The Associated PressNov. 1, 2013
Should children have the right to ask for their own deaths?
Should children have the right to ask for their own deaths?
In Belgium, where euthanasia is now legal for people over the age of 18, the government is considering extending it to children — something that no other country has done. The same bill would offer the right to die to adults with early dementia. Advocates argue that euthanasia for children, with the consent of their parents, is necessary to give families an option in a desperately painful situation. But opponents have questioned whether children can reasonably decide to end their own lives.
Belgium is already a euthanasia pioneer; it legalized the practice for adults in 2002. In the last decade, the number of reported cases per year has risen from 235 deaths in 2003 to 1,432 in 2012, the last year for which statistics are available. Doctors typically give patients a powerful sedative before injecting another drug to stop their heart.
Only a few countries have legalized euthanasia or anything approaching it. "Children, like everyone else, may not be able to anticipate how much they will value their lives if they were not killed."
"Children have different ways of asking for things, but they face the same questions as adults when they're terminally sick," van Berlaer said. "Sometimes it's a sister who tells us her brother doesn't want to go back to the hospital and is asking for a solution," he said. "Today if these families find themselves (in that situation), we're not able to help them, except in dark and questionable ways."
MORE: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/belgium-considering-new-euthanasia-law-kids-8C11512194
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