason to turn off our compassion when it comes to infants. Logic dictates that if we're loving and caring enough not to want our pets to suffer, then we shouldn't want our children to suffer either.

I know the idea of terminating the life of a baby may seem shocking and chilling to some, but I believe that's because the topic hasn't been raised as a serious issue in the United States before. The more one considers it, the more it makes sense. There should be proper guidelines for the merciful killings of those who were simply not meant for this world.
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So the people who had the demonstrators out in the streets with the "Bu****ler" signs and who regularly lecture us on Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, the death penalty, guns, etc., feel that it's OK to kill the handicapped and the mentally retarded, including children? Sorry, let's be fair, to kill them in accordance with "guidelines." While the Hitler analogy is abused, we just can't help noticing the similarities with Nazi-speak found in the language used by those interviewed in this article.
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http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/2004/12/death-penalty-no-baby-killing-yes.html

saltyone, May 1, 2006

#1
saltyone So Mote It Be

"There must be a law that no imperfect or maimed child shall be brought up. And to avoid excess in population, some children must be exposed. For a limit must be fixed to the population of the state."
Aristotle-Politics: Book VII: Ch.16.
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saltyone, May 1, 2006

#2
saltyone So Mote It Be

Here's a picture of how we do it here.

saltyone, May 1, 2006

#3
LsuCraig Founding Member

I have stated here many times that this is where this country is headed. The abortions on demand, the Schiavo deal.....it's building to a crescendo of killing the unwanted made easy. The old, the infirm, the handicapped, the innocent. We should be judged, and will be by God, for not how we treat the healthy.....but how we treat the sick. When the day comes and we as a country have allowed and many of us support whole-heartedly, the killing of the unwanted, we will all pay.

LsuCraig, May 2, 2006

#4
LSUDeek All That She Wants...

as a conservative Christian i have to disagree with the party line on the schiavo deal. my wife and i agree to pull each others' plugs if brain dead.

i agree euthanasia is terrible in general though.

LSUDeek, May 2, 2006

#5
saltyone So Mote It Be

LSUDeek said:

as a conservative Christian i have to disagree with the party line on the schiavo deal. my wife and i agree to pull each others' plugs if brain dead.

i agree euthanasia is terrible in general though.
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She wasn't brain dead.

saltyone, May 2, 2006

#6
CParso Founding Member

saltyone said:

She wasn't brain dead.
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...?

CParso, May 2, 2006

#7
CParso Founding Member

I don't agree with this. This goes beyond not letting life form or ending a life that had been lived and had nothing left.

America will never let this happen. First trimester abortions will be the "worst" thing we will ever allow.

Euthenasia... I can not say that I think it's wrong in all cases. If a person wants to die, I'm okay with letting them.

CParso, May 2, 2006

#8
saltyone So Mote It Be

CParso said:

...?
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What about what I said didn't you understand?

saltyone, May 2, 2006

#9
CParso Founding Member

saltyone said:

What about what I said didn't you understand?
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CNN said:

Schiavo's brain damage "was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons," Thogmartin said.

"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," he said.

The vision centers of her brain were dead, he said.
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/15/schiavo.autopsy/

CParso, May 2, 2006

#10

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