Belgium, 15 June 2013: Belgium might become the first country in the world to allow
seriously ill children the right to choose to die if lawmakers in the Federal Parliament
decide to expand on the already controversial euthanasia laws.
While the Netherlands
has also stopped prosecuting doctors who perform euthanasia on minors, as long as
strong medical guidelines are followed, Belgium could become the first country in
the developed world to openly embrace the practice, according to a report in Belgian
daily newspaper Der Morgen, translated by French news agency Presseurop.
Current
laws in Belgium allow euthanasia only on people over 18 years of age. The new law
would apparently allow doctors to decide on a case-by-case basis if the child is mature
enough to make a decision on his or her life, but they will also consider whether
a child's condition truly is hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.
"The idea
is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing
cases we must find a response to," Socialist party leader Thierry Giet said in a statement
after the law was first proposed late last year.
Statistics showed that 1,333
people were euthanized in the European country in 2011, accounting for about one percent
of all deaths.
"The lessons are clear. Once you relax the law on euthanasia
or assisted suicide steady extension will follow as night follows day," Peter Saunders,
director of campaign group Care Not Killing, has said.
Christian groups, including
the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, are getting ready to protest this new proposal.
"We
expressed our strong reservations regarding the decriminalization of euthanasia as
early as 2002," said Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels Andre-Joseph Leonard. "First
and foremost because we have excellent palliative care available today, and because
we can rely on sedation, to the extent strictly necessary."
De Morgen reportedly
noted, "On both sides of the linguistic border, liberals and socialists appear to
agree on the fact that age should not be regarded as a decisive criteria in the event
of a request for euthanasia."
According to 2011 statistics, about 49 percent
of the Belgium population identifies as Christian, where Roman Catholicism has traditionally
dominated, but as many as 31 percent said they are non-religious.
A 2011 report
by The Christian Post found that almost every major Christian denomination is officially
opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide; however beliefs differ on an individual
basis. Source: UCAN