In 2005 the Dutch  Groningen Protocol was published in the New England Journal of Medicine giving Dutch doctors the possibility to actively end the life of a newborn child with a 'severe' impairment. The protocol is based on 22 cases all concerning Spina Bifida. 

BOSK, IF's Dutch member organisation, wrote a letter to the Dutch government opposing against the Groningen Protocol and the proposal to institute a specific committee to judge if doctors handled carefully. To read the English translation of this letter, click  here.

IF also wrote a  resolution on Active Termination of Life of Newborn Children with Spina Bifida and/or Hydrocephalus and the Right to Live. This document was unanimously adopted by IF's Annual General Meeting on 30 June 2006 in Helsinki. 

At the same time, IF took the lead in drafting an EDF resolution on this matter concerning newborn children with all sort of disabilities. The  EDF resolution on Active Termination of Life of Infants with Impairments and the Right to Live was adopted by the EDF Annual General Assembly in May 2006.

The right to live is also specifically stated in the  UN Disability Convention which was adopted in December 2006.

 

In 2009 public interest lawyer James E. Wilkinson spent his summer working as an IF volunteer, researching international human rights arguments against euthanasia of children born with severe disabilities. The IF Position Paper on the Groningen Protocol examines the key factor for the Protocol and similar decision-making, the anticipated “quality of life” for an infant with impairments. The paper concludes that practices, like the Groningen Protocol, that counsel parents that it is best for babies to die because they have severe impairments, violate international human rights standards.

 

In January 2010 Dutch paediatricians suggested to extend the Groningen Protocol with the criterion "future unbearable suffering". They claim that newborns are now dying of starvation, because doctors fear prosecution when they end the life of a newborn with severe disabilities who is not suffering at birth, but will be in the near future. Both BOSK and IF both responded with press releases. Read the article that was published in the Belgium weekly Tertio.