[Magdalen] Should we support euthanasia for children

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Two completely different matters are conflated here.

The one question is whether it is okay to grant a person their wish to die
when they are not terminally ill.

I would assume that since it is not for me to okay another's decision in
the first place, this is not my business.

This is not in the subject heading,a nd we would need to start a new thread
for it.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 11:21 AM, Zephonites--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

> 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
>