I am torn about this. I believe in euthanasia in adults, but there is something about infants. It is hard for me to think of children this way, it really breaks my heart.
"The Groningen Protocol, as the hospital's guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities.
The guideline says euthanasia is acceptable when the child's medical team and independent doctors agree the pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when parents think it's best.
Examples include extremely premature births, where children suffer brain damage from bleeding and convulsions; and diseases where a child could only survive on life support for the rest of its life, such as severe cases of spina bifida and epidermosis bullosa, a rare blistering illness."
But when you really consider what these children are facing, it is hard not to consider it. It is a highly charged emotional issue. And so much of it comes down to what you consider quality of life. I think that part of what bothers me is the sense and feeling that these poor babies never really had a chance to experience life.
"However, experts acknowledge that doctors euthanize routinely in the United States and elsewhere, but that the practice is hidden.
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"Measures that might marginally extend a child's life by minutes or hours or days or weeks are stopped. This happens routinely, namely, every day," said Lance Stell, professor of medical ethics at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., and staff ethicist at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C. "Everybody knows that it happens, but there's a lot of hypocrisy. Instead, people talk about things they're not going to do."
More than half of all deaths occur under medical supervision, so it's really about management and method of death, Stell said."
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