Is Euthanasia for Babies OK?

March 10, 2005 — -- When is euthanasia for newborn babies a good idea?

Two doctors in the Netherlands believe they know. They have developed a checklist that would allow doctors and families to determine whether a newborn is suffering so greatly, and without hope of a cure, that death would be a mercy.

Writing in today's New England Journal of Medicine, Drs. Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J J. Sauer ask an important question: Are life-ending procedures for newborns acceptable, or should infants with severe disorders like spina bifida be kept alive even when their pain cannot be reduced?

The question is not a new one in medical circles. As the doctors themselves acknowledge, many infants' lives are ended each year in the Netherlands without any report to authorities.

Decisions to end life-prolonging treatment, or to not begin that treatment, are made regularly throughout Europe and the United States. In many cases, families wrestle with the issue by consulting with doctors and clergy. Authorities are not alerted and there is no media spotlight.

But situations like the Terri Schiavo case in Florida -- where the parents and husband of a severely brain-damaged woman have taken their fight over whether to withdraw her feeding tube to court -- reveal that euthanasia is never an easy issue to discuss, especially when it involves those who cannot speak for themselves.

The question of infant euthanasia is "part of appropriate pediatric medicine," said Glenn McGee, director of the Center for Medical Ethics Research at Albany Medical Center in New York state and editor of The American Journal of Bioethics.

"These babies are not being killed -- they are being appropriately cared for," McGee said. "Our society has gone off the edge in terms of protecting the vulnerable by forcing them to suffer."

But notions of suffering and quality of life are highly subjective and almost impossible to quantify. As Verhagen and Sauer write, "Suffering is a subjective feeling that cannot be measured objectively, whether in adults or in infants."