Guidelines are being set by the Dutch government for the euthanization of terminally-ill infants, with the parents' permission:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9532252/
Netherlands to Euthanize Babies
Discussion in '2005 Archive' started by Magnetic Poles, Sep 29, 2005.
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This is sick!
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This is in no way a surprise, considering their past history.
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:(
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Sick or compassionate?
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just-want-peace Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Anybody remember the libs calling a "slippery slope" just a bunch of hot air?
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Daisy, I don't know either. If absence from the body is to be present with the Lord, why prolong agony and suffering to no good end? Yet this does tear at me quite a bit. We don't let our little animals suffer, yet we selfishly hold on to people, making them endure untold pain.
This is one of those issues that has no good answer, but tears at one's heart either way. -
Today we can keep a person alive by artificial means. When do we stop and let God take over. That is the question. Every pastor knows there are people who are so sick and want to die that the relatives and hospital will not let them.
Anyone who has been around doctors knows it is happening today in the medical field already. People are being shot up with drugs just soo they can die. Lok at the OT and see what people who were dying were given. It was to put them out of their misery.
It may sound brutal but death is just as much a part of life as life is. Personally I think there are times when we prolong life to much because the relatives will not let go. -
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I'II try to be positive :( and say that according to the guidelines at least the parents (and both sets of doctors) get to veto it if they don't want it to happen.
Sigh...
The more cynical among us probably realize that this stuff happens worldwide. It's just more visible where I life. -
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Anytime man steps outside of GOD's law he keeps going and going towards the dark side. First you euthanize termininaly ill babies legally, then what will be next legally, terminating the deformed, metally challenge etc? This type of practise will eventually result into an even greater span of murder! It started out with the acceptance of murdering adult terminally ill patients.
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1) It is against the laws of God.
2) This is the same kind of lie that the abortion advocates used in the 1970's to get Roe vs Wade through. "We are only trying to prevent people from dying in back-alley abortions. This won't increase the number of abortions performed. This will only make those already being performed more humane and less deadly to the Mother." Now abortion is a birth control method for the irresponsible.
3) Who regulates this to confirm that the baby was actually "terminally ill" and not just facing a bit more difficult life? Will Downs Syndrome children be labeled terminal since they often have holes in their hearts? What about children born with cancer tumors that can be healed? Crack babies? Stephen Hawking could have been labeled "terminal" at birth as most people with his illness don't survive. Sylvester Stallone was born disabled because of complications during birth.
My children's father was a "terminal baby" when he was born. People said there was no way he could live, that his mother needed to accept the inevitable. Born in a Catholic Hospital, though the family was NOT Catholic, the hospital nuns insisted on giving him the last rites. He is in his mid-40's today. He was in pain, he was terminal - would he be killed under this law?
Years ago I got a call from a friend I hadn't heard from in three years. "You always prayed. Please pray for my baby. She was born early. She weighs 2 pounds. They said she won't live. Please pray." My mother, an R.N., said, "Hon, she can't survive. No child that small, that early does. If she does survive, there will be so many birth defects." Well, I got invitations to that baby's graduation a few years ago, and I got invitations to her wedding. Would she have been put down by the Dutch?
Right now a friend of ours has asked for prayer. Her baby was born early, with her intestines not properly or fully formed. Doctors are telling her parents there is no hope, but her parents know seven adults who survived the same thing.
You cannot call murdering children "merciful" and expect God to buy into it. -
This whole issue obviously has ethical and humanitarian concerns. Neither outcome is good, but the safeguards they are putting in place seem to me to be a reasonable way to insure children who are just sick will not be euthanized. This is a dilemma that is sad, no matter what.
I know that if I were sick and in agony with no hope of recovery, just tell me goodbye, and give me a shot to let me go to sleep peacefully. Pain meds do not always work. That said, I find it ridiculous that pain meds are withheld from terminally ill people because they might become addicted to them. So what? Ease their pain. -
Well said TexasSky!
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amen Cyber and Texas...
we are not medically omniscient enough to be able to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt that a child is terminal. And anyway, then what happens when doctors start debating the meaning of the term "terminal"?
We cannot step in and take over God's job. -
Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>Site Supporter
Convenience, disguised as mercy.
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Link to incurable congenital ichthyosis (warning graphic) -
So? Your examples fall outside the proposed regulations.
No, they don't.
My spouse was declared terminal at birth, Daisy. He was given the last rites, and he WAS in pain, and his mother was told not to "hold him" and "get attached" because he was going to be dead, and he lived anyway.
Shirley's daughter, Francine, was declared terminal at birth, she was also in pain, among many other problems she had a bad heart, bad lungs and no digestive tract. She lived.
Right now, Terry's child fits that same scenario. Whether she lives or God takes her home is still unknown, but it is GOD's choice.
How can any Christian justify murder?
Especially murder of children? -
One other problem with euthanizing the terminally ill:
How will cures ever be found?
I am not advocating wanton experimentation on those considered "incurable".
Some "incurable" patients do find cures. With each cure found hope is spread to others with the same or similiar afflictions. Each failed treatment sheds more light upon upon both the disablity/disease and the treatment itself.
I do know if caregivers decide there is no hope and euthanize the patient, then their diagnosis becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Many who are told their loveone will "Never have a meaningful life" report the love and joy given and received in caring for a person with critical needs is meaning enough.
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