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| Europe | ||||
| Dutch consider infant euthanasia | ||||
| 2004-12-14 | ||||
Doctors in the Netherlands are calling for new laws allowing them to end the lives of newborn babies with intolerable and incurable illnesses. The appeal for a committee of experts to be set up to consider the issue has been signed by doctors from the country's eight university hospitals.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #24 If I'm paying for my HMO care, do I or my HMO decide what's too expensive? Good question, Frank G. You should check your HMO policy. With PPO's there's a set limit that the insurer is willing to spend on an individual policy holder. In my case, it's $5 million. And everytime I see a physician, on the "Explanation of Benefits" that is mailed to me, I see the running tally of the insurers' payout versus the $5 Million Lifetime benefit. Crass but upfront. I imagine your HMO has a set limit of costs it is responsible for covering, perhaps a bit lower than my PPO but not significantly so, because the higher cost of my insurance premium is due to having a choice in physicians I can see sans gatekeeper. But with socialized medicine, the taxpayers of that country are forgoing the individual cost of insurance premiums and instead pooling their resources with the greater whole thus entrusting the decisions of "limits" owed to them as individuals re: payouts for medical care to gov't bureaucrats who look out for what's best for the whole not the individual. So what I'm saying is if you keep a supplementary HMO policy in force when you reach geezerhood, whatever cost Medicare does not pick up, your HMO policy does. In socialized medicine countries like Canada, geezers have outlived their usefullness to the system, so it's buns up, because it's best for the greater whole. Some countries like Switzerland allow a dual system of private and public medical systems to be in force. In Canada no such luck. Hildabeast wants the Canadian version of medical care adopted. Medical care is incredibly expensive and it's not predictable from person to person. That's what people don't realize when they yap about so-called human rights to free medical care. Medical care is not like education when gov't can have a ballpark average of costs to educate each individual from K to grade 12. |
| Posted by: Angash Flinelet3775 2004-12-15 12:10:38 AM |
| #23 Dr Steve's gotta be doing some major eye rolls and wincing... I am, oh, I am. We did debate this when the story ran here last week. I guess I'm just too much of an American, 'cause when I took the Hippocratic Oath I meant every word. Euthanasia is repulsive to me in every way. I don't believe in it, I won't do it, and I consider it murder. Let me be clear: I have no quarrel with moving away from "curative" therapy and towards "comfort care" in cases where it's really clear that the end is at hand. I'm all for removing uncomfortable and unwarranted therapies in the terminally ill, and ensuring that their last hours/days/weeks are comfortable and have as much meaning as they want. That isn't euthanasia, that's just humane medicine. If a baby is born anencephalic (no cerebral cortex), that baby isn't going to live more than a day or two. Just isn't going to happen. So make the baby comfortable, ensure that the mother (or at least a nurse or doc) can hold that baby, keep it warm, clean, dry, and hydrated. When it dies, it dies, and everyone can justly cry and lament what happened. But do not, do NOT, approach that baby with a syringe of morphine. There are indeed hard issues as to payment, personal choice, surrgoate decision making, government control, etc., in many aspects of medicine. This isn't one of those hard issues. It's easy. Euthanasia is murder. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-12-14 11:38:56 PM |
| #22 AF3775, my data would be from the late 60s before the university system was dummed down to accomodate much larger numbers (<5% of the age group got a university education). And it wasn't an impression, it was hard data. IQs were a raging controversy at the time resulting in full blown demonstrations at my university. At the time I was fully aware the Left was cooking the data to fit their theories. Anecdotally and I knew quite a number of med students, they were typically from affluent backgrounds and their parents had spent serious money on tutoring them to get the grades to get in to med school, whereas science (which includes math) students like me, found science (relatively) easy and could get the grades with minimal effort. DB, parents only choose for their children when they are paying. When teh state pays, the state chooses. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-12-14 11:25:55 PM |
| #21 I have a real problem with this - how long before "termial illness" criteria expands? If I'm paying for my HMO care, do I or my HMO decide what's too expensive? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-14 11:04:07 PM |
| #20 phil_b - ok, I can kind of see your point except for one thing. What is so bothersome is that in almost every other situation we allow parents to make decisions for their child.....except, apparently, in this one. That's what I have a real problem with. |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-12-14 10:31:25 PM |
| #19 These are the choices we as a society face in light of the ever greater march of technology. Personally I think that we must do everything to save a child or preserve its life unless the parents deem otherwise. This is not the states decision. However as a parent, I know that I would not want my child kept alive on machines for who knows how long if she or he had no brain. Earleir generations did not face this issue either for the young, the old or severely injured, at least not in this extreme. These babies just would have died. |
| Posted by: Remoteman 2004-12-14 8:04:16 PM |
| #18 Science students had the highest IQs, and Medicine and Social Science students the lowest IQs (UK data). Not really surprising or undesireable as thorough and systematic, not brilliant or imaginative, is what you would want in a doctor. I am not sure how old you are, because your age could determine your impression of what IQ med students possess in the UK. It is my understanding that Tony Blair has been implementing social engineering with education with great gusto, so perhaps standards for med school have nose dived under his reign of politically correct terror. However,psychological studies consistently show that in the USA, physicians and professors and scientists possess the top 2% IQ's in the general population (130+). http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf |
| Posted by: Angash Flinelet3775 2004-12-14 7:48:50 PM |
| #17 Lol, Sgt! Luck of the draw? Wow - whatever happened to "Do no harm."? Dr Steve's gotta be doing some major eye rolls and wincing... |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-14 7:09:41 PM |
| #16 Dr. Mengele's out today, I can call Dr. Kavorkian. How about Dr. Lecter? |
| Posted by: Sgt.D.T. 2004-12-14 7:05:43 PM |
| #15 In these PC times, this kind of data is no longer collected, but when I went to Uni, amoungst undergraduates, Science students had the highest IQs, and Medicine and Social Science students the lowest IQs (UK data). Not really surprising or undesireable as thorough and systematic, not brilliant or imaginative, is what you would want in a doctor. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-12-14 6:38:41 PM |
| #14 Up until 1999, selection of med school students was done entirely by lottery. After 1999, med schools were allowed to select 50% of their med school students WTF??? Remind me never to get sick in Holland. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-14 5:23:17 PM |
| #13 you'd get many more times the social benefit if you were to eliminate life-extending, hugely expensive technology-driven regimens that do not cure the elderly, rather, postpone the onset of death by a few months Under socialized medicine, medical intervention for the elderly has been eliminated long time ago. After age 70, if the patient needs something more than what Tylenol will cure, it's buns up. Monstrous. Doctor-priests allowed to decide without parental consent Under socialized medicine controls, doctors take their marching orders from government bureaucrats. So it's the suits who are the monsters, not the doctors. In socialized medicine, doctors have little power. In fact if doctors implement too many procedures to save or extend lives of very sick patients, doctors get penalized. Very likely doctors are going along with the euthanasia idea in Holland because it saves them being hassled/questioned by the government backseatdriver suits for pursuing the various costly procedures that would be certainly required to keep patients like the ones described in the article alive. Furthermore, with regards to Dutch doctors specifically, I'm not sure what kind of "quality" physicians are graduating from Dutch medical schools. Up until 1999, selection of med school students was done entirely by lottery. After 1999, med schools were allowed to select 50% of their med school students but very few schools exercised this right except to select for minority status or for another PC reason like mature student staus. So there you have it, when med schools stop selecting for smarts, then maybe it's easier to have physicians go along with the gov't program, if you are not dealing with the sharpest knives in the drawer to begin with. http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0503/news/138a.html Dutch medical schools abandon selection for lottery system for places |
| Posted by: Angash Flinelet3775 2004-12-14 4:47:02 PM |
| #12 lex, I agree with you. However, dying old people don't look good on TV. Dying kids do. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-12-14 4:08:53 PM |
| #11 If your main concern's with cost-benefit, or perhaps cost-vs-years of useful life, then you'd get many more times the social benefit if you were to eliminate life-extending, hugely expensive technology-driven regimens that do not cure the elderly, rather, postpone the onset of death by a few months. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-14 3:38:09 PM |
| #10 We debated this a week ago. And I'll re-iterate the same point I made them - resources are finite and you have to choose who to save. Rationally you would choose to devote your resources to saving those most likely to contribute to society (and consequently allow you to save more in the future). This problem arises in Europe because of the socialized medecine and the resultant perception that people have a 'right' to unlimited healthcare. I don't doubt they have the same problem we have in Australia where the media regularly features cute kids who have consumed huge amounts of healthcare funding and will die before they are 20 years old. The message doesn't vary - isn't this wonderful. Well its not. It's a tragic waste of the teen suicides, vehicle accident deaths, savable junkies, and many others who could be helped with the money spent (end of rant). |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-12-14 3:22:44 PM |
| #9 This is truly horrifying. I don't get it....they (Europe) keep on criticizing us for the death penalty, and then they turn around and do this? |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-12-14 2:59:48 PM |
| #8 Monstrous. Doctor-priests allowed to decide without parental consent. No wonder they give it such a spooky horror-novel title (The Groningen Protocol). Shitheads. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-14 1:41:25 PM |
| #7 Hugh Hewitt has been all over this story. Here is one of his pieces: A parent's role is limited under the protocol. While experts and critics familiar with the policy said a parent's wishes to let a child live or die naturally most likely would be considered, they note that the decision must be professional, so rests with doctors. Doctor knows best. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-12-14 11:12:05 AM |
| #6 And I believe part of the "rationale" of setting up committees to make the decision is to avoid any unnecessary emotional involvement. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-12-14 11:05:00 AM |
| #5 DB - under this Groningen Protocol, I think the parents are secondary to the state's interests. They may not even be told the death was intentional |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-14 10:59:01 AM |
| #4 What if the parents' don't want to pull the plug on the kid....is there an exception for that? (Serious question, guys.....don't post a snarky answer in return please. I really want to know the answer to this.) If it is without or overrides parental consent, that is deeply troubling. |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-12-14 10:52:39 AM |
| #3 obviously the children of dissenters are carriers, and must be snuffed out - body parts harvested |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-14 10:45:14 AM |
| #2 If Dr. Harold Shipman had known this was coming would he have left for Holland? How would the government decide if a child is worth anything or not? And it looks like a question of when, not if, the Dutch government declare dissent a crippling disease. |
| Posted by: Korora 2004-12-14 10:35:39 AM |
| #1 Glad to see this disease has spread to Phrawnce. Any thing we can do to expand the category to include the infantile as well as infants? That would take care of most of the Phrawnche government. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-12-14 9:47:13 AM |