Belgium Considering New Euthanasia Law for Kids
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.
In the Netherlands, euthanasia is legal under specific circumstances and
for children over the age of 12 with parental consent. (There is an
understanding that infants, too, can be euthanized, and that doctors
will not be prosecuted if they act appropriately.) Elsewhere in Europe,
euthanasia is only legal in Luxembourg. Assisted suicide, where doctors
help patients to die but do not actively kill them, is allowed in
Switzerland.
In the U.S., the state of Oregon grants assisted suicide requests for
residents aged 18 or over with a terminal illness. Assisted suicide also
is allowed in the states of Washington, Vermont and Montana.
In Belgium, the ruling Socialist party has proposed the bill expanding
the right of euthanasia. The Christian Democratic Flemish party vowed to
oppose the legislation and to challenge it in the European Court of
Human Rights, if it passes. A final decision must be approved by
Parliament and could take months.
In the meantime, the Senate has heard testimony on both sides of the issue.
"It is strange that minors are considered legally incompetent in key
areas, such as getting married, but might (be able) to decide to die,"
Catholic Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard testified.
Leonard said alternatives like palliative sedation make euthanasia
unnecessary — and relieves doctors of the burden of having to kill
patients. In palliative sedation, patients are sedated and
life-sustaining support is withdrawn so they starve to death; the
process can take days.
But the debate has extended to medical ethicists and professionals far from Belgium.
Charles Fostr, who teaches medical law and ethics at Oxford University,
believes children couldn't possibly have the capacity to make an
informed decision about euthanasia since even adults struggle with the
concept.
"It often happens that when people get into the circumstances they had
so feared earlier, they manage to cling on all the more," he said.
"Children, like everyone else, may not be able to anticipate how much
they will value their lives if they were not killed."
There are others, though, who argue that because Belgium has already
approved euthanasia for adults, it is unjust to deny it to children.
