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Belgium extends euthanasia to children

February 24th, 2014

by Paul Russell

After little more than a day of debate, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives passed a child euthanasia law on Thursday. The bill now awaits Royal assent from King Philippe.

The bill allows a child who can understand the seriousness of a request for euthanasia and who has his or her parents’ consent to be killed. There is no age limit. The bill is supposedly designed for children experiencing unrelievable pain and symptoms as a result of a terminal disease, yet from the experiences in both Belgium and The Netherlands over the past decade, the reach of the legislation is likely to expand.

Precisely where it might expand to is hard to imagine – this would seem to be legislation at the very bottom of the bad-apple barrel. But considering that few, if any, could have imagine the Belgians leaping so definitively over the moral cliff as they have done in recent times and especially this week, even sceptics must accept that there may yet be more to come.

And it is not as if the Belgians can point to the regime over this past decade as an example of responsible, well-managed and contained euthanasia within the intention and limits of the law. In a debate in Brussels late last year, one of the main protagonists for the original euthanasia law, Professor Jan Bernheim, admitted that there were flaws and abuses under the law. Somehow he seemed unconcerned that he should make such an admission.

That the law is a blunt instrument is well understood; yet still the Belgian parliament fell for the ‘stringent safeguard’ sleight of hand that has patently failed the Belgian people over the last 11 years. In a country where nearly a third of reported euthanasia cases show no record of request or consent and where only a little over half of all euthanasia acts are reported to the government Euthanasia Evaluation Committee (both required by law) and, where this committee has not referred one case for consideration by the authorities, even the semblance of safety and due regard for process is little more than a macabre joke on the Belgian people.

In fact, last month, in a joint interview with his friend and co-chair of the Euthanasia Evaluation Committee, Dr Wim Distelmans, Dr Marc Cosyns admitted that he had not reported the many euthanasia deaths he had been involved with. As Michael Cook observed at the time, “Even Wim Distelmans appeared to be bug-eyed in amazement at this admission. “But Marc,” he said gently, “you cannot ignore the criminal law.”

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