Wesley Smith pereptuates the Groningen Protocol lie
The Discovery Institute's Wesley Smith is at it again. In his latest anti-assisted-dying tirade published by LifeNews.com, he promote lies about the Dutch Groningen Protocol, despite my published detailed analysis — of how that regulation actually works in practice — providing ample evidence to disprove Mr Smith's polemic theories.
Creationism…with lipstick
Wesley Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute (DI). That's the organisation that promotes ‘human exceptionalism’ (the concept that humans are theologically pre-eminent in the universe), opposes the foundations of evolution, and controversially attempted to have ‘intelligent design’ taught as science in Pennsylvania public schools. The Pennsylvania District Court tossed out DI's ‘intelligent-design-as-science’ argument on the basis that:
“Teaching intelligent design in public school biology classes violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and Article I, Section 3, of the Pennsylvania State Constitution) because intelligent design is not science and ‘cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.’” — Middle District Court of Pennsylvania
Intelligent design is, after all, merely creationism…with lipstick.
Mr Smith is also the fellow I've previously busted for promoting the false ‘suicide contagion’ theory about Oregon, and cherry-picking his way through other ‘evidence’ to fuel another of his polemics.
More nonsense — this time the Groningen Protocol
And now he's at it again. In his latest anti-assisted-dying tirade, he says this:
“Although technically illegal, infanticide happens regularly in Netherlands without legal consequence, and a bureaucratic checklist was published that determines which babies can be killed. Showing the direction of the current, the Groningen Protocol§ (as it is known) was published with all due respect and without criticism, in the New England Journal of Medicine.” — Wesley Smith
Mr Smith does nothing but parade astonishing ignorance and bias with this statement.
The facts
From my extensive and detailed research about the Groningen Protocol published in the Journal of Assisted Dying, Mr Smith ought to know that:
- Neonatal euthanasia occurs around the world whether it is regulated or not. It occurs, for example, in France, where there is no protocol and no adult assisted dying law, at a rate far higher than the Netherlands.
- The Groningen Protocol is lawful in the Netherlands and has recently been overhauled and further strengthened.
- Its provisions are considerably more strict than are those of the Dutch euthanasia Act for decisionally-competent minors and adults.
- In the nine years since the Protocol came into effect, there have been just two cases of neonatal euthanasia, both for cases of Herlitz type epidermolysis bullosa, a fatal and untreatable illness characterised by extreme internal and external blistering.
- That compares with twenty two cases, mostly in relation to spina bifida, in the nine years prior to the Protocol coming into effect.
- The Protocol was subject to considerable criticism from opponents when it was first published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Highly relevant too is that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology also argued in 2006 (not long after the original Groningen Protocol was published in NEJM) for neonatal euthanasia to be possible in extreme cases in the UK.
Not the only criticism of Mr Smith
Mr Smith has been criticised before by others for selectively using evidence and being:
"prepared to bend the truth to make a point, turn a stomach, and potentially radicalize a reader." — Matthew K. Wynia and Arthur Derse, Medscape
Perhaps Mr Smith doesn't care for the facts getting in the way of a good polemic? While he's entitled to his opinions, by repeatedly bending the truth and making statements contrary to the readily-available evidence, I argue that Mr Smith directly undermines any apparent 'authority' he claims for his musings.
Conclusion
The recurring pattern of resorting to misinformation reveals a lack of any real argument. I challenge Mr Smith to lift his game or retire his quill.
-----
§ Mr Smith links ‘Groningen Protocol’ to a blog published by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition which is run by Canadian Catholic Alex Schadenberg. That blog is in turn based on a blog published by the Catholic online blog Mercatornet. The Mercatornet blog is itself a reproduction of an article by Dr Felipe Vizcarrondo who was a Clinical Bioethicist at Georgetown University (a Catholic and Jesuit institution), and which was originally published in Linacre Quarterly, the journal of the USA Catholic Medical Association.