Read it all. Also an AP story is now there it begins this way:
Belgian lawmakers have voted overwhelmingly to extend the country’s euthanasia law to children under 18.
The 86-44 vote Thursday in the House of Representatives, with 12 abstentions, followed approval by the Senate last December.
The law empowers children with terminal ailments who are in great pain to request to be put to death if their parents agree and a psychiatrist or psychologist find they are conscious of what their choice signifies. The law was opposed by some Belgian pediatricians and the country’s leading Roman Catholic cleric.
The irony. The morality of the Third Reich has triumphed.
This is hugely sad. When the whole issue of euthanasia is discussed, people always think of an adult with a terminal illness. Then once it is introduced it begins to encompass the mentally ill eg those suffering severe depression; people with handicaps (eg paralysis following spinal injury) who are not terminally ill; and now children. Moreover, the nations that accept this are also those that fail to develop sophisticated hospice systems. Very, very sad.
Oh, I suspect that it will be even worse than that. It will go from being allowed, to being expected, to being “why the hell are you letting her suffer?” to being legally required.
Human beings will be on the same level as cats.
Which is what some actually want, and believe to be moral.
How easy is the slide from civilization to barbarism!