My girlfriend’s been dying to go to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam for quite some time. We decided to go up there for the weekend this weekend (an absolute catastrophe which left us in Amsterdam for a total of less than two hours!).
On the bus ride up there, the guide, who spoke almost completely in Chinese (I was one of 4 non-Chinese speakers on the entire bus), periodically read fact sheets and what not to try and give it a “tour” feel.
At one point, my girlfriend’s jaw dropped and she told me that the guide said that in the Netherlands a baby can be “aborted” several days after birth if it has birth defects or mental problems.
I found this site which clearly says otherwise, but I’m wondering where this guide could have gotten the idea that it was legal. Was it ever legal? Am I mistaken, and it *is *legal?
Also, are there countries where post-birth abortions are legal?
Please: I don’t want this to turn into a discussion on the morality of abortion. I just want the facts. Is it or is it not legal? Was it ever legal? Are there places where it is legal?
My WAG would be that this a misstated reference to pediatric euthanasia, which does seem to be an issue in the Netherlands. Of course abortion after birth is a contradiction in terms.
Wasn’t there an issue in the news about a country (I want to say European) where it has been proposed that premature or otherwise “non-viable” babies not be given extensive care so that they won’t take up resources and beds needed by healthy babies?
When I was in Amsterdam last year we had a couple of dinners with locals and the subject of abortion came up. He said that for rape or health of mother was OK, but abortion on demand was not. I think he was talking about the law rather than his personal opinion, but I’m not positive.
The guide was probably referring to the Groningen protocol which are dutch guidelines that deal with the mercy killings of terminally ill newborns
(previous on board discussion with some additional information here)
Here’s another thread that discusses the Groningen Protocol mentioned by Saitou. The thread I linked to pits the way an Italian politician twists the facts into a “those Evil Nazi Cloggies”-story to gain Italian votes.
The whole idea is probably hard for foreigners to get. I find it remarkable that your Chinese tourguide, gitfiddle, misinterpreted the Groningen Protocol into something resembling the alledged Chinese tradition of “abortion after birth” with unwanted female babies.
Well, I should be clear that what I wrote was a translation of a translation. The lady was speaking in Chinese, and my girlfriend told me what she was saying in French. For all I know, the guide could have read the Groningen Protocol point by point and my girlfriend gave me a quick “it’s legal to kill certain babies after a couple of days” summary.
Here’s Eduard Verhagen’s description of the Groningen Protocol in The New England Journal of Medicine. Needless to say, baby euthanasia if it has “birth defects or mental problems” isn’t true: to Groningen Protocol be considered there has to be severe illness with unbearable suffering; situations that lead to de facto euthanasia in quite a few other countries too.
I’ve heard of a scheme in Spain where unwanted (mostly healthy) babies are collected in special receptacles after being anonymously dumped by the mother, whereupon an electronic baby sensor alerts the authorities to go pick it up and start looking after it. Previous to this scheme lots of babies were being abandoned and dying.
Now The Netherlands is a progressive country with a pragmatic approach to complicated issues, and it’s not beyond reason that they might have a similar scheme there, though I don’t know if this is the case. But I did get a big shock one day when I saw a huge articulated truck emblazoned with the words Baby Dump. “Shit!” I thought. “This scheme’s so popular they’re having to truck the babies around.”
Fridgemagnet I had the idea that the “safe place to put unwanted newborns when mother cannot look after it or whatever” thing also happens in some part of the U.S.A. It would seem a reasonably good idea to me, if only because of the (thankfully in frequent) cases where the mother has perhaps been hidign the pregnancy, has mental problems etc, and leaves the baby, but baby might become ill and die if not foudn in time.
In North Carolina, a woman can leave a baby at a hospital (within a certain number of days of birth, I think) with no questions asked, and no child abandonment charges. The last time I was in Goldsboro, NC, I saw billboards advertising this in English and Spanish.
Ohio too. A bunch of articles in the Cleveland/Akron area papers on it a few months back.
Just have to remember to drop baby off with a health care professional… the janitor or security guard at the front desk doesn’t count.
Certain fire stations will also receive drop-offs… not sure if all do.
Damnit, there are a few four your olds around here that I’ve met that I figure I could do the parents a favor by depositiing the child in one of these baby drop-off locales, but on second thought they might not qualify. And for some inexplicable reason the parents seem attached to the little hellions as well.
