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AS a candidate for public office I am against abortions and I will appose any law that would use euthanasia on the youngest or the elderly in society.

However, John Wyatt, consultant neonatologist a College London hospital, said: Intentional killing is not part of medical care. He added: The majority of doctors and health professionals believe that once you introduce the possibility of intentional killing into medical practice you change the fundamental nature of medicine. It immediately becomes a subjective decision as to whose life is worthwhile.- The Sunday Times, Britain

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:
The tragic consequence of allowing one small group of individuals in society - those who choose to become medical doctors (M.D.'s) or scientists (Ph.D.'s) - to make life and death decisions for others is that they can become drunk with power and end up exploiting people. Those elitists who would force people to take medical risks or even kill people in the name of the greater good of society cannot and should not be trusted.

Blind faith and trust in those who practice any profession is dangerous, but it is especially dangerous if it requires abandoning individual autonomy and the human right to informed consent. If the birthing rooms and newborn nurseries of the world become killing fields and those who practice science and medicine become the executioners, then it will be a very short time before nursing homes, doctor's offices and public health clinics are legally allowed to stock lethal injections.

History that is not remembered will be repeated. We would do well to remember what happened in pre-World War II Germany, when doctors were legally allowed to kill anyone in society considered to be a threat to the public health and welfare. Are we preparing for the day when doctors can not only kill handicapped newborns but also handicapped older children and adults, including the vaccine injured who face a lifetime of long term care? Anyone the medical elite consider to be an economic liability for society and, therefore, expendable could be a target for elimination in what could become the ultimate free exercise of the utilitarian rationale discredited at the Doctor's Trial at Nuremberg in 1947 as inherently evil.

I remember when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its famous 1973 legal decision in Roe v Wade, siding with the medical doctors and scientists, who argued that life did not begin at conception but only at birth and, therefore, termination of not only handicapped babies but also healthy babies in the womb was not murder. Like many young women, I ignored the warnings of spirtual leaders who argued that legalized abortion was devaluation of individual life and would lead to future legalized murder after birth when an individual's life became inconvenient or expensive.

I caught my breath when I read the following from a British bioethicist commenting how the morality of giving doctors a legal license to kill: "The colleges submission was also welcomed by John Harris, a member of the governments Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University. We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it okay to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other? he said.

Anyone who has had to make the difficult decision of whether to cease employing extraordinary measures to prolong a terminally ill loved one's life knows well the difference between a "do not resuscitate" order and a lethal injection. Perhaps we should have listened a little more carefully to the spiritual leaders who warned that giving the medical profession the power to deliberatey kill before birth would tempt them to seek the power to deliberately kill after birth. In any case, it is time to put the breaks on giving more power to those in society who are supposed to be healers, not executioners.

Doctors: let us kill disabled babies
The Sunday Times,
November 05, 2006

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Correspondent

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ONE of Britains royal medical colleges is calling on the health profession to consider permitting the euthanasia of seriously disabled newborn babies. The proposal by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology is a reaction to the number of such children surviving because of medical advances. The college is arguing that active euthanasia should be considered for the overall good of families, to spare parents the emotional burden and financial hardship of bringing up the sickest babies.

A very disabled child can mean a disabled family, it says. If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome.

Geneticists and medical ethicists supported the proposalas did the mother of a severely disabled child but a prominent childrens doctor described it as social engineering.

The college called for active euthanasia of newborns to be considered as part of an inquiry into the ethical issues raised by the policy of prolonging life in newborn babies. The inquiry is being carried out by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

The colleges submission to the inquiry states: We would like the working party to think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best interests test and active euthanasia as they are ways of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns.

Initially, the inquiry did not address euthanasia of newborns as this is illegal in Britain. The college has succeeded in having it considered. Although it says it is not formally calling for active euthanasia to be introduced, it wants the mercy killing of newborn babies to be debated by society.

The report does not spell out which conditions might justify euthanasia, but in the Netherlands mercy killing is permitted for a range of incurable conditions, including severe spina bifida and the painful skin condition called epidermolysis bullosa.

Dr. Pieter Sauer, co-author of the Groningen Protocol, the Dutch national guidelines on euthanasia of newborns, claims British paediatricians perform mercy killings, and says the practice should be open.

Sauer, head of the department of paediatrics at the University Medical Centre Groningen, said: In England they have exactly the same type of patients as we have here. English neonatologists gave me the indication that this is happening.

Although euthanasia for severely handicapped newborn babies would prove contentious, some British doctors and ethicists are now in favour. Joy Delhanty, professor of human genetics at University College London, said: I would support these views. I think it is morally wrong to strive to keep alive babies that are then going to suffer many months or years of very ill health.

Dr Richard Nicholson, editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, who has admitted hastening the death of two severely handicapped newborn babies when he was a junior doctor in the 1970s, said: I wouldnt argue against this. He spoke of the pain, distress and discomfort of severely handicapped babies.

The colleges submission was also welcomed by John Harris, a member of the governments Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University. We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it okay to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other? he said.

Edna Kennedy of Newcastle upon Tyne, whose son suffered epidermolysis bullosa, said: In extremely controlled circumstances, where the baby is really suffering, it should be an option for the mother.

However, John Wyatt, consultant neonatologist at University College London hospital, said: Intentional killing is not part of medical care.” He added: The majority of doctors and health professionals believe that once you introduce the possibility of intentional killing into medical practice you change the fundamental nature of medicine. It immediately becomes a subjective decision as to whose life is worthwhile.

If a doctor can decide whether a life is worth living, it changes medicine into a form of social engineering where the aim is to maximise the benefit for society and minimise those who are perceived as worthless.

Simone Aspis of the British Council of Disabled People said: If we introduced euthanasia for certain conditions it would tell adults with those conditions that they were worth less than other members of society.

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