[Magdalen] Should we support euthanasia for children

[Zephonites at aol.com]

Folks
 
I came across this report (DV) recently
 
Laura is a 24-year-old in Belgium who plans to die  by euthanasia this 
summer.  She is not terminally  ill.  Rather, she explains that she has wanted 
to die ever since she was a  child.  "Life, that's not for me," she says.  
She has been approved  for death by lethal injection.  The chairman of 
Belgium's federal  euthanasia commission recently stated that 50 to 60 psychiatric 
patients like  Laura are euthanized each year.

Belgium legalized euthanasia in  2002.  Last year it became the first 
nation to legalize child  euthanasia.  According to The New England Journal of 
Medicine, Belgian  doctors also "hasten the death" of patients "without an 
explicit request."   More than 1,000 patients a year are euthanized in this 
way.  As Cambridge  professor Jack Keown explains, "If a doctor thinks death 
would benefit the  patient, why should the doctor deny the patient that 
benefit merely because the  patient is incapable of asking for it?"

Should children be allowed to be put down - as I did my dog some years ago  
- by euthanasia?
 
Blessings
Martin