[CS-FSLUG] NI: Dutch Set to Expand Euthanasia Guidelines

[Fred A. Miller]

Adjust your travel plans accordingly.....



Dutch Set to Expand Euthanasia Guidelines - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_he_me/netherlands_euthanasia

Yahoo! News
Dutch Set to Expand Euthanasia Guidelines

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 23 minutes ago

The Dutch government intends to expand its current euthanasia policy, setting
guidelines for when doctors may end the lives of terminally ill newborns with
the parents' consent, The Associated Press has learned.

A letter outlining the new directives was expected to be submitted to 
parliament for discussion by mid-October, but the new policy will not require 
a change of law, Dutch Health Ministry spokeswoman Annette Dijkstra said 
Thursday.

The new guidelines are likely to spark an outcry from the Vatican, 
right-to-life proponents and some advocacy groups for the handicapped who 
abhor the current policy that allows adult euthanasia if the patients request 
it and if certain conditions are met.

Proponents and opponents agree the change is doubly important because it will
provide the model for how the Dutch will treat other cases in which patients 
areAdjust your travel plans accordingly.....



Dutch Set to Expand Euthanasia Guidelines - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_he_me/netherlands_euthanasia

Yahoo! News
Dutch Set to Expand Euthanasia Guidelines

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 23 minutes ago

The Dutch government intends to expand its current euthanasia policy, setting
guidelines for when doctors may end the lives of terminally ill newborns with
the parents' consent, The Associated Press has learned.

A letter outlining the new directives was expected to be submitted to 
parliament
for discussion by mid-October, but the new policy will not require a change of
law, Dutch Health Ministry spokeswoman Annette Dijkstra said Thursday.

The new guidelines are likely to spark an outcry from the Vatican, 
right-to-life
proponents and some advocacy groups for the handicapped who abhor the current
policy that allows adult euthanasia if the patients request it and if certain
conditions are met.

Proponents and opponents agree the change is doubly important because it will
provide the model for how the Dutch will treat other cases in which patients 
are
unable to say whether they want to live or die, such as the mentally retarded 
or
elderly people who have become demented.

The governing conservative Christian Democrat party - a majority of which 
fought
legalization of euthanasia in 2001 when it was in the opposition - will 
embrace
the guidelines drawn up last year by doctors at the Groningen University 
Medical
Center.

The guidelines, known as the Groningen Protocol, prompted reactions of shock 
and
outrage from the Vatican and from social conservatives and religious groups
worldwide - but have received minimal coverage in the Dutch media.

Under the protocol, euthanasia would be permissible when a child is terminally
ill with no prospect of recovery, when it is suffering great pain, when two 
sets
of doctors agree the situation is hopeless, and when parents give their 
consent.

The Dutch Health Ministry has postponed this decision several times, and 
wishes
to control the release of information around the policy change, which is still
being finalized.

But Dijkstra confirmed the broad lines of the guidelines after details began
leaking to the Dutch press and to some members of the medical industry who 
have
been involved in the long-running debate over the issue in the Netherlands.

Johannes Verheijden, a spokesman for the group BOSK, which represents parents 
of
children with motor handicaps, said the changes were morally wrong and
unnecessary.

"There is no need for a doctor to play an active role in death, the focus 
should
be on easing pain," he said. "There always has to be some doubt in these 
cases,
and the benefit of doubt should be on the side of life."

The government will establish a vetting commission - modeled on commissions
currently in place for adult euthanasia - to test whether conditions have been
met in each case, and to refer the case to public prosecutors if they don't. 
But
unlike with adult euthanasia, prosecutors won't be bound to follow the
commission's judgment that conditions have been satisfied.

"The public prosecutor's office will always make an independent decision
(whether to prosecute)," Dijkstra said.

The Netherlands set up adult euthanasia vetting commissions in 1998, well 
before the practice was formally legalized under a 2001 law, which took 
effect the following year.

The commissions report around 2,000 people are euthanized in this country of 
16 million each year, using a mix of sedatives and a lethal dose of muscle
relaxant. But independent studies suggest the number of unreported cases is
unable to say whether they want to live or die, such as the mentally retarded 
or elderly people who have become demented.

The governing conservative Christian Democrat party - a majority of which 
fought legalization of euthanasia in 2001 when it was in the opposition - 
will embrace the guidelines drawn up last year by doctors at the Groningen 
University Medical Center.

The guidelines, known as the Groningen Protocol, prompted reactions of shock 
and outrage from the Vatican and from social conservatives and religious 
groups worldwide - but have received minimal coverage in the Dutch media.

Under the protocol, euthanasia would be permissible when a child is terminally
ill with no prospect of recovery, when it is suffering great pain, when two 
sets of doctors agree the situation is hopeless, and when parents give their 
consent.

The Dutch Health Ministry has postponed this decision several times, and 
wishes to control the release of information around the policy change, which 
is still being finalized.

But Dijkstra confirmed the broad lines of the guidelines after details began
leaking to the Dutch press and to some members of the medical industry who 
have been involved in the long-running debate over the issue in the 
Netherlands.

Johannes Verheijden, a spokesman for the group BOSK, which represents parents 
of children with motor handicaps, said the changes were morally wrong and
unnecessary.

"There is no need for a doctor to play an active role in death, the focus 
should be on easing pain," he said. "There always has to be some doubt in 
these cases, and the benefit of doubt should be on the side of life."

The government will establish a vetting commission - modeled on commissions
currently in place for adult euthanasia - to test whether conditions have been
met in each case, and to refer the case to public prosecutors if they don't. 
But unlike with adult euthanasia, prosecutors won't be bound to follow the
commission's judgment that conditions have been satisfied.

"The public prosecutor's office will always make an independent decision
(whether to prosecute)," Dijkstra said.

The Netherlands set up adult euthanasia vetting commissions in 1998, well 
before the practice was formally legalized under a 2001 law, which took 
effect the following year.

The commissions report around 2,000 people are euthanized in this country of 
16 million each year, using a mix of sedatives and a lethal dose of muscle
relaxant. But independent studies suggest the number of unreported cases is
higher.

Cases of euthanasia for "people with no free will" - such as infants and
severely demented or mentally retarded people - were left in a legal gray area
by the law because they were so controversial.

They remain classified as murder, and doctors who carried out such killings 
were required to report themselves to the authorities for potential 
prosecution.

Government-sponsored studies in the 1990s and repeated in 2001 estimated there
are around 15-20 such infant killings in any year. Just 22 cases were reported
to the Justice Ministry between 1997 and 2004 - most involving infants with
severe damage to the brain and spine from Spina Bifida - and the ministry
decided against prosecuting any of them.

The decision was based on precedents set when doctors were taken to court for
euthanizing elderly patients and were either acquitted or found to have acted 
in good conscience. Judges ruled the level of guilt was so small it didn't 
merit punishment.

The main author of the protocol, Dr. Eduard Verhagen, said it was intended to
remove the confusion surrounding what is permissible.

"We think the decision is of such incredible importance that the social
responsibility of the doctor should be openly discussed and assessed," he told
the AP.

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information
contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright 2005 © Yahoo! Inc. 

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