Last week the Associated Press reported that the Netherlands, the idealistic utopia of Europe, has instituted a protocol and procedure for performing euthanasia on newborns and used that procedure on at least a half dozen occasions.  In the United States, when someone causes the death of a person without their consent it is murder or manslaughter – but then, we’re unenlightened scum compared to those “idealists” of Europe.

It is another milestone for the country that first legalized the practice of doctor-assisted suicide for the old and the infirm.  On our side of the Atlantic, Jack Kevorkian became famous for assisting his patients in committing suicide and he’s now in prison even while the state of Oregon legalized the practice.  But, in the Netherlands, as of this posting, there are no lawsuits or prosecutorial motions to bring lawsuits against any of the doctors who willingly killed infant children.

European idealists and their liberal sympathizers in America insist that it is because we are unenlightened that we have a problem with the murder of children.  To those with morals and scruples, however, willfully causing or allowing the death of another is abhorrent, but it is even worse for children, who have no say in their fate.  Criminals are put to death by the society for their crimes and transgressions against it, but even they knowingly made the choice to become criminals.  What is the crime of the innocent newborn child?

The Groningen Protocol, named for the hospital that devised the infant euthanasia guidelines, insists that the child has a right to die.  The protocol was developed because, in the words of Eduard Verhagen, the head of the children’s clinic at the hospital, “People are doing this secretly and that’s wrong.”  Apparently, murdering children in secret is bad, but when it’s done for everyone to see it’s okay?  The protocol creates “a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of a newborn deemed to be in similar pain [to the older people who willingly consent] from incurable disease or extreme deformities.”  According to the guidelines, “euthanasia is acceptable when the child’s medical team and independent doctors agree the pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when parents think it’s best.”

What say we cut right to what the protocol actually says, sans doublespeak?  The protocol legalizes the murder of a child who, by simply being outvoted by at least two doctors and a gullible parent, is deemed to be wholly incapable of survival.  That’s the real crux of the matter, but don’t expect people who agree with this horrible procedure to say otherwise.

It is this same doublespeak that allows otherwise rational human beings to support the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure.  The only different between the Groningen Protocol and partial-birth abortion is the word “partial.”  Who’s to say that any child isn’t eventually murdered or disposed of simply because they might have learning disabilities or other handicaps?  If the same logic were used, what would have happened to Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking if they had been exterminated as children?  But, why stop there?  Why not eliminate people like Christopher Reeve, Thomas Edison, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or Ludwig von Beethoven upon the onset of their own handicaps?  After all, they’re suffering too!  Shouldn’t doctors get the opportunity to vote and see who gets the thumbs up or thumbs down; who lives and who dies?

This may seem like a delusion, but it’s not.  As soon as a society devalues the life of its members, the entire society suffers.  We live in a hypocritical society where the people who insist they support the life and feelings of cows, chickens, seals, and fish wholly ignore the suffering of children who should be granted every opportunity to exist and live, even if that life is not as perfect and idealistic as others may want it to be.  They still deserve the right to live, make their own decisions, and take a shot at their dreams and goals.

Certainly, to have a child born with a defect, handicap, or in pain is a terrible thing, but is the life granted to that child really so awful that death is actually a better alternative?  The majority of children born with defects go on to lead fruitful, happy lives – and with the continuing scientific advances, their opportunities continue to grow.

If we are not going to give every child the best opportunity and our deepest commitment to having a successful life, then maybe as a society we should stop having children altogether.  That might put out of work the idiots like Verhagen who somehow rationalize that standing aside and allowing society to watch a child die is the best course of action to take.

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