Groningen Protocol Returns

The London Times reported today that Holland is moving closer to allowing "baby euthanasia."

Each year in Holland at least 15 seriously ill babies, most of them with severe spina bifida or chromosomal abnormalities, are helped to die by doctors acting with the parents’ consent. But only a fraction of those cases are reported to the authorities because of the doctors’ fears of being charged with murder.

Things are about to change, however, making it much easier for parents and doctors to end the suffering of an infant.

It sounds too much like the way we treat animals. If they're suffering too much, put them out of their misery.

Consider Maryline, only a few hours old, who lay in an incubator on Wednesday afternoon after being born prematurely. With feet smaller than adult thumbs, she was breathing through a respirator as doctors struggled to get her little lungs working on their own.

“At some point,” said Verhagen, observing this battle for life, “we will have to decide whether it is pointless from a medical point of view and whether we should not prolong treatment.” (emphasis added)

If medicine is the primary concern, then too often they will err on the side of death.

Michelle Malkin has an update on Haleigh Poutre's progress, with a lengthy quote from today's Boston Globe (emphasis mine):

A nurse told the mother of Haleigh Poutre during a hospital visit on Tuesday that the severely beaten Westfield girl, whom officials once wanted to let die, has been able to eat scrambled eggs and cream of wheat, and has tapped out drum rhythms during physical therapy, according to the mother's lawyer.

This shouldn't be hard to understand, but when we make it easier to take life, it makes it easier to take life. If fifteen babies are killed each year, when it's against the law, how many babies are going to be killed each year when it's permitted? And how many of those babies would have turned out to be like Haleigh, surprising doctors with their hold on life? We won't know the answer to the second question, because those babies won't have the chance.

The London Times article ends with a summary of the couple whose story opened the article, Frank and Anita and their daughter, Chanou, who suffered terribly and was euthanized at the age of seven months.

After her daughter’s death, Anita became pregnant again but a test at 11 weeks showed her child to be suffering from the same metabolic disorder as Chanou and she had an abortion. Then she gave birth to Damian, a healthy toddler.

The couple planted a lime tree for Chanou in a park in southern Holland and go there often to remember their “brave little fighter”. A photograph of her, taken during a lull in her battle with pain, shows a faint smile on her face.

Anita has no regrets about what happened: “She is playing in heaven now.”

It's sad that although Chanou is remembered and Damian is celebrated, Frank and Anita's middle child is forgotten--as though it never existed. But it did. There was a baby to be tested, found defective, and discarded. Once the Gronigen Protocol is more fully implemented, how long will it be before even the living babies who are euthanized are pushed from their parents' memories this easily?