Thursday September 25, 1997
UK DOCTORS PROPOSE EUTHANASIA FOR CHILDREN AGAINST PARENTS WISHES
BRITAIN (LSN) – Yesterday, the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health issued guidleines which told doctors they can withdraw treatment, including food and water, from very sick or handicapped children up to the age of 16. Although the guidelines do not have the force of law, any doctor called before a court would be able to cite them in his defence.
Prof Neil McIntosh, Professor of Child Life and Health at Edinburgh University, and chairman of the committee responsible for the guidelines, made clear that food and water were also included in treatments that doctors may withdraw. He also said it was possible, if a court agreed, that treatment could be withdrawn against the parents’ wishes. “Parents do not have an absolute veto,” he said.
Professor Jack Scarisbrick, chairman of Life, said: “Doctors should refer these very difficult cases of desperately ill children to hospice care rather than wringing their hands and saying, ‘kill, kill, kill’…What you are doing is starving children to death and that is a hideous procedure.”
The guidelines lay down five circumstances in which the withholding or withdrawal of treatment may be considered. They are:
The brain-dead child, where two doctors agree it is futile to keep him on life-support machinery