[Magdalen] Should we support euthanasia for children

[Lynn Ronkainen]

IMO... at 24 Laura is not a child, despite having these 'desires' since she 
was a child.
I do find this troublesome, and would hope that there are procedures in 
place to take each situation and request as it comes, that some professional 
level of scrutiny is applied. Wanting to die for many years could be caused 
by depression, and I would hope that this has been explored in depth with 
counseling and medication before the solution would become euthanasia.

It is troubling to me think that this law, or the statistics resulting from 
partaking of this law for ending life uses the word 'child' in this article 
below and I feel certain there must be many more parameters to be met before 
this decision is made.  Again, the definition of child, in my mind, does not 
include someone in their 20s.  I would venture the thought that anyone who 
is not legally considered an adult is probably not being euthanized (hence, 
children are not, but young adults might be).

I am sure there is much more to this law and these statistics than meet the 
eye.

Lynn

what does (DV) mean, Martin?

website: www.ichthysdesigns.com

When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have not a 
single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave me." 
attributed to Erma Bombeck
 "Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a talk 
by Richard Rohr

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Zephonites--- via Magdalen" <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 10:21 AM
To: <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
Cc: <Zephonites at aol.com>
Subject: [Magdalen] Should we support euthanasia for children

> 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