Teenagers should be given the right to medically assisted suicide and the parents of terminally ill younger children should be able to choose euthanasia under proposals from members of Belgium’s coalition government.
The plans to extend rules allowing doctors to perform euthanasia on terminally ill people suffering “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain” comes amid heated Belgian debate on the issue.
Under existing Belgian laws, in place since 2002, patients, other than newborn babies, must be over 18 to qualify for assisted suicide, a situation that Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium Liberals, wants changed.
Wow. I guess the Belgians have realized Hitler had the right idea all the time. Another by-product of moral relativism. May God have mercy on us all.
I too pray mercy for our souls. What scares me is this obviously has not taken into account the brain development of teenagers. Any parent of a teen will tell you there is no such thing as a moderate emotion when your teen is going through a break up or school trouble or rift in a friendship. It is all the end of the teen’s world. They often do not see that the incident that is causing them so much grief and pain is temporary. Add illegal drug and alcohol use into the mix and you can imagine the consequences.
Paula, I was thinking the same thing re: teenage psychology. It’s like they’re practically encouraging every teenager to consider suicide as a standard option for emotional distress.
Test
Test again.
So a 13-year-old girl with a bad body image should have the right to kill herself? What is wrong with those people?
A microcosm of Europe itself, this is, a culture and society that has lost the will to live. Not content to simple vanish through the failure to propogate itself through the birth of children and the extermination of same via elective abortion, it now seeks to eradicate the next generation through government-sponsored suicide.
We have arrived at PD James’ “Children of Men” without actually having the medical issue of male sterility. Europe is making itself obsolete.
[blockquote] and old people suffering from such severe dementia that they are unable to choose for themselves [/blockquote]
Do not grow old in Belgium!
My mother had dementia — and certainly could not have chosen for herself. But her life had infinite value until the Lord decided it was time for her to move onwards and upwards.
And the horrors of:
[blockquote] Euthanasia is currently permitted on infants and more than half of the Belgian babies who die before they are 12 months old have been killed by deliberate medical intervention.
In 16 per cent of cases parental consent was not considered. [/blockquote]
[i] Parental consent was not considered [/i] Why on earth not!!!!!
[i]Why on earth not!!!!! [/i]
Because the right to die is a short step from the duty to die.
If you can kill unborn children to harvest their stem cells, because they are presumed to be deformed, or just because they are inconvenient, why would a simply fact like exiting the birth canal change anything?
The right to choose to kill, whether at the beginning of life or the end, is the power to kill. And power corrupts. The slope really is slippery. Thirty years ago it was first trimester fetuses; you know, the ones who couldn’t live anyway. Now we suction out the brains and crush the skulls of almost born late term babies. Some voices would protect the right to kill late term babies who accidentally survive other forms of late term abortion.
Pity was the first motivation (or excuse) in each case, demonstrating, again, the tremendously destructive power that pity has. Why would you expect euthanasia to follow any path other than that of abortion?
Holland has had the The Groningen Protocol since 2005, I believe, its agenda for it forced by Eduard Verhagen, M.D., J.D. He deliberately broke the law for years, euthanizing those whom he would, including those born with cleft pallet or spina bifida. I heard him speak on NPR, back in 2004. And be aware, it is the doctors making the decisions, not the parents! We cannot afford to remain ignorant of these issues; even now, Oregon is swiftly becoming the Holland and Belgium of our nation.
Kyrie eleison.
T