Euthanasia Slippery Slopes

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“Nearly half the newborn babies who died in Flanders over a recent year-long period were helped to die by their doctors, a new study reported yesterday.

Paediatricians in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium either discreetly stopped treating the babies or, in 17 cases, illegally killed them with lethal doses of painkillers.

The study, published in The Lancet, examined the deaths of every baby who died within a year of birth in Flanders between August 1999 and July 2000…

…Most were premature babies with severe congenital malformations or handicaps and what was described as a poor quality of life, or very premature babies with severe brain damage.” [link]

23 thoughts on “Euthanasia Slippery Slopes”

  1. This is one of the saddest things I have read in the last few days. The angels weep.

  2. Nearly 50% of 298 infant deaths = aprox. 140 babies with severe congenital malformations or handicaps or severe brain damage. A study like this could help put things into perspective by pubishing the total number of babies born in the area for the same time period.

    The article ends with a quote from a Belgian doctor: “We are a bit frightened about making a law. Where do you put your lines? What is a very handicapped baby, and who decides?” –If they don’t know that already then upon what criteria did they decide that the 140 babies above should be left to die?

  3. Why were nearly half the babies in Flanders handicapped etc. What is happening in Flnaders? Oh how sad the decline of the Flemish. Once world power, now nearly half are deformed.

  4. Half the babies who died, HL Rogers. Presumably a goodish number of healthy Flemish infants were born who are still with us.

  5. Why were nearly half the babies in Flanders handicapped etc. What is happening in Flnaders? Oh how sad the decline of the Flemish. Once world power, now nearly half are deformed.

    No, half of the babies that died were handicapped, not half of the babies born.

    I’m really surprised that the number is half. Infant mortality in an industrial country is usually linked to “severe congenital malformations or handicaps or severe brain damage” especially caused by premature birth, euthanasia or none.

    What is striking is the high quality of life reported by handicapped children allowed to live to become adults. I’ve found it a humbling experience to read and encounter those who have found true joy.

  6. NO, half of the babies who died were euthanized, not half of the babies who died were handicapped.

  7. Ryan:

    A. 50% of the babies that died were euthanized.
    B. Most of the babies that were euthanized were severely handicapped.
    C. Therefore, nearly 50% of the babies that died were severely handicapped.

  12. Sorry, I can never pass up an opportunity to make fun of the Flemish and the Canadians. Though the follow-up comments certainly made mine a lot funnier.

  13. I take exception to C.

    I’m betting that quite a few of the babies who died without the doctors killing them were also severely handicapped.

  15. Intern,

    Steve and I are keeping an eye on you!
    So, watch your Canadian humour! 🙂

  16. The fact is they were babies. Whether they were handicapped or not, they were babies and no one has the right to take the life of anyone, and most definately not the innocent. It’s an abomination to harm the innocent and these doctors are barbaric who have done so.

  18. This is amazing. Although we could never know what exactly is going on there, with those kinds of numbers, something’s definitely wrong. The value of other’s life is so off kilter! I always read Genesis, or the Book of Mormon and thought “how barbaric!” without realizing what’s going on in our own day and age.

  19. I wonder what is meant by “discreetly stopped treating”? I assume it means that the doctors ceased life-prolonging meausures without consulting the parents. While I would be outraged if this happened to an infant of mine, it’s just the reappearance of the medical paternalism that reigned until just a few decades ago: “Doctor knows best.” And sometimes doctors do know best. Don’t get me wrong: I find this deeply disturbing, and it really needs to be examined. But I’m guessing that what seems like a new-onset holocaust–an emergent “culture of death”–is also in part the result of changing paradigms of medical paternalism and advancing technologies in prolonging troubled pregnancies and keeping alive micro-preemies.

  21. John –

    there’s a problem with those stats:
    http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/000019.html

    The United States . . . has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality–the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.
    How does this skew the statistics? Because in the United States if an infant is born weighing only 400 grams [14 ounces] and not breathing, a doctor will likely spend lot of time and money trying to revive that infant. If the infant does not survive–and the mortality rate for such infants is in excess of 50 percent–that sequence of events will be recorded as a live birth and then a death.
    In many countries, however, (including many European countries) such severe medical intervention would not be attempted and, moreover, regardless of whether or not it was, this would be recorded as a fetal death rather than a live birth. That unfortunate infant would never show up in infant mortality statistics.

  22. For 1999, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 7.1 per 1,000. The rate of very low birth weight (

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