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evileSep. 21, 2004
http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/6
16jszlg.asp
Now They Want to Euthanize Children
In the Netherlands, 31 percent of pediatricians have killed infants.
A fifth of these killings were done without the "consent" of parents.
Going Dutch has never been so horrible.
by Wesley J. Smith
FIRST, Dutch euthanasia advocates said that patient killing will be
limited to the competent, terminally ill who ask for it. Then, when
doctors began euthanizing patients who clearly were not terminally
ill, sweat not, they soothed: medicalized killing will be limited to
competent people with incurable illnesses or disabilities. Then, when
doctors began killing patients who were depressed but not physically
ill, not to worry, they told us: only competent depressed people
whose desire to commit suicide is "rational" will have their deaths
facilitated. Then, when doctors began killing incompetent people,
such as those with Alzheimer's, it's all under control, they crooned:
non-voluntary killing will be limited to patients who would have
asked for it if they were competent.
And now they want to euthanize children.
In the Netherlands, Groningen University Hospital has decided its
doctors will euthanize children under the age of 12, if doctors
believe their suffering is intolerable or if they have an incurable
illness. But what does that mean? In many cases, as occurs now with
adults, it will become an excuse not to provide proper pain control
for children who are dying of potentially agonizing maladies such as
cancer, and doing away with them instead. As for those
deemed "incurable"--this term is merely a euphemism for killing
babies and children who are seriously disabled.
For anyone paying attention to the continuing collapse of medical
ethics in the Netherlands, this isn't at all shocking. Dutch doctors
have been surreptitiously engaging in eugenic euthanasia of disabled
babies for years,
although it technically is illegal, since infants can't consent to be
killed. Indeed, a disturbing 1997 study published in the British
medical journal, the Lancet, revealed how deeply pediatric euthanasia
has already metastasized into Dutch neo natal medical practice:
According to the report, doctors were killing approximately 8 percent
of all infants who died each year in the Netherlands. That amounts to
approximately 80-90 per year. Of these, one-third would have lived
more than a month. At least 10-15 of these killings involved infants
who did not require life-sustaining treatment to stay alive. The
study found that a shocking 45 percent of neo-natologists and 31
percent of pediatricians who responded to questionnaires had killed
infants.
It took the Dutch almost 30 years for their medical practices to fall
to the point that Dutch doctors are able to engage in the kind of
euthanasia activities that got some German doctors hanged after
Nuremberg. For those who object to this assertion by claiming that
German doctors killed disabled babies during World War II without
consent of parents, so too do many Dutch doctors: Approximately 21
percent of the infant euthanasia deaths occurred without request or
consent of parents. Moreover, since when did parents attain the moral
right to have their children killed?
Euthanasia consciousness is catching. The Netherlands' neighbor
Belgium decided to jump off the same cliff as the Dutch only two
years ago. But already, they have caught up with the Dutch in their
freefall into the moral abyss. The very first Belgian euthanasia of a
person with multiple sclerosis violated the law; and just as occurs
routinely in the Netherlands, the doctor involved faced no
consequences. Now Belgium is set to legalize neo-pediatric
euthanasia. Two Belgian legislators justify their plan to permit
children to ask for their own mercy killing on the basis that young
people "have as much right to choose" euthanasia as anyone else. Yet,
these same children who are supposedly mature enough to decide to die
would be ineligible to obtain a driver's license.
Why does accepting euthanasia as a remedy for suffering in very
limited circumstances inevitably lead to never-ending expansion of
the killing license? Blame the radically altered mindset that results
when killing is redefined from a moral wrong into a beneficent and
legal act. If killing is right for, say the adult cancer patient, why
shouldn't it be just as right for the disabled quadriplegic, the
suicidal mother whose children have been killed in an accident, or
the infant born with profound mental retardation? At that point, laws
and regulations erected to protect the vulnerable against abuse come
to be seen as obstructions that must be surmounted. From there, it is
only a hop, skip, and a jump to deciding that killing is the
preferable option.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an
attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted
Suicide, and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and
Culture. His next book, Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World will be
released in October.
© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/6
16jszlg.asp
Now They Want to Euthanize Children
In the Netherlands, 31 percent of pediatricians have killed infants.
A fifth of these killings were done without the "consent" of parents.
Going Dutch has never been so horrible.
by Wesley J. Smith
FIRST, Dutch euthanasia advocates said that patient killing will be
limited to the competent, terminally ill who ask for it. Then, when
doctors began euthanizing patients who clearly were not terminally
ill, sweat not, they soothed: medicalized killing will be limited to
competent people with incurable illnesses or disabilities. Then, when
doctors began killing patients who were depressed but not physically
ill, not to worry, they told us: only competent depressed people
whose desire to commit suicide is "rational" will have their deaths
facilitated. Then, when doctors began killing incompetent people,
such as those with Alzheimer's, it's all under control, they crooned:
non-voluntary killing will be limited to patients who would have
asked for it if they were competent.
And now they want to euthanize children.
In the Netherlands, Groningen University Hospital has decided its
doctors will euthanize children under the age of 12, if doctors
believe their suffering is intolerable or if they have an incurable
illness. But what does that mean? In many cases, as occurs now with
adults, it will become an excuse not to provide proper pain control
for children who are dying of potentially agonizing maladies such as
cancer, and doing away with them instead. As for those
deemed "incurable"--this term is merely a euphemism for killing
babies and children who are seriously disabled.
For anyone paying attention to the continuing collapse of medical
ethics in the Netherlands, this isn't at all shocking. Dutch doctors
have been surreptitiously engaging in eugenic euthanasia of disabled
babies for years,
although it technically is illegal, since infants can't consent to be
killed. Indeed, a disturbing 1997 study published in the British
medical journal, the Lancet, revealed how deeply pediatric euthanasia
has already metastasized into Dutch neo natal medical practice:
According to the report, doctors were killing approximately 8 percent
of all infants who died each year in the Netherlands. That amounts to
approximately 80-90 per year. Of these, one-third would have lived
more than a month. At least 10-15 of these killings involved infants
who did not require life-sustaining treatment to stay alive. The
study found that a shocking 45 percent of neo-natologists and 31
percent of pediatricians who responded to questionnaires had killed
infants.
It took the Dutch almost 30 years for their medical practices to fall
to the point that Dutch doctors are able to engage in the kind of
euthanasia activities that got some German doctors hanged after
Nuremberg. For those who object to this assertion by claiming that
German doctors killed disabled babies during World War II without
consent of parents, so too do many Dutch doctors: Approximately 21
percent of the infant euthanasia deaths occurred without request or
consent of parents. Moreover, since when did parents attain the moral
right to have their children killed?
Euthanasia consciousness is catching. The Netherlands' neighbor
Belgium decided to jump off the same cliff as the Dutch only two
years ago. But already, they have caught up with the Dutch in their
freefall into the moral abyss. The very first Belgian euthanasia of a
person with multiple sclerosis violated the law; and just as occurs
routinely in the Netherlands, the doctor involved faced no
consequences. Now Belgium is set to legalize neo-pediatric
euthanasia. Two Belgian legislators justify their plan to permit
children to ask for their own mercy killing on the basis that young
people "have as much right to choose" euthanasia as anyone else. Yet,
these same children who are supposedly mature enough to decide to die
would be ineligible to obtain a driver's license.
Why does accepting euthanasia as a remedy for suffering in very
limited circumstances inevitably lead to never-ending expansion of
the killing license? Blame the radically altered mindset that results
when killing is redefined from a moral wrong into a beneficent and
legal act. If killing is right for, say the adult cancer patient, why
shouldn't it be just as right for the disabled quadriplegic, the
suicidal mother whose children have been killed in an accident, or
the infant born with profound mental retardation? At that point, laws
and regulations erected to protect the vulnerable against abuse come
to be seen as obstructions that must be surmounted. From there, it is
only a hop, skip, and a jump to deciding that killing is the
preferable option.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an
attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted
Suicide, and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and
Culture. His next book, Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World will be
released in October.
© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights
Reserved.
