THE NETHERLANDS -- home to wooden shoes, windmills, and weed -- has a new claim to fame. It seems in Holland they have discovered the solution to childhood terminal illness. No, it's not a new miracle drug, nor a new form of therapy. It's the same form of therapy pioneered by Cain and perfected by Andrea Yates, euphemistically termed "euthanasia."
Tuesday, the world was stunned as Groningen Academic Hospital in Amsterdam announced that it had begun euthanizing terminally ill babies. This came as part of a larger announcement that the hospital is considering a new set of rules for dealing with candidates for euthanasia with "no free will."
Currently, doctor-assisted suicide is legal in the Netherlands for patients who request to die, and now hospital officials in Holland are seeking to add rules allowing killing in cases where the patient cannot make such a request.
There is much confusion over the various terminology for medically induced death. Physician-assisted suicide is what was legalized in the Netherlands in 2002. In a case of assisted suicide, the doctor prescribes a lethal doses of muscle relaxant or other deadly drug, and the patient takes them. According to the Dutch law, a request to die by assisted suicide must be "explicit, logical, and repeated." However, a baby has never made an "explicit, logical, and repeated" request for anything.
What's currently going in the Netherlands isn't the same as assisted suicide as prescribed in the law. It is what is usually termed "mercy killing" -- a third party deciding whether or not to kill a living person. This form of infanticide is clearly not what was intended by the law, and is probably illegal, but so far it has not only been tolerated but is on the verge of being institutionalized.
Supporters of assisted suicide legislation say it allows self-determination and relives people from experiencing unnecessary pain (doctors in the Netherlands say they are "freeing [children] from pain"). The problem, though, is that any medically induced death starts a slide down a slippery slope.
Indeed, Holland has slid quite a long way in its first two years of legalized assisted suicide, from death being chosen by the patient to being imposed by the doctor. If clear-thinking people choose to die as a way to escape pain, it only follows that people in pain would choose to die, if only they could communicate that desire.
If you accept this premise, it is acceptable for a doctor to kill children, mentally retarded people, comatose people, and Alzheimer's patients whom the doctor believes to be in pain. We see this logic played out to its deadly conclusion in the killing of at least four children in the Netherlands. It's a huge jump, but it's already been made.
History shows us exactly what lies at the bottom of the "slippery slope." I am openly wary of people who draw comparisons to Nazi Germany, but with the understanding that this case is much reduced in severity, I think it is one for which such a comparison is apt.
Karl Brandt was the Nazi doctor who oversaw the euthanizing of over 250,000 disabled people. Brandt had an elaborate system whereby the file of every patient was reviewed by a physician who certified that the life of the patient was "not worth living." Brandt said at his Nuremberg trial, "The underlying motive was the desire to help individuals who could not help themselves and were thus prolonging their lives in torment."
The same logic used in the Netherlands that says that a baby with spinal bifida will live a life of pain can be extended to say that a mentally or physically handicapped person will live a life of pain. If the handicapped patient is in a position where he cannot communicate a desire to live, it becomes the doctors' prerogative whether his life is "worth living" or not. The Nazi case also shows how medical oversight is in no way a guarantee that the power to kill will be used in a measured, responsible way.
Euthanasia has a history of tragedy and horror. And there's no reason to think that's not the direction today's flawed experiments with euthanasia are headed.
Herb Ladley's column appears Friday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at hladley@cavalierdaily.com.
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