Grandma's House

The Groningen Academic Hospital in the Netherlands proposed some guidelines last month for mercy killing of terminally ill newborns. That was bad enough. Then they made a shocking announcement: They were already doing it.

The hospital said it carried out four such mercy killings in 2003, and reported all cases to government prosecutors - but there have been no legal proceedings taken against them.

They murdered four babies, and because the babies were already going to die, nothing is to be done? This is sick and wrong.

Catholic organizations and the Vatican have reacted with outrage to Groningen's announcement, and U.S. euthanasia opponents contend that the proposal shows the Dutch have lost their moral compass.

"The slippery slope in the Netherlands has descended already into a vertical cliff," said Wesley J. Smith, a prominent California-based critic, in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Slippery slope indeed!

Since the introduction of the Dutch law, Belgium has also legalized euthanasia, while in France, legislation to allow doctor-assisted suicide is currently under debate. In the United States, the state of Oregon is alone in allowing physician-assisted suicide, but this is under constant legal challenge.

We have so allowed the value of human life to diminish that even children are not safe anymore. God created us to love one another, not pick and choose who can live or die.