Good grief. In less than one week, the op/ed page of the LA Times has been used twice as a platform to push child euthanasia.
Pay very careful attention: These articles demonstrate that all the soothing bromides from assisted suicide advocates about how “aid in dying” here will be reserved to the competent, adult terminally ill–only self-administered–are bunk!
Megan Daum swallows the nonsense that is always pitched when legalizing euthanasia about how ”strict guidelines” will protect against abuse–this, even though they never hold once euthanasia becomes popularly accepted. From her column:
Contrary to paranoid visions, children in Belgium won’t be able to ask for life-ending medication by merely hitting a nurse’s call button. They must be suffering from pain that doctors have deemed truly unmanageable. They must get approval from their parents and their medical team, and they must be evaluated by psychologists. They must make the request several times and demonstrate that they understand what they’re asking for. And, of course, they must be close to death anyway.
Close to death doesn’t excuse killing. Also worth noting, the law doesn’t define how close the child must be–and thus, that will be decided by the death doctor.
And what does unbearable suffering mean? Could it mean the child’s anguish at seeing her parents grief? In the Netherlands, the suffering of the parents is now allowed by the Dutch Medical Association as a consideration in euthanizing babies–this, even though infanticide remains technically murder under Dutch law. How’s that for “guidelines” being ignored?
Besides, there is no way these restrictions will hold. They are cruel, requiring a child to write a note asking to be killed. That is so cold, you watch how soon it will be ignored.
Moreover, the law was instituted in the first place because doctors were already killing sick children even though it was clearly illegal.
What do legal restrictions have to do with anything when the overriding meme is that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering?
Indeed, Belgium shows how fast the euthanasia stain spreads: We have seen joint euthanasia of elderly couples, due to a botch sex change operation, and coupling the killing of the mentally ill with organ harvesting. The same expansion will happen with children too–and eventually the law will be amended to accommodate the actual practice.
The subtitle is worth commenting on:
Its new euthanasia law just might spark a much-needed conversation in the death-squeamish U.S.
Please. It seems that all we do these days is discuss death and promote suicide. What we are–still–is killing squeamish, and may we ever be so!
Belgium does show the truth about euthanasia and the consequences of a culture embracing the culture of death. In the end, it is never enough.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
