Euthanasia of a minor

Great Debates
1

I really do not know if this is the right place for this topic. I also do not know how I feel about it, what my position on it is.

One-year-old child in Netherlands euthanized.

On one side, I do not want someone, especially a child, to suffer. On the other side, how certain, absent brain death or cessation of brain functions, can the physicians be that there will be no improvement.

I know this is a very sad thing for the family and the medical personnel involved.

So, what’s the debate? I guess it’s:

Has the Netherlands made the correct choice by enacting their euthanasia law?

2

I don’t know where the line is. If the baby was in the womb, it would’ve been aborted and rightfully so.

The line between autonomy, suffering, life and death is complex.

Personally I’m fine with it though.

3

There may legitimately be doubt about that. But

There is probably a great deal less doubt about this.

From the information given, it seems like they made the best decision they could. Asking the child to continue suffering “unbearably” on the bare chance of some improvement in the future seems cruel to me.

As a precedent it might be a little frightening. All the authorities can do is to do their best to make sure each individual case is vetted as thoroughly as possible before making their decision.

4

Morally this is clearly a large step in the correct direction.

Everything about terminal illness or about profoundly defective births is heartbreaking to read about and hellish to live through. No matter what your role in the “living through” part.

We long ago stopped ignoring the suffering and misery of the sickest animals in our care and instead humanely end their lives. I’d hope we’d gain the wisdom and perspective needed to do the same to our human loved ones before I’m ratty enough to need that compassion visited upon the useless dying husk of me.

5

This is a horribly tragic situation but I don’t see that there was any better alternative. When you have options, and all of them are bad, you pick the one that is least bad.

What really seriously pisses me off about these situations is irrational arguments coming from the religionists – that it’s all about “God’s will” and we have no right to interfere. Look, I’m pretty sure that whatever God there may be is already very busy looking after an unimaginably vast universe and is willing to relegate these sorts of responsibilities to the rational part of the brain that he tried to give us.

6

Yep.

My response to every “God’s will” argument is: “You ever eat an aspirin? You violated God’s will and are condemned to Hell forever. I hope you’re happy with yourself!”

Idjits.

7

Based on the description of the child’s numerous and horrible health issues, I have no problem with their decision. I don’t believe in life no matter how horrible the circmstances or how excruciating the pain. There is no justification for prolonging an existence that awful, and how anyone can actually feel good about himself doing so is beyong my understanding.

8

Satan (at the entrance to Hell): “Is THIS or is THIS not your bottle of aspirin and, is it or is it not half empty?!” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

9

This exactly.

From the information given, the alternative was to continue torturing the child. Sometimes you have to let go.

10

To play devil’s advocate, one could argue that it’s half full.

11

In general? Yes, absolutely. In a lot of ways, we treat our pets who are terminally ill more humanely and compassionately than we do people in similar situations. I mean, someone with ALS is not going to get better. There’s no compelling reason to make them ride it all the way out until their body just can’t keep going, if that’s not what they want. But that’s what the law says, so the vast majority just get worse and worse until they eventually die. Same thing with cancer patients and other terminally ill patients.

The place that I know of where it gets really complicated is with dementia and other diseases that affect decision making capacity. There’s sort of an inherent Catch-22 in there, where if someone’s got the decision making capacity to choose euthanasia, they probably aren’t at the point where they would want it, and if they are at that point, they don’t have the decision making capacity anymore. But I’m sure the vast majority of people would choose that over years of steady decline with dementia.

And for babies/children, it’s a lot more fraught with uncertainty, as they’re often surprisingly adaptable in ways that adults aren’t, and can grow up ok despite some pretty wild things happening to them as infants/children. But the option ought to be there for parents in situations like this, and it should be extremely well regulated and reviewed.

12

It sounded like hell on earth for the baby and no doubt the parents. I can’t fathom the level of suffering they all endured. I think this sort of thing is best decided by physician and parents. Tragic, but probably the most humane option.

13

This is the sort of thing where the process needs to be evaluated, because the particular case is too heartbreaking. Are all the stakeholders represented well enough? Are there enough safeguards against abuse? If the process is good, then I will trust the people making these difficult decisions. If only because I would not want to be responsible for such a decision.

14

Coming back to this — It seems to me massively unlikely that a child in that condition, or any child born at 26 weeks, was kept alive without considerable medical “interference”. With that interference, these days, some children born that early survive, and some of them do so in such condition that they want to be alive (and that it’s eventually possible for them to understand that question.) Some of them don’t. But without medical interference, pretty much all of them are going to die.

15

Satan: “Oh, a wiseguy, hey?! I’m moving your room down to steerage.” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

16

These sort of difficult situations are extremely emotional. Holding a standard for rationality is difficult.

17

I asked my wife, who was a Special Education teacher for more than 35 years, and who worked with a lot of children with severe disabilities.She has always believed that every child with disabilities should be given every opportunity to have an improved quality of life. Her reaction was immediate - that if the parents and the doctors and whatever other review boards there are agree that the child has no hope of ever living without substantial, permanent medical assistance, allowing death is a moral and compassionate decision.

18

Still, those of us not directly involved (and I bet most of the people-on-the-internet sounding off on this issue on one side or the other wouldn’t know any of the family members or physicians in this case if they fell over them) arguably have a kind of civic duty to hang on to rationality when confronted with this sort of tragedy as a general societal issue.

People projecting their own emotions onto the tragedies of strangers—whether they’re shrieking “Murderer!!” because they personally can’t stand the idea of deliberately letting a child die, or hollering “Euthanize immediately, full stop!” because they personally can’t stand the idea of letting a child suffer—are Not Helping. This is a matter for the parents and physicians of the suffering individual to decide.

19

How long should this process take, and when does it become a religious/political stall tactic?

20

Good question. What do you think?