Somehow I missed today’s article on the Groningen Protocol in the Los Angeles Times, but a search of their internet site shows that they finally had their first piece in today’s edition. Much better late than never, but the Blogosphere is way ahead of them, and the rest of the MSM as of today. What else is new?

One very interesting conversation is going on between two Catholics at ProfessorBainbridge.com and MirrorOfJustice.com, although my money is on the good professor’s viewpoint. Thanks Hugh Hewitt for the links to this discussion.

Stephen Bainbridge, a corporate law professor at UCLA, discusses the Groningen Protocol from a Catholic’s perspective on his blog at ProfessorBainbridge.com.

Being a mere corporate lawyer and an adult convert doubtless handicaps me, but as far as I can tell Church teaching is pretty clear. Paragraph 2277 of the Catechism states:

Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. (Em his)

Doubtless I’m missing something. Until somebody explains what I’m missing by reference to clear teaching in the Magisterium, however, I will maintain that the analogy to Nazi doctors is entirely apt. ”

Professor Bainbridge is reacting to a post by Michael Perry at Mirror of Justice, part of which states:

Wouldn’t the Doctrine of Double Effect permit parents to authorize the administration of a sedative (e.g., morphine) to their child in order to relieve the child’s unbearable pain–even, if necessary to relieve the pain, to the point where the child’s respiratory system is depressed and the child dies . . . so long as the parents do not intend the death of the child but only the relief of the child’s unbearable pain? Of course, the proportionality test (which is the second part of the DDE) would not be met if the child’s condition were not terminal. But if the child’s condition is terminal–if the child will die within the week–then wouldn’t the proportionality test be met?”

Reacting to Professor Bainbridge in another post two days later, Perry writes:

Let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that a law makes it clear that doctors may, if after appropriate deliberation they decide to do so, cooperate with parents in the scenario I suggested in my post. If I’m right about the implications of the the Doctrine of Double Effect, then the parents’ decision is morally permissible–that is, morally permissible according to orthodox Roman Catholic moral theology. (Steve: Nothing in Evangelium Vitae or in the Catechism calls into question the DDE.) And if their decision is morally permissible, then there is no reason doubt that the doctors’ cooperation with the parents is morally permissible too.”

According to the Groningen Protocol, under the guidelines set up by this Dutch policy, parents’ can be considered in regards to whether a child would be allowed to live or die, but they would not have the last word. That would be left up to the professionals, ie. the doctors on the committee, and their judgments would be final. And in this case, it does mean FINAL! What rational they would be using to make these decisions would be up to the state, be it so called “humanitarian”, social considerations or even heavily weighted by financial concerns, as surely the “state” has limited resources that can be used to keep alive those that cannot, or never will, be of “benefit to society”.

But for sake of argument, let’s say that the parents had the last word and that they chose to allow the doctors to “kill” their teminally ill child, would this be “morally permissible”? Unless I am completely off base, none of the established Christian denominations would allow euthanasia of anyone: terminally ill, the insane, desperately suicidal — much less children. Therefore, only a secular society would allow euthanasia to become the established methodology of dealing with these groups — Another in a long list of excellent reasons to maintain the U.S. as a Judeo-Christian society! . . . db

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 5th, 2004 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Culture of Life, Focus On Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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