"Advances in medicine can reduce active euthanasia of newborns with severe anomalies or unusual prematurity, but they cannot eliminate it."

Hippokratia. 2014 Jul-Sep;18(3):193-203.

Involuntary euthanasia of severely ill newborns: is the Groningen Protocol really dangerous?

Voultsos P1, Chatzinikolaou F1.

Author information

• 1Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Abstract

Advances in medicine can reduce active euthanasia of newborns with severe anomalies or unusual prematurity, but they cannot eliminate it. In the Netherlands, voluntary active euthanasia among adults and adolescents has been allowed since 2002, when the so-called Groningen Protocol (GP) was formulated as an extension of the law on extremely premature and severely ill newborns. It is maintained that, at bioethical level, it serves the principle of beneficence. Other European countries do not accept the GP, including Belgium. Admissibility of active euthanasia is a necessary, though inadequate, condition for acceptance of the GP. Greece generally prohibits euthanasia, although the legal doctrine considers some of the forms of euthanasia permissible, but not active or involuntary euthanasia. The wide acceptance of passive newborns euthanasia, especially when the gestational age of the newborns is 22-25 weeks ("grey zone"), admissibility of practices within the limits between active and passive euthanasia (e.g., withholding/withdrawing), of "indirect active euthanasia" and abortion of the late fetus, the tendency to accept after-birth-abortion (infanticide) in the bioethical theory, the lower threshold for application of withdrawing in neonatal intensive care units compared with pediatric intensive care units, all the above advocate wider acceptance of the GP. However, the GP paves the way for a wide application of involuntary (or pseudo-voluntary) euthanasia (slippery slope) and contains some ambiguous concepts and requirements (e.g., "unbearable suffering"). It is suggested that the approach to the sensitive and controversial ethical dilemmas concerning the severely ill newborns is done not through the GP, but rather, through a combination of virtue bioethics (especially in the countries of the so-called "Mediterranean bioethical zone") and of the principles of principlism which is enriched, however, with the "principle of mutuality" (enhancement of all values and principles, especially with the principles of "beneficence" and "justice"), in order to achieve the "maximal" bioethical approach, along with the establishment of circumstances and alternatives that minimize or eliminate the relevant bioethical dilemmas and conflicts between the fundamental principles. Thus, the most appropriate/fairest choices are made (by trained parents and physicians), considering all interests involved as much as possible.