Euthanasia in France and Netherlands

Lawmakers in France today approved passive euthanasia, but, "while a first in France, the legislation falls far short of laws in Netherlands and Belgium that allow active euthanasia under strict circumstances, and Switzerland, which allows certain forms of patient suicide."

AP reports on the incredible announcement from Amsterdam that Groningen Academic Hospital has created an independent board to review cases for euthanasia of terminally ill persons with "no free will," which includes "children, the severely mentally retarded and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident." The Health Ministry is preparing an answer to the regulations.

Three years ago, the Dutch parliament made it legal for doctors to inject a sedative and a lethal dose of muscle relaxant at the request of adult patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief. The Groningen Protocol, as the hospital's guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities.