Oh yes, you read the headline correctly. On Nov. 6, a group of British doctors called for a debate on the so-called “mercy” killing of disabled infants. The debate is being held by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology in London. The medical professionals will examine the “active euthanasia” of incredibly ill newborns.
The college wants to inquire whether the “deliberate intervention to cause the death of an infant” should be legalized in the United Kingdom.
Evidently, this highly controversial debate sparked the interest of many professors and politicians from “across the pond.” Jim Dobbin is a member of the Labour Party, which currently governs Great Britain. He said that “[It] sends the message that only the perfect are acceptable and the disabled can be discarded.”
The College of Obstetricians and Gynecology suggests that decisions on when disabled babies can be killed should not only depend on the gravity of their condition, but on their socioeconomic status and if the prospective infants are even wanted by their parents.
Of course, it’s not only politicians like Dobbs who think the whole idea is absolutely immoral and absurd. A spokesman for the Disability Rights Commission said, “It is morally reprehensible to place the value of one life above another.”
Even professors have put their two cents in. John Wyatt, a neonatologist at the University College London Hospital, said euthanasia would turn medicine into social engineering where those considered worthless were doomed to die.
There is a never-ending debate not only in the United States, but in European nations as well about abortion and the survival of premature babies. It has been shown that premature babies delivered after as little as 23 weeks (about 6 months) survive outside of the womb. However, many doctors believe that if a baby is born so prematurely, it is purely thanks to modern medicine and said the child is likely to be badly disabled in the future.
OK, babies are one thing, but what about euthanasia in the elderly? In Britain, the Labour Party’s Mental Capacity Act allows adults to order their deaths in advance through “living wills” or by appointing an “attorney.” The so-called “attorney” would inform the doctor of the patient’s wish and then would assist in his or her imminent death.
Euthanasia is a terribly sticky subject and must be taken into consideration by all parties – the patient, the doctor and the family, before any consequential decision is made. It’s one thing to assist an elderly patient in his or her dying wish, especially if the person is in a vegetative state or in gut-wrenching pain. But it is quite another to kill an innocent baby, with no voice of his or her own, purely because of a disability that the baby has no control over.
It seems ludicrous that a hospital should have such power that it should be able to play God. It has no right to kill a harmless baby, one who hasn’t even had a chance to fight for his or her life.
Now, this entire debacle happened overseas in the United Kingdom, but who’s to say it won’t pop up in medical cases in the United States?
Does anyone recall the whole Terri Schiavo fiasco? The same scenario is bound to occur again, and this time it will be with helpless, disabled babies.
Who is going to stand up and fight for the children who don’t have a voice? Someone has to. Maybe it will be you.