Since 2007, all pregnant women in the Netherlands are offered an ultrasound in the 20th week of their pregnancy. This specific moment was chosen because the sonogram will then show the sex of the baby, but also because birth defects can be detected at a stage where abortion is still legal. If the foetus is diagnosed with Down syndrome, hydrocephalus, split spine of cleft lip, parents have until week 24 to determine whether they would rather not let their baby be born.

Data released this week, show the number of abortions between week 20 and 24 have doubled from 140 in 2006 to 276 in 2008. The new statistics triggered the orthodox Christian party ChristenUnie to call for postponing the ultrasound until after the point in the pregnancy where abortions are no longer legal. If that won’t get support in parliament, the party wants to ban abortions after 18 weeks.

This issue is just one of many currently debated by politicians, medical professionals, ethicists and patient advocacy organisations in the Netherlands and elsewhere regarding abortion. Where do we draw the line when it comes to birth defects? Should parents be allowed to decide against having a baby if doctors can see early on that is will be autistic? And if they should, why not abort a girl when they would rather have a boy?

What do you think? Is it up to the government to decide when and why people can have an abortion? Or should it always be the choice of the mother to decide whether or not she wants to continue a pregnancy and should she have all knowledge available to make that decision?

European nightlife is dead – at least so a lot of people think. NRC International will be examining the true state of affairs in a number of European cities, including Rotterdam, Paris and Belgrade, over the coming days in a series written by our correspondents.

The first instalment, published on Wednesday, deals with parallel grassroots movements in both Amsterdam and Paris. In these cities, revellers have cited the strict enforcement of sometimes petty rules as major buzzkill.

In Amsterdam, the ban on drinking alcoholic beverages standing up drew scorn and ridicule from many. (No, you are not supposed to drink it lying down, sitting in a chair puts you well within the limits of the law.) But the rules, of course, are intended to protect residents from revellers that may get a little bit too boisterous after one too many.

How do you feel about the measures taken in several European cities to make the nightlife safer, but at the same time more boring? Are laws a necessary evil, or do you support the grassroots movements fight the party-averse measures? Do you feel you can still paint the town red or have the restrictions affected you?

A report published by a Dutch government think tank last week levelled some heavy charges at foreign aid policy. The 352-page report labelled Dutch development aid policy “pretentious” and argued its contribution to the development of poor countries was modest at best. The report also made the case for limiting foreign aid spending to ten countries. Currently, the Dutch give out aid to four times as many developing nations.

Politicians were quick to find support for their own positions in the pages of the report. Foreign aid minister Bert Koenders for instance, said the report would help him in “modernising foreign aid”. Arend Jan Boekestijn, a long time critic of development aid and a former member of parliament for the VVD, painted the report as an argument for cutting back on government spending on foreign aid, which has long stood at 0.7 percent of GDP.

What do you think? What makes sustainable development aid policy and how much should rich nations like the Netherlands spend on it?

The Balkenende government seems to have narrowly averted a full-blown crisis by admitting that “in hindsight” it could have done better in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The admission did not come easily, following a day of tense deliberations between government parties.

The special committee of inquiry, chaired by retired supreme court judge, Willibrord Davids, did not mince words in its description of the political failures that paved the way to the invasion of Iraq.  Its conclusions resonate with critical appraisals of the decision-making process leading up to the war in the UK and the US: politicians based their views on poor intelligence data and they deliberately misconstrued the little information they did get.

The legal case for an invasion was exaggerated, with precedents from international law misinterpreted through wishful thinking. After a limited number of executives decided to go through with the war, little room was left for debate. These failures had varying political consequences in different countries.

Not all Western countries fell victim to what might be labeled groupthink. France and Germany, notably, refused to support the American invasion of Iraq, which makes the question why the decision making process in other countries had such a different outcome all the more relevant.

What do you think? What could the Netherlands have done better in the run-up to the invasion? Has Balkenende done plenty by admitting some fault, or has his position been so badly damaged that he should step down?

Last Tuesday, Iceland’s Olafur Ragnar Grimsson vetoed a bill that would have required his nation to repay the Netherlands the 1.8 billion euros in  damages it incurred after IceSave went bankrupt.

The initial reaction in the Netherlands was harsh. The Dutch minister of finance, Wouter Bos, said he was “very disappointed.” Dutch European parliamentarian Hans van Baalen even threatened to block the nation’s entry into the European Union.

Since then, voices have risen urging we should not be too hard on the smallest Nordic country. Eva Joly, a Dutch colleague of Van Baalen, has said that Iceland risks becoming severely impoverished if the Dutch stick with their demands of full repayment of damages at 5.5 percent interest. She also called it unfair that the Icelandic population at large had to pay for the mistakes of a handful of banks.

What do you think? Is it unfair to expect the Icelandic population to repay a debt incurred by others? Or would a waiver of the debt provide an unwelcome precedent?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Friday failed, but he did succeed in taking 80 grammes of explosive PETN powder on board. The question being raised in the Netherlands is whether he should have been subjected to a so-called millimetre wave scan before boarding at Schiphol airport. The Amsterdam airport bought equipment that uses waves to scan the outlines of passengers’ bodies in 2007.

A millimetre wave scan creates an image that resembles a photo negative of a person’s body. The package of pentaerythritol tetranitrate under the Nigerian’s clothes would have been detected if this had been used.

But the equipment has been standing idle for over two years now. Schiphol is only allowed to test it with passenger’s express consent and the European Commission has suspended the implementation of the technology, which was originally scheduled for next year, saying it needed more time to review its pros and cons.

The technology is controversial because the scan is so detailed it makes a person look naked on the security staff’s screen. Politicians in the Netherlands have been debating the issue of privacy since Schiphol purchased the equipment. Last year Naïma Azough, a member of parliament for the Dutch Green party, challenged justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin to take the scan himself and prove it would not show his genitals. She also raised questions about who had access to the scans and if those of men and women would be reviewed by people of their own sex, as is the case with body searches.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, right-wing liberals and Christian democrats on Monday demanded the technology be implemented immediately. Christian democrat Sybrand van Haersma Buma dismissed the privacy claims as “tall stories”.

What do you think? Has the attempted attack aboard NW 253 made it clear airport security can’t be too tight? Or should scans remain voluntary to protect passengers’ privacy? And would you personally prefer a body scan or a body search before boarding a plane?

Americans know it as the Pottery Barn Rule: you break it, you own it. But when it comes to health insurance, everybody foots the bill for those who are the least careful with their bodies, in the Netherlands anyway.

A question recently raised by the chairman of the Dutch association of medical insurers, whether people who smoke, drink and overeat until they are ill are entitled to the benefits of collective heath insurance has led to strong debate.

One of the arguments for a ‘Pottery Barn’ system is people may be more motivated to improve their lifestyle if it costs them, financially.
But medical specialist, physicial Frank Visseren amongst them, have now come out against penalising people for unhealthy lifestyles. His argument? It just doesn’t work. According to Visseren, people are far more motivated to quit smoking, moderate their  drinking or diet and exercise when they feel they can draw on support from medical staff and friends – rather than be punished for failing to meet standards they might feel are out of reach.

What do you think? Are you sick of paying for the medical treatment of people who have only themselves to blame for their condition? Or do you think we should all share in the burden of people suffering, even if they have brought it upon themselves?

Dutch youngsters today are materialistic thrill seekers who feel uninvolved with society at large, a new survey-based book, Limitless Generation, claims.

Young people have become increasingly obsessed by looks, status, comfort, thrills and money over the last decade. Hedonism and individualism are on the rise while interest in society at large and the environment are waning, sociologists Frits Spangenberg and Martijn Lampert found. They based their findings on 25 years of research and thousands of hours worth of interviews.

At the same time kids are looking for guidance, the study found. “School offers young people less and less structure. And exerting authority has become taboo for parents,” said Spangenberg. “Adults have come to see children as partners at the negotiating table.

What do you think? Is it just a case of every new generation of adults complaining about “kids these days”? Or has there been a fundamental change in the way young people conduct themselves in the world? If so, whose fault is it? Are the parents to blame?

In 2002 the Netherlands adopted the Euthanasia Act, thereby legalising a 20-year-old convention of not prosecuting doctors who practise assisted suicide under certain criteria. The law applies to physically as well as mentally ill patients, on the condition that their suffering is “hopeless and unbearable” and no reasonable alternative exists.

But while euthanasia has become accepted for physically ill patients, it is still very much a taboo for psychiatric patients. Of the 2,331 cases reviewed by euthanasia review committees 2008 only two involved psychiatric patients.

“The suffering of psychiatric patients can be just as intolerable as many forms of physical suffering,” Eugène Sutorius, a professor of criminal law and a former president of the Right to Die-NL foundation, told a symposium this week. “But psychiatrists just don’t want to do it. They’re afraid of the paperwork, they’re afraid of being prosecuted and they’re afraid of death.”

What do you think? Should psychiatrists be more reticent than regular doctors in granting patients’ requests for assisted suicide? Or is it cruel to deny them that right, knowing they might try to kill themselves anyway?