WHEN NEWS of the Groningen Protocol surfaced in October, it was reported in the Grand Forks Herald,though I didn’t read of it, nor apparently did many others. The Groningen Protocol could have been the stuff of a fine presidential debate question, or a series of questions, but I doubt if any of the debate moderators or either of the presidential candidates had heard of it either. It is an intriguing title, but it should enter the history books as shorthand for an appalling brutality, so appalling in fact, that “The Groningen Protocol” could have been an entry on the agenda at the Wannsee Conference. The Groningen Protocol is the proposal of doctors in the Netherlands for the establishment of an “independent committee” charged with selecting babies and other severely handicapped or disabled people for euthanasia. The original article provides some of the key details: