Progressive Euthanasia

Albert Mohler has published and excellent article on the progressive nature of euthanasia as evidenced by the The Groningen Protocol [ht: OkieontheLam].

Advocates for euthanasia routinely chide opponents that "slippery slope" arguments are fallacious and irrelevant. A decision to allow euthanasia in some cases, they say, does not in fact open the door for the killing of yet others. Tragically, however, the "slippery slope" argument is neither fallacious nor irrelevant, as recent developments in the Netherlands have made graphically clear. Once doctors are allowed to choose death over life, the resulting Culture of Death will inevitably discount human life in other contexts as well.

The latest proof of this comes in a March 10, 2005 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In "The Groningen Protocol--Euthanasia in Severely Ill Newborns," Dutch doctors Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J. J. Sauer defend the policy they established for euthanizing newborns in the Netherlands.

[snip]

Verhagen and Sauer recognize that the "Dutch Cure" is considered murder by many outside the Netherlands. "This approach suits our legal and social culture," the doctors allow, "but it is unclear to what extent it would be transferable to other countries."

Verhagen and Sauer may be unclear about the transferability of their protocol to other cultures, but the Culture of Death is not found only in the Netherlands. Here in the United States, the logic behind the "Groningen Protocol" is gaining traction. The "Dutch Cure" now seems to be a contagious Dutch disease.

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