| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 哲學研究所碩士在職專班 === 95 === Adult euthanasia is now legal in Netherlands, however, newborn euthanasia is a pending issue for pediatricians and parents. For there have been some minor percentage of newborns with serious, painful and often incurable diseases. The Groningen Protocol of Netherlands is a first attempt by physicians and attorney to guide the making of life-and-death decision making process for severely ill newborns suffering unbearable pains. It proposes that defective infants with unbearable suffering could be euthanized with the consent of the parents, the confirmation of medical situation by its physician and at least one physician unrelated to its treatment. Though still ruled as illegal, many practice of euthanasia in newborns had under securitization and no physicians involved being accused. There have been wide spread of practice and concurrence in newborn euthanasia among European countries and open practice in such countries like Finland, but legally it is still out ruled even in Netherlands.
Infant euthanasia is an important moral issue of bioethics , for infants are not moral agents and often regarded at most as moral patients. They are not able to understand their issues, nor could they be responsible for their actions or what happens to them. They need surrogates to make decisions for them in terms of their best interests.
This dissertation attempts to analyze and clarify the moral issues surrounding euthanasia in newborns employing principles and theories of biomedical ethics such as utilitarianism, deontological theories, subject-of-life, sanctity of life, and others, for the analysis of the moral status of newborns and the reasonableness of the Groningen Protocol. The pros and cons are presented to give a preliminary assess of the situation especially with the help of the point of views of Peter Singer and H. Tristram Engelhardt . This dissertation only hopes to give a start for the discussion of this issue, rather than a final word on it.
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