Posted on 02/14/2014 3:23:08 PM PST by xzins
The decision by Belgium's parliament to legalize euthanasia for children of any age has opponents warning the European nation has crossed a dangerous threshold.
Pro-life protestors were out in force before the vote, with Marie Schwarz, a mother of four, saying that euthanasia is a "failure."
"It is death," she said. "It is not a pain killer."
Supporters called Belgium's euthanasia law necessary and compassionate. But critics said it's a dangerous, slippery slope.
Under the new law, if both parents agree their child should be killed, three doctors and a psychologist would then have to certify that the child was aware of the consequences of his or her decision. The child would have to be under medical care.
"We are talking about children that are really at the end of their life, and it's not that they have months or years to go. They will, their life will end anyway," Dr. Gerlant Van Berlaer, chief of clinic for pediatric critical care at the University Hospital of Brussels, explained.
"And the question they ask us is, 'Well, don't make me go in a terrible, horrifying way. Let me go now while I'm still a human being and while I'm still, while I still have my dignity,'" he said.
But critics asked how anyone could gauge a child's capacity for discernment in such a situation.
And news reports showed that when it comes to euthanasia, some Belgian doctors ignore the law and do what they think is best.
"I think the fact that Belgium is passing this law should sound as a warning bell to other countries which might be tempted to legalize euthanasia," professor Michel Ghins, co-founder of Euthanasie Stop, warned. "Because once the step has been made it's very difficult to prevent all kinds of extensions to take place."
The Catholic Church staged "a day of fasting and prayer" in protest.
"We are opening a door that nobody will be able to close," Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels Andre Leonard warned.
Evidently these people have some new set of criteria for "human being" because you can apparently lose your humanity if you don't meet their standard.
Completely false set of options. Belgium is a country with excellent resources for hospice/palliative care. Nobody has to die in pain.
A doctor in my parish --- Dr. Jim Holt, th Associate Director of the ETSU Family Medicine Residency --- put it this way on our parish newsletter:
" Assisted suicide is also a good example of inaccurate public debate: if a person dies in terrible pain, that is a failure of his medical team. Assisted suicide is not needed to keep people out of intolerable pain, despite what proponents say! Most doctors do not have good training in management of severe symptoms at the end of life, but they can call in hospice.
" I am board-certified in Geriatrics, so I usually co-manage with hospice. It is rare for a dying patient to have severe pain which cannot be managed with pain medicines, including bone pain, nerve-damage pain, and/or gut pain—each of these requires different medicines from narcotics. That rare dying patient who still has severe pain can be put in a medical coma until natural death."
Why do euthanasia doctors lie about this? Why do their colleagues permit them to get away with the lies? Why do children's parents believe them?
Why do surveys show that some 70% of Belgians think medically murdering terminally ill children is the right way to go??
The ‘good Doctor’ from Brussels is projecting, onto the children of Belgium, his own feelings about Euthanasia. He should consider this argument using one of his own children as an example. He might have a different opinion.
The new cure for the child in terrible suffering with ADHD....
Since no one has said it, Hitler’s first victims were the disabled children. History repeating.
I wonder if this “solution” will be applied among the Muslim “citizens” of Belgium. Or will it just be those of the European stock?
Just a little “genetic cleansing”. Got to make room for the new “residents”.
Fire up the ovens!
I guess Belgian kids better mind their parents. /sarc
The kids diagnosed with ADHD are probably the intelligent boys.
Late term abortion
If he has any.....
OMG.
This is sick.
The West is surely will end soon as other nations adopt this.
Post-natal abortion.
God will not overlook such monsters. There are those who have outsmarted God.
It's all the same to me. Just the culture of death and the evil one...no spirituality, all physical focus. Making everything about the body.
That was about every third day when I was a kid...
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