Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Sick Kids Hospital Toronto will euthanize children with or without parental consent.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A recent report from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto states that they are not only ready to do euthanasia on children but their policy states that a child should be able to die by euthanasia without the consent or knowledge of the parents.

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According to an article by Sharon Kirkey for Sun Media, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto published their policy on euthanasia and assisted suicide as a report in the recent Journal of Medical Ethics. According to Kirkey:
The Sick Kids’ working group says the hospital has willing doctors who could “safely and effectively” perform euthanasia for terminally ill youth 18 and older who meet the criteria as set out in federal law, and that it would be “antithetical” to its philosophy of care to have to transfer these patients to a strange and unfamiliar adult hospital. But it is a suggestion that euthanasia might one day take place without the involvement of parents that has provoked fresh controversy in the assisted-death debate.
Who does the Hospital for Sick Children believe that euthanasia can be safe and effective for?

Kirkey explains that the ethicists at the Children's Hospital believe that there is no difference between killing someone and letting them die. Clearly there is a difference between allowing a natural death and actually causing the death of a person. By blurring clear distinctions ethicists minimize the ethical problems associated with doctors killing their patients. Kirkey reports:
The working group said it wasn’t convinced that there is a meaningful difference for the patient “between being consensually assisted in dying (in the case of MAID) and being consensually allowed to die (in the case of refusing life-sustaining interventions).”
Sick Children's hospital is planning to apply the same policy for mature minors as they have for young adults. Kirkey explains that most Canadian provinces allow mature minors to make decisions about their own care, including withdrawing or withholding life support. She explains that in Ontario a minor can provide consent for treatment or withdrawal of treatment if they understand the “reasonably foreseeable consequences” of their decision. The Sick Kids' hospital stated that they encourage minors to involve their families in medical decisions. 

Kirkey explains that the Hospitals for Sick Children is suggesting that children could decide to die by euthanasia without the consent of the parents:
The draft policy argues the same rules should apply to MAID since there is no meaningful ethical or practical distinction from the patient’s perspective between assisted dying and other procedures that result in the end of a life, such as palliative sedation (where people sleep until they die) or withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatments.
Kirkey explains that the Sick Kids Hospital paper came out just ahead of the report by The Canadian Council of Academies that will make recommendations in December concerning the extension of euthanasia to mature minors. The same group is examining the extension of euthanasia to cases of mental illness alone, as well as incompetent people who requested euthanasia within an “advance directive”.

43 comments:

  1. Incredible!! Totally wrong!

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  2. So much for all the assurances from euthanasia supporters that only hard cases would be considered. They scoff at the concept of “ the slippery slope”.From other jurisdictions it was evident that more categories of vulnerable patients would be added to the death list. What kind of ethicists are they if they can’t see any difference between killing and allowing to die. Their young charges might not be mature enough to understand, but what is their excuse? The best line is “ mature minors” an oxymoron !

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  3. There is a difference between sleeping painlessly unti death, and withholding life support such as treatment, food and water to an elderly, conscious patient with a broken hip, which is happening in the U.S. And Sick Kids has been purported within the medical community to letting infants with Down's syndrome starve for when the parents wouldn't sign for correction of a minor birth defect related to their ability to swallow.

    So nothing new here except it's more out in the open.

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  4. Oh Lord Jesus, come and stop the madness......

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  5. It narrows the involvement of significant caregivers in life or death treatment decisions. One must ask, who is most empowered by this hospital policy, the child or the hospital? What is the objective here, 'dignity' or hospital 'efficiency'?

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  6. Yes June , I agree. There is a new ethical paradigm in health care, apparantly libertarian, materialistc, and utilitarian. Personally, I believe that at its core, their aim is to consolidate treatment authority in the hands of physicians and hospital administrators, for the sake of efficiency, without the pesky interference of caregivers, relatives, clergy and other professions, without opposition or dissenting voice, without inconvenient psycho-social assessments. There is evidence that in general, this policy direction has at its heart, not human dignity but cost effectiveness.

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  7. Outrageous, and yet sadly believable. Especially chilling is the idea that this could be done to a minor against the wishes of the parents. It strikes me that some ethicists aren't so concerned with discerning whether a proposed action is morally right or wrong as they are in rationalizing whatever decision has already been made. Thank goodness the rest of the world isn't doing what Canada and the Netherlands are doing.

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  8. They'd 'rather (kill) the patient than remove them to a new and strange adult hospital'??.

    Not doctors, but doctors Frankenstein

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  9. Moral values and ethics have exited the building. I don't recognize this present life any more. Nothing like the society I grew up in. May the Lord come back soon as He promised He would.

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  10. They should rename the hospital into ‘sick doctors’ hospital.

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  11. This is shocking, I know we have been sliding down the culture of death slope, but I never would have thought that our world recognized children's hospital, that has the support of so many Torontonians would go this route, I am surly pulling my support for the hospital for this cause, period.

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  12. Pure Evil!!!!! How could a hospital dedicated to children go so far down the slippery slope.....Shame, shame, shame.....

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  13. The logic of "do no harm" and morality of "love thy neighbour" are gone from healthcare. A very sad day for Canada. Please tell you family and your doctor that you want to live and not killed for convenience. Very troubling that healthcare is becoming 'death care' and I will never support MAID as a prolife pharmacist and do not agree with assisted death for anyone!
    God Bless us and pray for those involved in these practices.

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  14. So much for "I will do NO harm" what scum, I am really glad my boy never had to go there.

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  15. You have taken an Abstract from an essay (https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2018/09/21/medethics-2018-104896.long) and completely twisted it around. This is NOT something that is practiced.

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  16. This is a biased site, it’s called propaganda. Are you all that feeble minded?

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  17. Biased I what way James?
    The issue is not of where this information was published but of the fact that innocent children are being euthanised parental consent. This proves again that the state/government own our children the moment we sign for a Borth certificate.
    My mother was sedated and fluids removed while those that do no harm injected drugs into her blood stream which shut down her organs 1 by 1.
    Have you ever watched someone die from dehydration without enough sedation?

    Believe me there is nothing peaceful about it.
    Most people's are sedated enough for their loved ones not to witness the pain, anguish, agitated thrashing around death that I witnessed if they did they would never allow euthanasia anywhere. It is barbaric torture

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    1. I am so sorry this was allowed to happened to your mother!

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  18. We do not wish revenge on anyone. We do wish to end the killing.

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  19. I agree, Alex, the killing must stop. We need to stop all euthanasia in Canada.

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  20. I think that giving the one who is suffering with the illness has the right, and knowledge to be able to make the decision of when enough is enough. They are told several times through the medical processes the chances and other details, why not let them know they have the right to say when they have suffered enough.
    I applaud the idea and hope it does happen.

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  21. Did anyone even read the article??
    It said 18 years and older and who meet the criteria.
    You are considered an adult by law at 18 and if that person is terminally ill and of sound mind then it is no different than a 26 year old terminally ill patient or a 60 year old terminally ill patient.
    Sick kids is in the business of compassion and doing all they can to SAVE children.
    Compassionate end care for a terminally ill patient should be that individuals choice.

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  22. So it’s illegal to cure these terminally ill patients with natural and holistic medicine. But it is legal to kill them. What is to keep them from killing at will? Who determines who lives and who dies? This death camp needs to be shut down and the doctors and administrators need to be imprisoned then be sentenced to be euthanized themselves.

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  23. Shame on them!!! Heartless!!! I see many lawsuits coming to that “hospital “

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  24. Actually Carrie didn't read the article.
    The article states that it developed a policy for 18 year olds, that's true. The rest of the article is about the proposed policy that they developed, if euthanasia is extended to children. The proposed policy will allow euthanasia of children without parental consent.

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  25. This is murder, plain and simple ! This is evil, there is a HUGE difference between a terminal, in pain person asking to be able to sleep until natural death occurs than someone administering a deadly dose of medications!!

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    1. And starvation,dehydration should not be done eithor.

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  26. This has been going on many years they're just advertising in a sense now, putting this out to the public, for acceptance so when it's your son or daughter that are in a volnerable position, it will be easlier accepted,like its the thing that parents do, that your wrong if you say no... Now not even confiding with the parent. What do you think there going to tell you that they euthanized your child. No there going to tell you it was procedure. Unfortunately for myself my daughter, my mother, and my sister where all euthanized. My daughter, was euthanized in the worst way imaginable. No human should die like she did. She was five years old. The hospital made a mistake and could not fix the mistakes they had made, leaving me to choose the date of her death in which, left me with guilt, her life wasn't given to me for me to take it from her. How is this not murder. Because a doctor said it was ok. The wave effect of their mistakes still ripples today. Like it was yesterday. The day I was forced to choose to kill my daughter was Nov. 23/04 her death anniversary is two days away. It still feels like it's two days away. I feel doctors are highly insured assassins. Now there free to kill anyone. Why would there be compassion? You should be excepting this as a new norm!

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  27. I just have too many e-mails to deal with....I am opposed and sickened by this....

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  28. Allisonrose, I'm profoundly sorry that doctors murdered your little girl, your Mom, and your sister. Last summer, a hospital tried to kill my father. Many doctors and nurses no longer have a conscience. Sending love and (((hugs))) to you.

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  29. I oppose the euthanasia no matter who they are children or elderly

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  30. https://www.facebook.com/Code-Of-No-Ethics-2172951029603010/

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  31. The one thing that makes a human human is the capacity to value another human being no matter what the circumstances. …regardless of of convenience. Shaming a person to death is less than animal. God help us and forgive what many of your beautiful creatures have evolved to

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  32. You are an absolute conspiracy theory rage creating nutjob. If Google, Facebook and other media outlets believe this, you are hooked to lies, not fact, check the fact, this is a lie, simply no truth the story of the way it is told.

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  33. I usually don't publish anonymous comments but this person made a comment without reading the article or linking to the news articles that it was based on.

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