Friday, June 6, 2014

"Mommy, this lollipop they gave me at the hospital tastes funny"

The article, with my commentary:
Belgian Parliament Posed To Approve Child Euthanasia Law
The Belgian Federal Parliament is reportedly about to expand its controversial "right to die" policies to include access to euthanasia for some gravely ill children.
A consensus among members of the legislative body has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop
If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books allowing the practice, although the Netherlands has since 2005 not prosecuted doctors who perform euthanasia on some minors as long as the doctors act in accordance with a set of medical guidelines dubbed the Groningen Protocol...

The Belgian child-killing will no doubt resemble the Dutch protocol, which is used almost exclusively against children with spina bifida. The pretext for killing the kids is that they "suffer".

None of these children suffer pain on a regular basis. I've cared for kids with these problems for thirty years. Many are now adults, many are married, many have gone to college. They have handicaps, and when they are young they are sometimes a financial and social burden to adults who would rather be relieved of the burden.

Peter Deconinck, president of the Belgian medical ethics organization Reflectiegroep Biomedische Ethiek, has come out in support of expanding the practice to minors, as has the head of the intensive care unit of Fabiola Hospital in Brussels, who testified before a Belgian Senate committee. 
"We all know that euthanasia is already practiced on children," he told the committee. "Yes, active euthanasia." 
Though a majority of members of the Belgian Parliament are reportedly ready to pass the child euthanasia bill, Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard and many of the nation's Catholics are staunchly opposed to any expansion of legalized euthanasia. 
"We expressed our strong reservations regarding the decriminalization of euthanasia as early as 2002," Leonard said last week, according to Der Morgen. "First and foremost because we have excellent palliative care available today, and because we can rely on sedation, to the extent strictly necessary." 
The Christian Democrats may vote against the child euthanasia law, but New Flemish Alliance party members have indicated that they are willing to back the bill in order to ensure its passage, according to Der Morgen.

Few handicapped children suffer pain regularly. And no patient-- even the terminally ill-- need suffer intractable pain or fear.We have an armamentarium of narcotics and anxiolytics. Pain can always be relieved.

Euthanasia is simply killing. It is a form of abandonment-- disposal-- of people who are ill. It is not medical care of any sort. And killing handicapped children-- which is what this bill is really about-- is unspeakable.

What the Belgian doctors are talking about doing is what German doctors were hanged for in 1948.  

9 comments:

  1. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthJune 6, 2014 at 6:42 AM

    Progressives have nothing but contempt and mockery for the disabled. It's frequently on display in this comment thread.

    Except, of course, when they need to buy a vote. Then they morph into the Party of Compassion and Crocodile Tears.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “Buy a vote” is conservative speak for “do something that helps”. Conservatives don’t believe in getting votes by serving their constituents, they prefer scaring them into voting their fears, anxieties, and prejudices.

      -KW

      Delete
    2. To be fair, nobody capitalizes on fear, anxiety and prejudice like the progressives do. They get votes through emotional manipulation, racial exploitation, government handouts and flooding us with illegals. But no matter. At this point, democrats and republicans are two sides of the same coin.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Still using your silly private slurs, I see. Reliable sign of craziness.

      I have a co-worker who does the same thing. But he's getting counseling.

      Delete
  3. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthJune 6, 2014 at 7:03 AM

    June 6, 1944: when the Anglosphere saved Western Civilization.

    Remember those who assaulted that coastline.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Egnor, this is the handiwork of secular-atheism. Apparently the atrocities committed during the 20th century didn't suffice and people need to experience its horrors on a first-hand basis.

    Anyone who votes for this and calls themselves Christian is mocking God.

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  5. I can't imagine that there would ever be a case of child euthanasia in which the child uses the words headlined in Egnor's thread.

    If it's the case that Belgian parents and doctors are currently committing murder by employing euthanasia on children when they think it's justified, then it's probably good that it's legalised, under strict conditions.

    They'd have to justify it openly to enjoy legal protection. Otherwise, they'd run the risk of being charged, convicted and sentenced for murder. I suspect that the number of justifiable child euthanasia cases would be very few. And that hopefully, even fewer parents would be wanting it.

    Slightly off topic - a while back I was criticised for using informally the term 'brain dead' to describe an Italian woman who had been in a persistent vegetative state for 17 years.

    Personally, if I ever suffered some neurological catastrophe, I'd prefer to be brain dead rather than in a persistent vegetative state. Because the persistent vegetative state could have been misdiagnosed, and it is actually a locked in syndrome (in which the person is conscious but almost completely paralysed - a nightmare scenario).

    There's a recent book out 'Locked In' by Richard Marsh and Jeff Hudson, dealing with one such case, in which the man was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state following a brain stem stroke. And the treating doctors recommended having the 'plug pulled', despite the patient being conscious. Who later became one of the rare cases, making a 95% recovery.

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    Replies
    1. Big Jim,

      No, I can't imagine a child using the words employed in Egnor's hyperbolic headline sentence. But I can well imagine that there might possibly be very occasional parents and doctors of suffering children who have hastened their death illegally without oversight.

      My father died over 10 years ago of metastatic cancer, site of origin unknown, which presented with secondaries in the neck invading the nerves of the brachial plexus. Which caused severe nerve pain, and nerve pain is perhaps the most severe pain imaginable. Radiotherapy didn't help much. He was on very high dose opiates for pain relief, and his last few months he was unconscious most of the time, not able to drink or eat much.

      Euthanasia wasn't considered at the time. After his death, I wondered what the point of the agony he was forced to endure.

      But anyway - I'd only consider euthanasia justifiable, whether of adults or children, if death is inevitable and suffering is unable to be ameliorated sufficiently to give a reasonable quality of life remaining.

      I wouldn't be allowing children to die - because they're going to die anyway. I just don't want them to suffer.

      You shouldn't be using inverted commas around statements. They mean that I actual used those words and agree with the sentiment expressed, you dumb shite.

      Delete