The Groningen Protocol

Michael Perry's response to my post on the Groningen Protocol omitted a key paragraph from the description of the protocol:

A parent's role is limited under the protocol. While experts and critics familiar with the policy said a parent's wishes to let a child live or die naturally most likely would be considered, they note that the decision must be professional, so rests with doctors. (Link)

Michael's question - "Wouldn't the Doctrine of Double Effect permit parents to authorize the administration of a sedative (e.g., morphine) to their child in order to relieve the child's unbearable pain--even, if necessary to relieve the pain, to the point where the child's respiratory system is depressed and the child dies . . . so long as the parents do not intend the death of the child but only the relief of the child's unbearable pain?" - thus strikes me as wholly irrelevant to the real issues raised by the Groningen Protocol.

Being a mere corporate lawyer and an adult convert doubtless handicaps me, but as far as I can tell Church teaching is pretty clear. Paragraph 2277 of the Catechism states:

Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.

And Catechism paragraph 2279 explains:

The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable.

On November 12, the Catholic News Agency reported:

Receiving participants in the international conference on palliative cures at the Vatican this morning, Pope John Paul II issued strong words against the practice of euthanasia as a means to alleviate suffering, saying it is “motivated by sentiments of a poorly understood compassion” and that it “supresses” rather than redeems the person from suffering. ...

The Pope underscored that administering painkillers "must be proportional to the intensity and cure of pain, avoiding every form of euthanasia" by giving a quantity of medicine that would cause death.

Doubtless I'm missing something. Until somebody explains what I'm missing by reference to clear teaching in the Magisterium, however, I will maintain that the analogy to Nazi doctors is entirely apt. (X-posted at ProfessorBainbridge.com)