Holland continues its peculiar ways

Holland to allow ‘baby euthanasia’ - Sunday Times - Times Online

Seems that Holland, for some obscure reason, always wants to be on the cutting edge of legalised euthanasia.

While this is surely a topic that is fraught with difficulty (the suffering of new born babies having the added sadness of the child never having enjoyed any part of life,) the moral reasoning about it is still often sloppy, I think. For example, from the above story, a pre euthanasia doctor says:

“At some point,” said Verhagen, observing this battle for life, “we will have to decide whether it is pointless from a medical point of view and whether we should not prolong treatment.”

This, he agreed, was a form of “passive euthanasia” practised in countries all over the world. But from a moral point of view, he argued, it was no different from administering a lethal dose of morphine, since the result of withdrawing treatment would also eventually be death.

“Is there any difference between watching someone drowning without doing anything and pushing them into the lake?” he asked.

Well, I would have thought the common sense answer is "yes". Both are bad, but initiating the drowning is worse than not initiating it, surely? And it seems a somewhat flawed analogy anyway.

The doctor also causes me a little bit of concern when he talks as follows:

“It is in some ways beautiful,” said Verhagen, describing the moment when severely pain-racked children relax for the first time since birth. “But it is also extremely emotional and very difficult,” he added.

The main issue I suppose is the question of when is appropriate for the State to sanction not just the withdrawal of treatment and the provision of pain relief regardless of its shortening of life, but also the administration of drugs with the intent of causing immediate death.

The non-religious do not readily accept that the different intention makes the acts morally different. I suppose that seems too "metaphysical" for them. But if intentions are to be ignored here, are they to also be irrelevant to criminal law generally, and our common sense feelings of what is right and wrong?