VRT public television said the incident involved an adolescent who was about to turn 18.
"Fortunately, there are very few children who are considered (for euthanasia) but that does not mean we should refuse them the right to a dignified death," Distelmans told the newspaper.
Since 2014, when its euthanasia legislation was amended, Belgium has been the only country in the world that allows terminally-ill children of any age to choose to end their suffering -- as long as they are conscious and capable of making rational decisions.
The Netherlands also allows mercy killings for children, but only for those aged over 12.
- 'Very controlled' -
(Via Drudge) https://www.yahoo.com/news/belgium-euthanises-terminally-ill-child-landmark-case-092154337.html
17 comments:
Posted using my phone.
No different than a cat or a dog.
If you had a choice to live a full life under mental retardation or a tragically short one with full faculties, which would it be?
And you can't say you'd prefer to die just before old age with many, many sporadic mental blocks along the way.
It dawned on me last night that I'm probably Jessica's charity case. The upshot is I'll not be dying young.
"Very controlled"
They said it at Auschwitz, too.
Seems all the Lefties are good at is murdering defenseless people.
What's it called when you keep someone suffering as long as possible against their will with no possibility of recovery? Is that love? Compassion? Respect?
What is it when you take another person's life?
Most people call it murder.
What is it called when you take someones life before God calls him naturally?
As ed says it is murder.
What's it called when someone suffers as long as possible against their will with no possibility of recovery?
Life.
Suffering is universal, most of it against the will of the person suffering, and much of it with no possibility of recovery.
Though the cats won't admit it, the dogs and cats humans euthanize in compassion are under the care of a higher order species. With humans the ones who are "keeping someone suffering", compassionately killing another human, or providing them with the means to commit suicide, are of the same order with the question of who in that order gets to decide what constitutes "suffering" up in the air.
Taking a life is very often not murder. Murder has a legal definition including against one's will.
Forcing someone to suffer as long as possible only to eventually die is ....
There is a reason we put our pets down when they have no future but pain and suffering. We care about them. We love them. We give them what we would want. We follow the golden rule. We even show similar concern for a injured animal that's not a pet. It's a matter of dignity and compassion that we afford living things that we imagine are like us in some way.
The reason we don't do it so easily with humans is that it seems a trespass of their right to self-determination, but if they choose it themselves, then the refusal to grant that request seems selfish and then a form of trespass itself, or even assault in my opinion.
Shorter bags. People are like pets.
Lazy, Troop. Challenge my points intelligently, if you can.
Force a person against their will to suffer until they die.
What is the justification for treating people worse than pets?
What if we can keep a terminal person alive for decades in pain, or even painlessly unconscious. Should we? Why? What if they ask to die? I know some Japanese doctor in 1939 China might do that, or a Nazi doc in Poland in the 40s, and I know why they might, but why would we?
In reality, we put people down all the time. I just sat with my mother as she died a few months ago. It took a couple days, and although nobody ever really discussed it, the incredibly compassionate end of life hospice nurses gradually administered morphine until she simply slowed to a halt and stopped breathing. She was absolutely late stage terminal with cancer, and unable to move or even speak before they started. No chance of living more than maybe a week at the most. She had a broken leg from falling in the hospital the previous week and numerous other issues that would have caused excruciating pain if she was more conscious. She told us repeatedly before-hand that she wanted to go when it got that bad. I can't imagine forcing her to suffer for no good reason. That was the only two choices: force her to suffer more, or help her, love her, respect her.
Some people may be stuck with this on principle, either personal or religious teaching.
You may know the story of Irene Gut Opdyke, who saved many Jews from the Nazis in 1940's Poland. A young, beautiful, devout, Catholic girl who was housekeeper to a Nazi officer. One of the things she did was hide 12 Jews, including a pregnant woman, under the 70 year-old Nazi officer's villa. One day he discovered them, and forced her to be his mistress as the only way to prevent him from calling the Gestapo on them. Being very devout, she asked her priest what to do, since this would be fornication and adultery with the married officer. The priest told her not to do it, her Catholic principles would mean she would be damned to hell. "I was expecting him to say 'Well, you had no choice, a human life is more important'," she recalled years later, "but instead he told me that I had to turn everyone out, that my mortal soul is more important than anything else. Well, I could not agree with this ..."
She violated her principles for something she believed worth it. She saved them from certain death, eventually move to the U.S., met them in Israel many years later, and is honored by Israel and the Vatican today.
In a far less serious way, that's also the reason many of us are going against our own principles and voting for Trump, even though it's not a comfortable choice. Principles, while very important, have to be evaluated in context and against all other principles that are involved.
Force a person against their will to suffer until they die.
Life, the act of living, forces a person against their will to experience suffering until they die.
Bagoh20's argument hinges on the definition of suffering and the right of humans to decide for other humans what constitutes tolerable and intolerable suffering for themselves or the person in their care.
I would not have chosen the suffering I've experienced. I barely made it through as it was. By believing suicide was not an option, enduring, and taking next step after next step I have muddled through and come out the other side of a darkness to a lighter place.
I've been in a system where the worth of another was pre-determined before it had a chance to be fully revealed. I've seen what happens to children who are tested and determined to have "learning disabilities" by others who believe themselves fit to judge those differences and set the "right" course of action for the supposed benefit of the child. I have stories of outcome that can't be shared here, but they are phenomenal in terms of what was predicted and decided by those who were "forcing" their own opinion of worth and and their idea of what was tolerable and intolerable "suffering" on others.
It is life itself that "forces" us to live as we are able, and life within the body that keeps us going until the end.
No, we don't "put people down all the time". Allowing a person to approach the end of life as pain free as possible without snuffing them out is not the same as making a conscious decision to terminate a life.
"Life, the act of living, forces a person against their will to experience suffering until they die."
So we are all living against our will? We want to die rather than endure normal day to day suffering?.
This is about people who know their death is imminent and painful with no up side to extending it, and who choose to decide what they see as a better end. I respect that decision. I have no right to impose my personal wishes on such a deeply personal decision.
It sounds like you're being deliberately thick and asking insincere questions.
"Forcing someone to suffer as long as possible and Force a person against their will to suffer until they die were the phrases used.
Given what's available for pain management these days, along with the number of caring, non-profit organizations devoted to accompanying a person through the final stages of life and providing compassionate care and attention for FREE (or through medicare), I'm unclear as to where the fear/belief that people are being FORCED by someone else to suffer until they die is coming from.
What type of heinous suffering are you talking about that hasn't already been endured by hundreds and thousands if not millions who've gone before?
I'll be meeting tomorrow with the Hospice of Michigan nurse and SW who are caring for my 95 year old mom. The amount of loving attention and professional care they offer and manage to provide amazes me. Yes, my mom would like to control her own life. She has also wished in the worst way that she could control her slide toward death and now that she's found she can't, she's had to accept help for the first time ever and something about that process is changing her in ways I couldn't have imagined or even hoped would happen. I'm thankful she wasn't offered a socially acceptable or easier way out. I'm also thankful they're able to help her control her pain and tend to her in ways that honor what life is left in her.
When RMPC's tell you that living is actually a tortuous path as you wait for death, you can rest assured that their entire ideology is nothing but a homage to death. There is zero dignity in dying. None. It's how live that matters, not when your last breath leaves your body.
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