NETHERLANDS: The Netherlands is setting up a commission to regulate the practice of ending the lives of "seriously suffering" newborn babies, the government said yesterday, in a move critics say could allow more euthanasia.
Euthanasia of newborns and late abortions remain illegal, but the commission - composed of three doctors, a lawyer and an ethicist - is likely to recommend that doctors who follow certain rules are not charged in concrete cases.
Justice minister Piet Hein Donner and junior health minister Clemence Ross-van Dorp said they hoped the commission, expected to start work in mid-2006, would improve the transparency of decision making.
"We wanted to respond to the needs of doctors to create clarity in how to deal with ending the life of seriously suffering newborns as well as the legal consequences of late abortions . . . the uncertainty of doctors is being addressed," the ministers wrote in a letter to parliament. In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalise adult euthanasia, a move condemned by the Catholic Church, but has since been followed by Belgium.
Bert Dorenbos, from anti-euthanasia group Scream for Life, said the commission would effectively allow more euthanasia. "It is a very dangerous and tragic development," he said.
A study earlier this year showed that Dutch doctors had reported 22 cases between 1997 and 2004 of euthanasia of babies with spina bifida, a birth defect affecting the spinal column, but had not been prosecuted after judicial review.
Prosecutors had decided against charging doctors as long as unofficial rules - dubbed the Groningen protocol after the university hospital that compiled them - were met.
The ministers want the commission to work on the basis of similar criteria, allowing euthanasia or late abortion if the baby had no chance of survival and was suffering unbearably, if the doctor consulted at least one other, the parents agreed and the life was ended in the correct medical way.
Eduard Verhagen, paediatrician at the Groningen University Medical Centre that drew up the protocol, has long campaigned for an expert commission to encourage doctors to report such cases without fear of prosecution.
"If we take this awfully difficult decision, it must happen with complete openness," he told De Volkskrant newspaper.
"You are trained to save the life of a child but with these children the suffering can only be stopped by ending their lives. It takes courage to do that."
- (Reuters)