Subject: Church of England Supports Baby Euthanasia
The Sunday Times
Peter Zimonjic
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2087-2450134%2C00.html
November 12, 2006
The Church of England has joined one of Britain’s royal medical colleges
in calling for legal euthanasia of seriously disabled newborn babies.
Church leaders want doctors to be given the right to withhold treatment
from seriously disabled newborn babies in exceptional circumstances.
Their call, overriding the presumption that life should be preserved at
any cost, follows that of the Royal College of Obstetricians and
Gynaecology, revealed in The Sunday Times last week.
The church’s position was laid out in a submission to an independent
inquiry, due to publish its report this week, into the ethical concerns
surrounding the treatment of severely premature babies.
In the submission Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark, states: “It may in
some circumstances be right to choose to withhold or withdraw treatment,
knowing it will possibly, probably, or even certainly result in death.”
The church’s submission does not say which medical conditions might
justify the decision to allow babies to die. It argues that there are
“strong proportionate reasons” for “overriding the presupposition that
life should be maintained”.
It says it would support the withdrawal of treatment only if all
reasonable alternatives had been considered, “so that the possible
lethal act would only be performed with manifest reluctance”.
In its proposal the college of obstetricians argued that “active
euthanasia” should be considered for the overall good of families, to
spare parents the emotional burden and financial stress of caring for
desperately sick infants.
The college said in its submission to the inquiry: “A very disabled
child can mean a disabled family. 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.”
Both submissions were made to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an
independent body that publishes guidelines for how the medical
profession should deal with ethical questions such as euthanasia.
The council was set up nearly two years ago in order to consider the
implications of advances that enable infants to be born half-way through
pregnancy.
In the Netherlands babies born before 25 weeks are not given medical
treatment in certain conditions.
The report, to be published on Thursday, is not expected to set an age
limit as a criterion.
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