Two-year-old euthanised in Netherlands in first assisted dying case of its kind

[IwantToRetire]

I'm not going to select any part of the article but just post the link for those who want to read
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/netherlands-infant-2-euthanised-assisted-37709218

Surely it's different primarily because pets are not human and don't have human rights.

You can sell a pet, for one thing, you can't do that to a child. You can neuter a pet, you can't do that to a human without consent. Children, unlike pets, are human beings.

Older people might remember this case. He was apparently very much liked and many parents testified about his caring and compassion at the trial.

The feminist perspective is those who think toddlers should be kept alive no matter what tend to believe in life above everything else and be very anti abortion.

The rest of us recognise life is far more complex. If course euthanasia fir toddlers should be very tightly controlled and at the extreme end. Children can be very disabled and live a happy life. But it's when life is simply pain to be kept alive that this is a kindness.

So, is this forum/board for any and all topics but through the lens of a feminist, or is it meant for topics relating to women's issues... Does that question make sense?

But at the age of two how much understanding is there of the suffering they endure. That’s my point. If there is no hope of recovery what is the point of prolonging that suffering ? Who does it benefit ?

I'm a strong feminist and I don't fully agree with this.

Abortion is fundamentally different to me because the child is still in the mother's womb. Once the child is out of the womb, in the world, helping them stay alive does not conflict with the mother's bodily autonomy. Moreover, I don't agree with abortion after 6 months. The foetus develops throughout the pregnancy, of course - a 2 week old foetus, say, is very different from a foetus about to be born- and even more so from a baby who HAS been born.

This was a very hard case but ultimately I don't agree with parents having the authority to end their children's lives. Maybe in very restricted circumstances...but I'm uneasy about this case. I wish there were more info..

But we don't know which ones, do we?

Are you saying we shouldn't treat any prem babies because some go on to need a lot of care? Its a bit presumptuous for you to decide that all of those disabled babies lives are not worth living.

My 26 weeker is 17 and doing A levels. He had a brain bleed at 2 days old and could have been disabled - but happily, he is not. We couldn't have known the outcome in advance though.

A PP said prem babies have to go through painful and distressing interventions. That does not sound like informed opinion. Mostly they need breathing support. As with adults, if they are mechanically ventilated, they are sedated and know nothing about it.

People are assuming the child was in unbearable suffering but different doctors seem to have had different points of view about that. I’m also very surprised that assisted dying is available for children in the Netherlands from the age of 12. Given they let a depressed women in her 20s choose assisted dying, that seems risky.

I don't want to derail, so I'm going to start a new thread, but this Dutch case re Iris Dekker seems very disturbing to me.

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-parents-who-let-their-daughter

How can we be sure her depression couldn't have been improved? She was only 19. On Reddit, some people are picking up on the mention of tranquillisers and thinking she was addicted. We don't have enough info but tranquillisers are known to affect mood.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepStateCentrism/comments/1tp8rwh/theparentswholettheirdaughterdiefreepress/

More info: https://news.sky.com/video/the-teenager-who-wanted-to-end-her-life-under-dutch-euthanasia-laws-13561925

I don’t think that’s true actually. People aren’t so one-dimensional. I am very conflicted about abortion for various reasons - but pretty pro-euthanasia.

For that reason I agree with your second paragraph. I think, if we trust the second doctor’s opinion, that this was certainly a heartbreaking act of compassion and the option to end that suffering was a mercy.

I think the main reason I feel conflicted is that the toddler couldn't consent . Could this then mean other people who lack capacity could be euthanised if they are judged to be in sufficient pain?

I don't underrated the insistence that you can't have a feminist perspective on euthanasia/assisted dying.

You can have a feminist perspective on anything ( just like a socialist perspective, or conservative perspective etc).

I don't know why people who don't like it can't just read a different thread, without all the scolding.

Some people seem to forget there’s a difference between allowing someone to die, and actively killing them. Euthanasia for a two year old is monstrous and Final Solution-esque.

If there is no hope of recovery that would be reasonable.

Has it changed now, @bababamama ?

Very compelling and food for further reflection. Especially in light of my own life experience. Thank you.

Ok so when it sort of presented that the doctors disagreed, it appears that they simply disagree about the right way to progress the death of the child. Its not that the other doctor was saying the child would live.

But how do you judge if the person lacks capacity to speak for themselves? How can am external person judge whether someone's life is painful enough to be ended?

What would the criteria and controls be? This sounds dangerous to me.

My friend.

The doctors were heroic and modern medicine a triumph when they "saved" her baby.

But the parents were then left with seven years of absolute hell, in and out of hospital, many near death experiences, and a subtle but definite pressure to follow the "miracle" and allow it. Her child, my goddaughter spent seven years of pure torture on planet earth punctuated by small, irregular moments of relief. And for seven years, her heart and that of her husband was broken, battered and bruised.

I wondered often if the wonders of modern medicine in that case would have been better to let her go on any of the many occasions when her body and mind were clearly ready.

Rather than keeping them alive in order to kill them a few months later, should we not revisit our philosophy around intervention in the first instance?

Monstrous is watching a child die in pain from brain cancer, fully aware that parts of their body are no longer working, until either they have a fatal seizure or stroke, or their brain stops telling their brain to breathe.

Monstrous is knowing there is no treatment that can help them, and very little done to slow it, and that the outcome is inevitable.

Their deaths cannot be avoided. Their deaths being monstrous can be.

I think it’s actually letting them die rather than artificially keeping them alive with no quality of life. But instead of them dying in discomfort and pain they ensure it happens in a controlled and humane way.

There comes a point where existence does not really meet the definition of life. This sounds like one of those cases.

The alternative was allowing the child to suffer for years, with no quality of life, just to sustain the parent’s wants.

I am not scolding I was honestly trying to work out what the op is wanting to talk about but Instead of clarity i just get waffle and accusations of "scolding" I was interested in the Ops stance. Like I said no wonder women steer clear of this section of mumsnet, there only is soundbites and word salad from some posters.

Yep.

Doctors also don't always know which ones. Especially right away.

My son had a 17 minute cardiac arrest. I was told that if he did survive, he'd have severe brain damage. He is disabled but not in the way the doctor predicted, far from it.

I'm glad they didn't just give up on him and assume his life wasn't worth saving.

Yes, it would apply to a male or female parent, which makes it different from abortion, as obviously only the mother is carrying the child.