What if it is a person with no family? Then should the state get involved?
as opposed to starving them?
Someday, this will be a private decision between the Doctor and the HMO.
Meh. They’ve been doing it for years in Australia and I bet every hospital in the world.
When I was born I had a birth defect that required operating on and my mum was in the neonatal icu with me afterwards. She saw a doctor really lay into a nurse that called a code on a terminally disabled baby instead of letting it die. That was 22 years ago.
The Dutch have just made it official and legal as well as ethical.
Assuming that all the actors here are telling the truth. Given that the hospital went ahead and did it prior to the promugation of any guidelines whatsoever I think believing them is on the optimistic side. Whatever ends up being the right way to go here (and I do have sympathy for parents of infants who are clearly in pain and who equally clearly will die very soon) I think there should be substantial punishment for those who just decided that it would be OK to be in front of a heavily-debated policy developed in a way that is transparent to the populace of the Netherlands.
Actually, I would have to say they learned many lessons from Hitler. Unfortunately, they learned the wrong ones.
sb: Actually, I would have to say they learned many lessons from Hitler. Unfortunately, they learned the wrong ones.
That’s got to be about the most disgusting example of Godwinization I’ve ever seen. Considering the risks that so many Dutch people ran to protect Jews from the Nazis, to suggest that a policy of euthanizing terminally ill and suffering infants, on their parents’ recommendation, is equivalent to Nazi genocide is simply revolting.
Anybody who has concerns about this policy can state them in a reasonable manner, as manny did, for example. Vicious accusations like “monsters” and “executing innocents” and “learning from Hitler” are simply destroying your own credibility.
Probably because the prognosis that you remember isn’t the one that the doctor gave. Memory is a funny thing. The doctor probably told your parents that there were a number of possible outcomes, one of which was that you would never live. I’ve yet to meet a doctor that will give a prognosis followed by the statement that this is the ONLY outcome that can possibly happen. Its just that the story is so much better when the subject overcomes impossible odds, e.g. I was told at the time I had my achilles tendon repaired that I would never walk again. I was also told that that likelihood was vanishingly unlikely to occur; but the doctor did tell me that.
cj
My friend, you have clearly never experienced the amazingly egalitarian freedom that one experiences in the Netherlands. One would almost think from your comment that you had prematurely judged, and therefore misrepresented, this country.
I appreciate the compliment, but I have to confess that I also have sympathy for those who would make such seemingly extreme comparisons. It’s not as huge a leap as you think. As you know, Hitler’s program was inspired by the United States eugenics movement. What you may not know is that euthanasia of severely disabled children was part of that U.S. movement and came to be taken fairly seriously (though not seriously enough to become actual policy) before the war took the wind out of the eugenicists’ sails.
I think that most people who would make the comparison are not aware that the state of medical care in the western world makes the kind of cases the Netherlands seems to be talking about the most extreme, painful kinds of things imaginable. Things that I won’t link to pictures of because it hurts simply to look at them. But I also think that the burden of proof on the pro-euthanasia side here is so high, and swims so hard against the current of history, that they ought to be ready to stand the kinds of comparisons being made here.
Reading through some anthropological literature long ago, I found a reference that with many cultures on Earth (note that most people on Earth don’t live in “Western industrialized societies” or such), in cases where children are born seriously deformed, etc. it isn’t unusual for the parents just to do nothing to stop the baby from dying, or outright kill them. The parents often just believe that after seeing the condition of the baby, god’s will was that this child wasn’t meant to live. Or act on practical concerns. Such as there are many other mouths in the family to feed, and giving scarce food to a horribly deformed baby just isn’t in the best interest of the family as a whole.
I’m not sure that I have a problem with this sort of thing happening. In the long run, I trust families more than I do government bureaucrats. And note here there is no issue of government sponsored eugenics programs of such. The decision is solely made by the family.
Interesting. Perhaps in my previous post I assumed that this sort of thing just tended to happen outside of Western industrialized societies. Australia is hardly a backwards country, and from your post above where no effort was made to not let a severely disabled baby just die on its own.
Just to stress once more, nobody’s talking about eugenics, the babies are being killed because they’re terminally ill and in pain, not because they are deformed or whatever.
Yes, I do think it would be wrong. While I’m for legalizing euthanasia, this is the one argument that gives me pause, that for financial reasons patients might be euthanized or pressured to agree to euthanasia to spare their families expense or to open up hospital beds. Obviously this would have to be something that would need to be watched closely.
Most people thing women get pregnant, and nine months later come home with a fat new baby- hooray!
I also think most people are (thankfully) not familiar with the things that can go truely, horribly, and even grotesquely wrong during fetal development. If these are the cases under discussion regarding the neonates, and I think they are even though only severe cases of spina bifida were mentioned (and there are more equally horrible disorders that most have ever heard of), then I have no qualms about the Doctors and families opting for a medically controlled death with whatever level of involvement the family can provide, and doing so privately.
I work ‘in the field’ and when these kinds of cases occur, I can only be thankful that they didn’t happen to me and mine, and I’m not the one having to make the terrible decisions that have to be made.
Actually, that’s not entirely true as I have also been in a similar situation and requested a DNR for my own baby. I have witnessed, and will continue to do so, the paperwork to discontinue life sustaining treatment for young members of other familes, too. I’ll also take care of the familes before, during and after the experience. I consider it an honor to be allowed to participate in what is usually the happiest days of a couple’s life, but is sometimes some of the most horrible days (weeks, months) they will ever have to endure.
While I appreciate Abbie Carmichael’s strong feelings on the subject, I don’t think (s)he really has any idea of the problems or diagnoses these families are facing. Saying something imflammatory like “(some)…people have no problem executing babies” shows me that (s)he simply has no life experience in this area.
Also, it’s important to note that questionable cases and disagreements here can be referred to ethics committes for more thorough assessments.
I agree. In those cases where things go horribly wrong, the matter belongs in the hands of their families, and doctors.
Mind if I quote you on that in The Pit?
This is one tough cookie. It kinda floats in the realm of third-term abortion for mother or child life-threatening defects. While I am a big fan of euthenasia, I’m a bigger fan of euthenasia by choice.
I guess the decision lay in the hands of the parents (let’s not forget that being a parent of a severely “retarded” child is a whole new realm of pain and suffering.
Quote me all you want, Zagadka, although I’m not sure why you’d want to.
I am not without sympathy for parents of sick babies, sheesh. If the child is going to “die anyway,” though, what is the rush? Pain can be managed. I just can’t see speeding up the process.
All. Human. Life. Is. Precious. I can’t make it any more clear than that. We should make every effort to protect it and prolong it if we can, not end it just so we can stop our own pain and begin the mourning process.
Many people who are against the death penalty believe the way they do because they are afraid we will execute someone innocent. What happens when one of these babies is killed, an autopsy is performed and it turns out they weren’t as sick as the doctors thought? The criteria today is “terminally ill AND in pain” but let’s not kid ourselves. Tomorrow it will be “terminally ill.” Then, perhaps a few years down the line, it’ll be “seriously ill with little chance of recovery.” This doesn’t have slippery slope potential, it has drop-off-a-cliff potential.
If a terminally ill adult wants to kill themself, and they TRULY want to die, you can’t do anything to stop them. Thing is, they have made that decision on their own. We are talking about babies who cannot make that decision. The assumption that they’d WANT to be killed is just going to spill over to adults who can’t make that decision for themselves (Terry Schiavo, anyone?). If we are talking about someone’s LIFE here, shouldn’t the default option be to let them live? To assume that someone would want to die leaves too much room for error. If you are wrong, you can’t bring them back. If they do want to die, it will happen in time.
What’s going to happen to older children who become sick, I wonder? Say the kid is 8 and comes down with some form of cancer that’s supposedly terminal. Is it gonna be okay for the parents to order the doctor to kill them?
And the idea that “well, other cultures do it” as a defense is ridiculous. Other cultures hold down screaming girls and circumsize them, too. If 3rd world nations jumped off a bridge would you do it, too?
Hmmm…while this does make me uneasy, I’m assuming this is absolute, last resort, no hope, etc. For something like Tay-Sachs, or Harlequin Fetus, perhaps?
I can understand people being horrified-but I’m sure that this is only when there’s absolutely no hope, and doping them up on massive painkillers would have the same result as killing them?
Whooosh.
O_o So when the horse breaks its leg, let it lay there and suffer as it slowly dehydrate over a few days?
Which is why you are a devoted humanitarian and war protester, I’m sure.
Ah, I see you used the disclaimer “human life”… guess you aren’t a PETA member then. And it makes my horse analogy somewhat off base. Oh well.
Anyway, I, being someone who actually IS a humanitarian, am somewhat torn here. I lean towards euthenasia by choice of the parents, though.