Sociology - Euthanasia for Babies - Essay Example

Moreover, the report highlights two physicians who practiced in the Netherlands and had published in one of the medical journal, an entire set of guidelines that they called infant euthanasia. Dr. Eduard Verhagen who was one of these physicians, admitted to have administered the killing of 4 infants over a period of 3 years, by utilizing a lethal drip of high-dozed morphine and mixtures of various sleeping agents. He was never prosecuted for what he had done. Holt further discuses cases involving diseased babies to support his idea that to keep a baby living, whose life expectancy is not only short or unexpected but at the same time painful.

He describes their pain to be “neither bearable nor comprehendible”. He continues to call it a continuous ‘injury for the infant’ and he supports the idea of infant euthanasia, calling it progressive as it denies continuing or prolonging of an infant's suffering (Holt 2011). Better research work and studies have proved this idea of infant euthanasia to be wrong. . Euthanasia for babies and infants should not be an option. Even the elderly people, the ones that would, under few circumstances, accept euthanasia, are those who are unbearably ill and choose this to be their last resort.

Research has drawn out a fact that most of these dying patients will only accept euthanasia because they think they would be a burden on others or because they will be socially isolated. If this is the case with those who have a conscience to pick and choose for themselves and majority of them merely choose the ‘lethal way out’ since they fear social isolation, how can one call euthanasia ‘a legal way out’ for infants, those who can not even choose for themselves (Somerville, 2011). According to a research that was published on Reuters, dated July 7th, 2011, almost six of every thousand infants, in the United States die even prior to achieving the age of one year and most of these deaths occur in the period of first twenty-eight days.

However, the report suggests that over the past thirty years or so, doctors have an improved successful ratio for keeping alive premature babies and those with severe defects and ailments. Also, according to a new research, that was derived after evaluating infant deaths and relevant medical record of previous ten years, up to 400 deaths were calculated, whereas more than 7,000 were admitted in the intensive care units. Most of the deaths in babies were owing to the serious illnesses like cardiovascular problems and those groups of children who were born in a state of prematurity.

But the researchers were keen to know as to how these babies had died. Was it during the