Culture of Death: Belgium Eyes Child Euthanasia

Since euthanasia was legalized in Belgium in 2002, Belgians have been euthanized for blindness, depression, anorexia nervosa, and a botched sex-change operation.

 

Now, Belgians want to allow euthanasia for children.

 

Under legislation currently being debated in the Belgian Parliament, terminally ill or suffering children under 18 could be euthanized if they request it, their parents consent to it, and an expert deems the child capable of understanding their decision.

 

The bill is widely supported and is expected to become law.
 

‘Kids Never Choose Death’
Supporters of Belgium’s proposed euthanasia law say it is necessary and compassionate, but critics say it is only the next phase in what they call “a culture of death.”

 

Euthanasia is now considered medical therapy in Belgium.

 

Not only do two-thirds of Belgians favor the new euthanasia bill, but in a controversial poll, three quarters said it would be OK for parents to euthanize their sick children without the child’s consent.

 

“The child does not have the maturity to get married or to buy alcohol or to buy cigarettes if he is 14. Now we are saying that because he is suffering, he might have the possibility to ask for euthanasia,” Carine Boucher, with the European Center for Bio-ethics in Brussels, said.

 

Michel De Keukelaere, a law student and the founder of the March for Life in Brussels said, “Children never choose to die. I don’t believe a child under 18 who is sick and who is ill wants to die.”

 

“Who will give the suggestion to the child that one of the solutions is euthanasia?” Boucher asked. “A child doesn’t know what euthanasia is. A child doesn’t know what death is.”

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Culture of Death: Belgium Eyes Child Euthanasia

Arguments in favour of assisted suicide rely on misinformation

The case of Ruth Goodman is a perfect example of how confused, illogical, uninformed and sometimes untruthful many proponents of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide are.

Goodman killed herself on Feb. 2, with no assistance, at the age of 91 in her Vancouver home, in a bid to change physician-assisted suicide laws. If you’re scratching your head right now and saying, “huh?” don’t be alarmed, you are thinking clearly and are not losing your mind.

In short, Goodman’s final act makes no sense. The reason this woman’s last act is so strange is because everyone already has the right to die. Suicide is not illegal.

“I am a 91-year-old woman who has decided to end my life in the very near future,” wrote Goodman, who had worked at an abortion clinic and was involved with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

“I do not have a terminal illness; I am simply old, tired and becoming dependent, after a wonderful life of independence,” she wrote.

“By the time people read this, I will have died. I am writing this letter to advocate for a change in the law so that all will be able to make this choice.”

To reiterate, everyone already can make “this choice.” It’s not illegal to kill yourself. No laws have to be changed. Anyone and everyone can commit suicide as long as they don’t endanger anyone else while doing so.

What so-called right-to-die activists are actually seeking is the right for people to help other people to die – they want the right to kill other people and to have other people kill them, making legal what has been illegal in most sane places, since time immemorial.

In countries where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal – like the Netherlands – it is documented that thousands of people have been killed involuntarily by their physicians without their consent, even when a full recovery was possible.

Alas, this illogical and discordant story about Goodman has garnered much media attention, and that in itself is disturbing when you consider another story about euthanasia that has not received any mainstream media attention.

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Arguments in favour of assisted suicide rely on misinformation

LETTER: State physician-assisted-suicide law dangerous

Our state government is considering a bill (S.B. No. 48) to make physician-assisted suicide legal.

This bill, introduced by Sen. Edward Meyer, is a dangerous precedent of the codification of state sanctioned euthanasia. Albeit it is self-inflicted, it is euthanasia nonetheless.

To give this power to the government is to surrender an inalienable right that should only be held by the individual.

I do not claim that those suffering from a painful and incurable disease should not be allowed the dignity of a peaceful and painless passing. However, I do deny the need of our state government, or any government, to make such a law. Such issues of life and of death are the sole purview of the individual.

Many people are weary of the “slippery slope” argument because of its misuse in the debates on gay marriage. But, if this bill is passed then we would be taking that first step toward state sanctioned euthanasia.

Sure, one could argue that cooler heads would prevail and that the brakes would firmly be applied before we hit such a grotesque landmark.

However, consider Belgium, which is now considering an expansion of a physician-assisted suicide law to include the mentally impaired and children. Belgium, a post-industrial, modern society, secular and liberal, entertains the idea that it would be acceptable to make the most vulnerable members of their society candidates for euthanasia.

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LETTER: State physician-assisted-suicide law dangerous