I have no problem with giving any patient who wishes a dignified death with a doctors assistance. BUT and its a big but you really have to be so careful not to follow in the footsteps of the NHS and the "Liverpool Pathway".
The Netherlands is killing children who say they are depressed. Under the Goningen Protocol babies can be killed if their parents suffer because the child lives.
Relatives tired of an older relative spending that inheritance can claim incompetence and make the decision for the victim.
The more noble sounding the law, the worse the place it will take you.
Once again you post utter nonsense. The Goningen Protocol has safeguards in place. And it is NOT about the suffering of the parents.
from:
MMS: Error (an article in the New England Journal of Medicine)
"Infants and newborns for whom such end-of-life decisions might be made can be divided into three categories.
1 First, there are infants with no chance of survival. This group consists of infants who will die soon after birth, despite optimal care with the most current methods available locally. These infants have severe underlying disease, such as lung and kidney hypoplasia.
Infants in the second group have a very poor prognosis and are dependent on intensive care. These patients may survive after a period of intensive treatment, but expectations regarding their future condition are very grim. They are infants with severe brain abnormalities or extensive organ damage caused by extreme hypoxemia. When these infants can survive beyond the period of intensive care, they have an extremely poor prognosis and a poor quality of life.
Finally, there are infants with a hopeless prognosis who experience what parents and medical experts deem to be unbearable suffering. Although it is difficult to define in the abstract, this group includes patients who are not dependent on intensive medical treatment but for whom a very poor quality of life, associated with sustained suffering, is predicted. For example, a child with the most serious form of spina bifida will have an extremely poor quality of life, even after many operations. This group also includes infants who have survived thanks to intensive care but for whom it becomes clear after intensive treatment has been completed that the quality of life will be very poor and for whom there is no hope of improvement.
Deciding not to initiate or to withdraw life-prolonging treatment in newborns with no chance of survival is considered good practice for physicians in Europe and is acceptable for physicians in the United States. Most such infants die immediately after treatment has been discontinued."
Please point out which of those 3 categories are based on the suffering of the parents.