Dutch kill babies, the comatose and the mentally retarded!

[germanos]

Ned, it's the second time you pull this lame troll:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3384151#post3384151

So, I'll reply in kind:

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Nacht


The most obvious flaw in Neds post is :.

That it's by Ned.


" And the Lord put a mark on Ned, lest any who came upon him should be gullible enough to believe him. Then Ned went away from anything approaching reasonableness, and dwelt in the land of Ned, east of Hawaii. " (Gen 4:2-16).

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Seeker
Mike H the point is that the Dutch go a step farther and inject the infants with a 'death cocktail' at some point.

The common practice is simply not to try very hard to keep them alive and thus allow them to die 'naturally'.

yes, they are more humane about it. We should let our doctors be less hypocritical.

[Az]

Originally posted by Stefu
I think that anyone should be creeped by the way 'natural evolution' is used here as an argument for euthanasia.

I agree. I don't agree that this falls under the definition of 'natural', either. If we'd let nature take it's course, they'd just die. Naturally.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Nacht
I'm sorry but the statement (sorry, only in dutch) of the hospital itself makes it clear that we're not talking about terminal cases only.

That's a different situation as the one mentioned to in Ned's article, which specifically mentions that the children concerned are terminally ill and dependent on life support (both of which your article specificially denies).

The situation in your article is morally more questionable but IMO it doesn't change much: it concerns extremely exceptional cases of people who will never have anything remotely resembling a life, who will suffer excruciating pain their entire life which cannot be relieved by painkillers and to whom regular regular euthenasia regulations would apply if it wasn't for the fact that they are deemed too young to be able to make their own decision.

As Ned's article mentions, in such situations euthenasia is often considered, not only in the Netherlands but worldwide. It's a good thing that the Netherlands actually has (very stringent) rules for this which make sure the best possible decision can be made (taking into account the opinion of numerous doctors, the parents and if possible the child itself), rather than having such considerations taking place illegally with no way to check if the people involved are sufficiently thorough and aware of what they're doing.

[Nacht]

I don't think we differ much in opinion, but I wanted the facts to be straight, even if they seem to be more difficult to defend

[MrFun]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Yeah, as opposed to the caring sharing Catholic Church and drug companies:

'
GSK linked to trials forcing Aids drugs on deprived US children

By Jason Nisse

28 November 2004

GlaxoSmithKline will be accused this week of backing drug trials in the US in which underprivileged children were forced to test Aids treatments against their will.

The trials have been taking place in New York under the auspices of the Administration for Children's Services, the body that looks after the welfare of children in New York City.

The ACS has an agreement with the Pediatric Aids Clinical Trials Group, supported by GSK and other drug companies, to test treatments on HIV-positive children. No tests can take place on children without parental consent and drug companies have had great difficulty in the past obtaining such consent for Aids drug trials.

However, the ACS is deemed to be the legal guardian for many HIV-positive children. According to a BBC2 documentary, Guinea Pig Kids, to be shown on Tuesday, the ACS has forced children to be involved in these trials, removing them from foster homes if the foster parent did not comply and even physically making the children take the drugs.

The programme interviewed the family of Garfield Momodu, an HIV-positive child who was removed from his grandmother and taken into care when she stopped giving him the drugs prescribed in the trials. Researchers also interviewed an unnamed child who said he and others were physically forced to take drugs through a peg-tube inserted into their stomachs.

GSK admits that it supplied drugs for four trials conducted in New York by the PACTG and also supplied drugs and funds for another trial run by Columbia University Medical Center. The drug company admitted that it and others in the industry "did know about the clinical trial design, but they are not directly involved in the recruitment, enrolment or participation of patients in these trials".

It added that the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, encouraged the studies. "Clinical trials involving children and orphans are therefore legal and not unusual," GSK said in a statement.

The ACS says children were selected for trials only after a rigorous vetting process and has denied that it used any strong-arm tactics. '

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=587418&host=3&dir=94

The children were based at Incarnation House in New York, or were placed with foster parents approved by the A.C.S. and Incarnation House. As long as these foster parents ensured that the children continued to take part in the drug trials, they received fees amounting to 6 000 dollars a month.



Suffer the little children to undergo a battery of unpleasant and dangerous drug trials would appear to be the new gospel....

I would suggest anyone who thinks that euthanasia is always a bad idea, even for severely malformed foetuses, actually speak to someone who is severely disabled or has a condition which causes chronic acute pain- I know of several people (real human beings that is) who are of the opinion that they would rather have been aborted, because life has been one long series of struggles against severe disability and coping with pain crises.

There's nothing noble about undergoing lifelong agony for someone's else's moral scruples.

A much better response to Shi's troll than I could come up with.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Locutus
This thread is total bull****. "Dutch kill babies, the comatose and the mentally retarded!" WTF? Where does it say comatose and mentally retarded people are being killed? This article is about terminally ill newborns: babies who are going to die no matter what. It's just a matter of whether they die a natural but excruciatingly slow and painful death, or a swift but unnatural one. I can understand how some people might object to the idea (although personally I find it extremely sadistic to allow babies to live a few days/weeks longer only so they can suffer a torturous amount of pain), but to generalize the situation and suggest that anyone who is deemed 'inferior' is being brutally murdered and to compare it to the systematic wiping out of millions by the Nazi's... puhleaze

Also:



Yeah, us Dutch people are real Nazi's, systematically murdering people we deem inferior by the millions... at a rate of 5 people a year

Yes -- unfortunately, too many people like Ned let irrationality and emotional overload to kill any chance for him to make an actual, real argument.

[groenen]

I'd surely hope someone would "kill" me, instead of keeping me alive in constant unbarable pain forever.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Seeker
Personally I'd say the infants should be kept on however much painkillers or sedatives are needed until they die.

What would be the point? If they're medicated into a coma, then they're only living dead anyway.

[alva]

nfants have no concept of death. I know I didn't until I was at least 5-6 years old. I certainly didn't have any notion of my own mortality until much later.

Infants do have a very real concept of pain and suffering, however. What they desire is to not have pain.

If not sentient, kill it, I say.
--
I agree, the case recently in England would fit this bill quite nicely.

[Saint Marcus]

**** guys, did ANYONE objecting to this actually READ the article? What a load of crap about nothing.

[Jac de Molay]

Involuntary euthanasia
..against children..

[Odin]

I'd surely hope someone would "kill" me, instead of keeping me alive in constant unbarable pain forever.

I'm sick of the religious right opposing euthanasia because they think it is goes against "God's will."

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What would be the point? If they're medicated into a coma, then they're only living dead anyway.

We must keep the little wretches alive as possible so the fundies can get their hooks in them. Otherwise, God will send the babies to Hell.