Dans un article publié par The New England Journal of Médicine, deux médecins hollandais - Eduard Verhagen et Pieter J. J. Sauer, de l'Université de Groningen - défendent l'euthanasie des nouveau-nés sous certaines conditions. Ces médecins prétendent avoir élaboré de sévères directives pour cette pratique appelées "Protocole de Groningen". Comme l’observe Douglas J. Sorocco, avocat d'Oklahoma City atteint de spina bifida, les médecins sont trop rapides pour juger un nouveau-né "sans espoir". Babies born into what is certain to be a brief life of grievous suffering should have their lives ended by physicians under strict guidelines, according to two doctors in the . The doctors, Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J. J. Sauer of the University Medical Center in Groningen, in an essay in today's New England Journal of Medicine, said they had developed guidelines, known as the Groningen protocol. The guidelines have been described in some news reports over the last several weeks, and the authors said they wrote their essay to address "blood-chilling accounts and misunderstandings." "We are convinced that life-ending measures can be acceptable in these cases under very strict conditions," the authors wrote. Those conditions include the full and informed consent of the parents, the agreement of a team of physicians, and a subsequent review of each case by "an outside legal body" to determine whether the decision was justified and all procedures had been followed. [...] The question under consideration now is whether deliberate life-ending procedures are also acceptable for newborns and infants, despite the fact that these patients cannot express their own will," the authors wrote. "Or must infants with disorders associated with severe and sustained suffering be kept alive when their suffering cannot be adequately reduced?" The doctors divided the newborns who might be considered for end-of-life decisions into three groups. The first is made up of infants "with no chance of survival" because of severe underlying diseases. Babies in the second group have "a very poor prognosis and are dependent on intensive care." Although intensive treatment might help them to survive, "they have an extremely poor prognosis and a poor quality of life." The third group has a "hopeless prognosis" and experience "what parents and medical experts deem to be unbearable suffering," whether or not they need intensive medical care. Within this group, the doctors include "a child with the most serious form of spina bifida," a condition in which the spinal column does not close completely. Dr. Verhagen said that he did not question the quality of life of people like Mr. Sorocco, but argued that there was no comparison between those healthy people and the developmentally devastated newborns described in his paper. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he could not imagine such guidelines and practices becoming the norm in the . "It's not acceptable to the culture," he said. The doctors in the appeared to agree. "This approach suits our legal and social culture," they wrote, "but it is unclear to what extent it would be transferable to other countries." The New York Times – 20050311
