A 17-year old became the first child to be euthanized under Belgian’s euthanasia law which was expanded in 2014 and became law in 2002. What is shocking is that journalists are NOW asking tough questions and Europeans are NOW questioning if this is the right move?!?!
To clarify: Dutch children at age sixteen and older can receive euthanasia without their parents’ consent, and children can be killed by doctors with parental consent starting at age twelve.
Children who cannot enter into legal contracts, get tattooed, or be licensed to drive a car may request—and receive—death.
Once you’ve created a system where you CAN kill something, then you quickly move to WHEN and never re-evaluate if you EVER SHOULD.
So, first we had parents getting a permission slip to kill babies who are NOT terminally ill, but may have Down Syndrome or an illness. Now we have Princeton University’s Peter Singer, who believes it should be acceptable kill babies because (in his view) they are not “persons,” coming to the Belgian law’s defense.
Singer believes that children do not attain “full moral status” until “after two years” of age—implying they too could be killed, only asks for mental evaluation and a moral question of killing is ever right or wrong. We only need to make sure they know what they are doing.
This culture of death is sickening and deplorable.