Groningen Protocol Update

Are we still on the slippery slope? The Beeb reports, you decide:

The French senate has approved a law granting terminally ill patients the right to end their life.

The bill allows doctors to stop giving medical assistance when it "has no effect other than maintaining life artificially".

It had already been approved by the lower house of parliament.

Supporters of the legislation say it stops short of permitting euthanasia, because it does not allow the doctor actively to end a patient's life.

They include the conservative government, the opposition Socialists and the Roman Catholic Church.

I'd have to see the law...but I'd have to say at the moment this still looks like the goal is killing people who are still alive.

Insta-Update

Looks like the Groningen Protocol is coming to California too. WorldNetDaily:

Opponents of California's physician-assisted suicide bill warned during testimony to a sharply divided legislative panel that the state could find itself in the position of the Netherlands, where a similar law has led to involuntary euthanasia.

The measure cleared its first hurdle Tuesday, passing the Assembly Judiciary Committee by a 5-4 vote. Currently, Oregon is the only state that allows doctors to prescribe medication to hasten the deaths of terminally ill adults. But the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on a challenge to the law by the Bush administration.
...
Modeled on Oregon's law, the California measure would make assisted suicide available to mentally competent adults diagnosed with less than six months to live.

The patient would have to orally ask his doctor twice for the fatal drugs, more than two weeks apart, in addition to a written request.

Mark's Remarks

Those caveats are all well and good, but what happens when a person who is NOT terminal and can follow sensory images and make noises but not feed themselves is euthanized because their family does not want to put them through the pain of having a "poor quality of life?" What happens when that goes to the courts, will the caveats protecting life be upheld? Oh, wait....never mind.....I can feel the heels slipping down the slope....