Why the Groningen Protocol Should Be Rejected

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Abstract
Verhagen and Sauer's defense of their protocol is afflicted with an assortment of problems. For starters, they do not explain the role parents take when they provide surrogate consent for neonates. The primary moral relationship of family members and parents to a patient is one of obligation—namely, to protect and promote the patient's life, health, and other interests.8 The burden on parents of providing care is a legitimate ethical consideration, but it is secondary to parents' fiduciary obligations.9 Parents' decision-making rights are constrained by their fiduciary obligation to authorize medical treatment reliably expected to benefit the patient clinically.10 It is only when survival is not in the patient's health-related interest that killing the patient is consistent with the parents' fiduciary responsibility.11

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