Life News
The U.S. assisted-suicide movement pretends to want a limited legalization of assisted suicide to competent adults with a terminal illness. That’s not true. It’s just the expedient to persuade us to accept the premise that suicide or killing is an acceptable solution to human suffering.
If we ever do that — the jury is still out — then, the killing license thereby granted will not only expand way beyond the terminally ill, but will eventually also include children and the incompetent.
The evidence of this isn’t hard to find. Case in point. Pediatrics asked Dutch and American bioethicists whether they would support repealing all age limits for euthanasia in the Netherlands — as the Belgians already have. (Currently, euthanasia in the Netherlands is legal starting at age 12.)
If American advocates were serious about their espoused limits, they would be appalled by the existing Dutch law, and even more so by the Pediatrics hypothetical proposal.
But at least one prominent U.S. proponent — Margaret P. Battin, a favored source on the issue for the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets — is enthusiastically in favor of the Dutch doing away with all euthanasia age limits. From her comment:
In other words, children should be put out of the parents’ misery: That pediatricians can’t understand the difference between killing a healthy, curable child and hastening a bad death that is already in progress.
Except that Dutch law does not require a terminal illness to be killed. Indeed, the infanticide-allowing Groningen Protocol — it isn’t technically legal, but is virtually never punished — specifically does not require that the killed baby be otherwise dying. In fact, under the Protocol, serious disabilities justify infanticide. That allowing this practice would lead to wholesale killing of children from 1 to 12 years of age.
If we ever do that — the jury is still out — then, the killing license thereby granted will not only expand way beyond the terminally ill, but will eventually also include children and the incompetent.
The evidence of this isn’t hard to find. Case in point. Pediatrics asked Dutch and American bioethicists whether they would support repealing all age limits for euthanasia in the Netherlands — as the Belgians already have. (Currently, euthanasia in the Netherlands is legal starting at age 12.)
If American advocates were serious about their espoused limits, they would be appalled by the existing Dutch law, and even more so by the Pediatrics hypothetical proposal.
But at least one prominent U.S. proponent — Margaret P. Battin, a favored source on the issue for the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets — is enthusiastically in favor of the Dutch doing away with all euthanasia age limits. From her comment:
I generally support [the] change in Dutch law governing eligibility for euthanasia. Given that euthanasia is currently legal for infants <1 year of age and children and adults >12 years of age, I believe that opponents would have to show evidence that at least 1 and perhaps many of the following propositions are true if they are to persuade you [a hypothetical Dutch health minister] not to support the change in the law:Battin lists several propositions, including: That parents aren’t harmed by seeing their children suffer.
In other words, children should be put out of the parents’ misery: That pediatricians can’t understand the difference between killing a healthy, curable child and hastening a bad death that is already in progress.
Except that Dutch law does not require a terminal illness to be killed. Indeed, the infanticide-allowing Groningen Protocol — it isn’t technically legal, but is virtually never punished — specifically does not require that the killed baby be otherwise dying. In fact, under the Protocol, serious disabilities justify infanticide. That allowing this practice would lead to wholesale killing of children from 1 to 12 years of age.
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