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  • #2288370

    Sound Familiar???

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    by protiusx ·

    AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) – Raising the stakes in an excruciating ethical debate, a hospital in the Netherlands – the first nation to permit euthanasia – recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures in a handful of cases and reporting them to the government.
    The announcement last month by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives – a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates.
    In August, the main Dutch doctors’ association KNMG urged the Health Ministry to create an independent board to review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people “with no free will,” including children, the severely mentally retarded, and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident.
    The Health Ministry is preparing its response to the request, a spokesman said, and it may come as soon as December.
    Three years ago, the Dutch parliament made it legal for doctors to inject a sedative and a lethal dose of muscle relaxant at the request of adult patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief.
    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.

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    • #3314350

      No good answer for this

      by house ·

      In reply to Sound Familiar???

      This is a very touchy subject. As soon as my mind is gone and I do not possess the ability to dream and be happy…have mercy.

      In a war, when someone you love is in unbearable pain and will surely die slowly, one would administer a lethal dose. How is this different?

      Correct me if I am wrong, but you (ProtiusX) are a religious man. I am very interested to here your point of view; science and tech aside.

    • #3315349

      Why here?

      by gario ·

      In reply to Sound Familiar???

      All welland good, but why here on TechRepublic? There are better, more suitable places to post this type of information.

      • #3314272

        Diversion threads are fine with me

        by house ·

        In reply to Why here?

        I actually like the diversion posts on this site. I am always interested in current events and even joke threads.

        Since this is the only site where I take part in discussions, I appreciate the broad topics that are covered here.

        Keep in mind that we are a tech community with a diverse background. It is nice to debate something besides information technology every once in a while.

    • #3315336

      Reminds me of the Nazis

      by montgomery gator ·

      In reply to Sound Familiar???

      This is just one step away from what happened in Nazi Germany, when the “mentally defective” were executed in the name of eugenics.

      • #3315313

        Ever have a dog?

        by cactus pete ·

        In reply to Reminds me of the Nazis

        I loved my dogs enough that when they were terminally ill and in severe pain, I put them to rest.

        I love my wife even more. It will be hard to do, but if she is in nothing but severe pain for what it obviously going to be the rest of her shortened life, I would help here rest.

        The difference between this and Nazi “experiments” is that the severely deformed or terminally ill and [in each case] in great pain is that the newborns got there naturally. Nazi death camps were obviously different. I should hope you could see that.

        • #3315310

          Slippery slope

          by jamesrl ·

          In reply to Ever have a dog?

          I too have euthenized a dog.

          And in very clear cut cases where the prognosis is bad, I would suport some assistence to those in need. If they ask.

          But it is a slippery slope. We had a recent Canadian case where a father(Google Latimer) killed his teenage daughter because she was a) severly deformed, unable to speak, walk, feed herself b) in pain and c) didn’t have a life expectancy beyond a decade or so. He was convicted of murder even though he had the best of motives. But did he have the right to make that call considering she might have lived a decade or more – and she could not express her own wishes? I don’t think so, even though I feel some sympathy for the father.

          Any law will be very difficult to frame.

          James

        • #3315297

          Eugenics

          by protiusx ·

          In reply to Ever have a dog?

          We are not talking about death camps here. In the early 1930?s the Nazi?s implanted the systematic killing of deformed and mentally retarded children that were taken from their parents and sent to nursing homes. When a society devalues the human life as it has through abortion then all manor of things not only become plausible but actually begin to occur. Why should we stop at killing unwanted unborn children when we can take it a step further and kill the ones who are currently alive but are too disabled to function properly? We use euphemisms such as ?compassion? and ?love? to say that we ourselves would not like to live this way so we?ll do the compassionate thing and put them out of their misery.

      • #3315261

        Nazis weren’t first

        by bfilmfan ·

        In reply to Reminds me of the Nazis

        Sir Francis Galton coined the term “eugenics” in 1883, evidence of the same manner of thinking on “degenerates” exists in written form as far back as Old Testament descriptions of the Amalekites, that God destroyed for being degenerates. And I am sure if you really scraped around there are some Sumerian text saying that ‘so-and-so’ people are a “so-and-so.’

        It should be remembered that Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 was copied by the Nazi party in Germany, as well as by Georgia and Alabama (a total of 16 US states). This law was still on the books until 1967, when the US Supreme Courty overturned it.

        Technically under the law, my parents marriage was illegal in Georgia, for my father, while my father was considered white (Jewish), my mother is Hunkpapa Lakota (Sioux). Under the law no person possessing more than 1/16th Indian blood could be considered white and it was illegal for them to marry a white person.

        And I agree with you that the destruction of children based upon prevailing medical opinions makes me very uncomfortable.

        How many Stephen Hawkings, Stevie Wonders, etc. will we lose because someone determines that a baby will not live a “productive” lfe?

        • #3314265

          Ethics, morals, or purification?

          by house ·

          In reply to Nazis weren’t first

          It is difficult to say where the line is drawn. I’m not sure that quality of life is the topic so much as terminal pain and suffering. Forgive me me for what I am about to say, but I see a lot of sick people giving birth to a lot of sick kids. I feel sorry for the children and do not feel it is fair for them to be given such a difficult life.

          I would never promote the euthanization of people. Although in the case of physical pain and sure death, the fact that they do not want to be alive cannot be ignored. Assisted suicide and murder are two different animals, and should be treated as such in special cases.

          The biggest issue with this controversial topic is that there is no possible legal line to be drawn here. There is way too much grey area on the spectrum.

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