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 a patient to die but do
not actively kill them, is allowed in Switzerland.
In the U.S., the state of Oregon also grants assisted suicide requests for residents aged 18 or over with a terminal illness.
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life-sustaining support is withdrawn so they starve to death; the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 Foster, 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.
"The principle of euthanasia for children sounds
shocking at first, but it's motivated by compassion and protection,"
said John Harris, a professor of bioethics at the University of
Manchester. "It's unfair to provide euthanasia differentially to some
citizens and not to others (children) if the need is equal."
And Dr. Gerlant van Berlaer, a pediatric oncologist at
the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussels hospital, says the changes would
legalize what is already happening informally. He said cases of
euthanasia in children are rare and estimates about 10 to 100 cases in
Belgium every year might qualify.
"Children have different ways of asking for things but
they face the same questions as adults when they're terminally sick,"
van Berlaer said. "Sometimes it's a sister who tells us her brother
doesn't want to go back to the hospital and is asking for a solution,"
he said. "Today if these families find themselves (in that situation),
we're not able to help them, except in dark and questionable ways."
The change in the law regarding people with dementia is also controversial.
People now can make a written declaration they wish to
be euthanized if their health deteriorates, but the request is only
valid for five years and they must be in an irreversible coma. The new
proposal would abolish the time limit and the requirement the patient be
in a coma, making it possible for someone who is diagnosed with
Alzheimer's to be put to death years later in the future.
In the Netherlands, guidelines allow doctors to
euthanize dementia patients on this basis if they believe the person is
experiencing "unbearable suffering," but few are done in practice.
Dr. Patrick Cras, a neurologist at the University of
Antwerp, said people with dementia often change their minds about
wanting to die.
"They may turn into different people and may not have
the same feelings about wanting to die as when they were fully
competent," he said. "I don't see myself killing another person if he or
she isn't really aware of exactly what's happening simply on the basis
of a previous written request (to have euthanasia). I haven't fully made
up my mind but I think this is going too far."
Penney Lewis, a professor and medical law expert at
King's College London, agreed that carrying out euthanasia requests on
people with dementia once they start to worsen could be legally
questionable.
"But if you don't let people make decisions that will
be respected in the future, including euthanasia, what you do is
encourage people to take their own life while they have the capacity or
to seek euthanasia much earlier," she said.
In the past year, several cases of Belgians who weren't
terminally ill but were euthanized — including a pair of 43-year-old
deaf twins who were going blind and a patient in a botched sex change
operation — have raised concerns the country is becoming too willing to
euthanize its citizens. The newest proposals have raised eyebrows even
further.
"People elsewhere in Europe are focused on assisted
dying for the terminally ill and they are running away from what's
happening in Belgium," Lewis said. "If the Belgian statutes go ahead,
this will be a key boundary that is crossed."
Source 10tv.com
