Dutch stuff...Coldfire welcome

Great Debates
1

Monday October 25 8:35 AM ET
Doctors Oppose Right To Die For 12 Year-Olds
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch Royal College of Physicians (KNMG) said on Friday it was unhappy with draft legislation allowing doctors to perform euthanasia on children as young as 12 against their parents’ will.

KNMG, which is broadly pro-euthanasia, does not object to extending the right to die on request to children as young as 12 if their parents give consent – a clause in the bill which has drawn fierce criticism in some circles.

But a related clause giving doctors the right to end the lives of children on request without parental permission in exceptional circumstances was simply unnecessary, it said.

``Between the ages of 12 and 16, euthanasia is possible when the child asks for it and his parents agree. Parents not agreeing happens so rarely it is unnecessary to have this clause,’’ said Jacqueline Cuperus, a KNMG spokeswoman.

Mercy killing has long been condoned in the Netherlands, but the draft law aims to clarify a legally grey area where doctors may technically be prosecuted for murder. It proposes immunity from criminal prosecution for doctors if they follow strict guidelines when performing euthanasia.

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society (DVES) said it did not think KNMG’s reservations would hinder the bill’s progress through parliament and stressed it would still prefer the bill to contain the clause.

``Good laws contain solutions for all possible conflicts – even if they never happen. There’s no point burying your head in the sand,’’ said DVES spokeswoman Martine Cornelisse.

Around 92 percent of the Dutch population support the legalization of mercy killing, according to latest DVES figures.

All I have to say is that I don’t want to get sick in the Netherlands.

Sqrl

Move over Satan. :wink: Now there’s something meatier. http://smallwonder.simplenet.com/COC.html

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Nothing worse than being forced to volunteer for euthanasia…

Nothing I write about any person or group should be applied to a larger group.

  • Boris Badenov
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I am trying to imagine what the “exceptional circumstances” where neither the patients nor their caregivers (parents in the case of children, spouses, significant others, attorneys-in-fact, or whoever) would give consent but which nonetheless mercy killing might be justified.

Failing an “exceptional circumstance” that makes sense to me, I’d have to say that they are pretty well flipped out. Does anybody have any data on this with examples or guidelines? (I started to ask Sqrl, then realized he’d probably quoted the whole article and would not have that info.)

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Sorry, I just realized that I forgot to post my source. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991025/od/dutch_euthanasia_1.html

I think Coldfire would have heard about this seeing how he lives in Amsterdam. I found this to be pretty disturbing, even though I know the age of consent in the Netherlands is supposedly 12 years old. YIKES!

HUGS!
Sqrl

Move over Satan. :wink: Now there’s something meatier. http://smallwonder.simplenet.com/COC.html

5

OK, I’ll bite. May Allah have mercy on my soul.

In the US a 13 year-old can be tried for first degree murder. This assumes the child knows right from wrong and can be held fully accountable for his/her actions.

If the kid can be tried for murder, why can’t he decide to pull his own plug?

-andros-
Friendly Neighborhood Advocatus Diaboli

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My first posting in Great Debates… and a heavy topic it is.

The age of conscent is actually 16 over here. The minister of health has proposed this law, and it is controversial BECAUSE it goes against the normal age of conscent boundary.

I’ll be short on this. It disturbes me too: WITH the parents conscent, I can certainly imagine that. But a 12 year old child deciding it wants to die even if the parents in all rationality think the kid’s got a chance… it frightens me.

I don’t think this bill will make the cut though. Don’t worry, there’s some morality left in us Dutchies :wink:

And to think I thought this was gonna be another marijuana thread… :wink:

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
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I started a search on the word ‘fire’ in the subject. Guess who 125 of the hits were about.

And I hate to do this to a compatriot, but…

No, SqrlCub is right. The age of consent is 12 years in the Netherlands. With one big exception.

If the child (because that’s what we’re talking about here) is under 16 years of age, and it can be said that (s)he is in an overbearing relationship with someone at least 16 years of age, criminial charges can be filed by (1) the parent(s) or legal guardian(s), (2) the police or (3) child protection services.

Please note that this exception does not include consensual sex between, say, two 13 year-olds. The only thing a parent can do about their child having sex in such a “relationship” is to watch them constantly…

Not too far from where I live there’s a strictly religious village where two 15 year-olds are pushing a pram.

I personally know someone who’s daughter had to get a morning-after pill. She was 12 at the time, her boyfriend 14. (The mother knew about her daughter wanting to have sex, but thought denying her daughter birth-control pills would prevent her having sex. Obviously stupidity runs in that family. Or maybe the happy couple’s sex education hadn’t gotten to ovulation, fertile period and condoms yet. Or responsibility. Last I heard, they “broke up” and she’s playing with her dollies again, cooking meals for them…)

Not so long ago I heard about plans to change the age of consent to 14 in the Netherlands. At the time I was shocked that they were thinking of lowering that age. Silly me.

Sometimes I feel very old, and think we took the liberal thing just a little too far…

[sup]Sorry to reopen an old thread like this, but when you’re trying to find out if there has been a thread on job security in the US, and see Coldy’s name coming by all the goddamned time, you start reading the odd thread.)[/sup]