One of my students is writing a research paper and has not found the kind of information he needs for one point. I’ve blogged about the point and have quite a long and useful post on the topic.
We talk about all kinds of things in class. One of them has been the medical system here and abroad. We’ve discussed slippery slopes as arguments. They’re doing research papers.
One student asked about the euthanization of children up to the age of 12 and the right to die doctors in the Netherlands who can prescribe you death without telling you. He said he talked to friends and they said it was bogus. He might be right. But did anyone look it up on the net? You know, I wouldn’t mind being proved wrong. But when they just say it’s bogus, that’s the kind of thinking I want them to avoid in their papers. (And their lives.)
I looked it up.
n the Netherlands, Groningen University Hospital has decided its doctors will euthanize children under the age of 12, if doctors believe their suffering is intolerable or if they have an incurable illness.
from Weekly Standard
The International Task Force’s Euthanasia in the Netherlands has a long list of sites and articles.
If you don’t think it’s true that they can euthanize their patients without permission, read this article which describes a doctor having done just that, being convicted of murder, and getting NO PENALTY at all.
Chron watch says this:
This past year, it was quietly announced that Holland had approved euthanasia for children under twelve. This news alone was unsettling, but then last month came the disturbing disclosure that not only had euthanasia been approved for infants, but had in fact been practiced by doctors for some time. In other words, first adults and now children and infants are slowly being eliminated in the name of “compassion.”
The practice has been approved for terminally-ill infants, or those whose suffering is deemed intolerable. Presumably, this includes babies that are premature, developmentally disabled, or physically deformed.
If you’re more into studies, how about this one?
The studies make a distinction between two forms of euthanasia: euthanasia — the intentional killing of a patient by the direct intervention of a physician at the patient’s explicit request, and ending life without the explicit request of the patient — the intentional killing of a patient by the direct intervention of a physician without the patient’s explicit request. An analysis of deaths in both categories reveals that 31 percent of cases in 1990, and 22.5 percent in 1995 involved patients who did not give their explicit consent to be killed.
from www.family.org though the study quoted is from here:
2P. J. van der Maas, J.J.M. van Delden and L. Pijenborg, Euthanasia and other Medical Decisions Concerning the End of Life: An Investigation Performed Upon Request of the Commission of Inquiry into the Medical Practice Concerning Euthanasia, (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers, 1992) p. 178-179, 181-182; P.J. van der Maas, G. van der Wal, I. Haverkate, C.L.M et al.,(1996). Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other medical practices involving the end of life in the Netherlands, 1990-1995. New England Journal of Medicine, 335, p. 1700-1701
Scary stuff. Euthanasia, students, blogs… And the incredibly mature reaction of “That’s bogus” without actually looking anything up. (Not my student. His friends.)
When I spoke about this in class this past spring, I couldn’t find this blog post and all the sites I did find were down.
It made my students feel that I was not trustworthy.
I’ll have to remember it’s on this blog and not my student blog.