From a Canadian Broadcasting Company news story...
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (CP) - The Dutch government intends to expand its current euthanasia policy, setting guidelines for when doctors may end the lives of terminally ill newborns with the parents' consent.
A letter outlining the new directives will be submitted to parliament for discussion by mid-October, but the new policy will not require a vote or change of law, Dutch Health Ministry spokeswoman Annette Dijkstra told The Associated Press on Thursday...
The change in Dutch policy is especially significant because it will provide the model for how the country treats other cases in which patients are unable to say whether they want to live or die, such as those involving the mentally retarded or elderly people who have become demented...
The government will establish a vetting commission, modelled on commissions currently in place for adult euthanasia, to determine whether conditions have been met in each case and to refer the case to public prosecutors if they do not. But unlike with adult euthanasia, prosecutors will not be bound to follow the commission's judgment that conditions have been satisfied.
"The public prosecutor's office will always make an independent decision," Dijkstra said. "The ending of a life must occur with the utmost of caution."
