The availability of ‘life termination’ has been extended for children between one and twelve years of age in the Netherlands, according to reports.
Doctors in the European nation will soon be permitted to euthanize children with conditions that will lead to “hopeless and unbearable suffering,” according to an announcement from the Dutch government.
But according to officials, the new policy only concerns “a small group of terminally ill children” whose “palliative care options are not sufficient to relieve their suffering and who are expected to die in the foreseeable future.”
“This is a very complex subject that deals with very harrowing situations. Situations you wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Dutch Health Minister Ernst Kuipers said in the announcement.
“I am pleased that, after intensive consultation with all parties involved, we have come to a solution with which we can help these terminally ill children, their parents, and also their practitioners,” Kuipers added.
The new policy also seeks to loosen requirements for physicians who attempt to euthanize children since they already “feel reluctance to perform late termination of pregnancy or termination of life in newborns.”
According to a report from The Catholic News Agency:
Euthanasia is already legal in the Netherlands for infants under one year, with parental consent, and for minors 12-15, with their consent and that of their parents. Voluntary euthanasia is available to those aged 16-17 without parental consent.
The Health Minister also emphasized “the great importance of the best possible care for this group of terminally ill children.”
Those with “unbearable and endless suffering” would be eligible for euthanasia; their parents would have to consent, as would two doctors.
Children between 1 and 12 who have such conditions may be given palliative care, or their nutrition may be withheld.
As NL Times reported:
Dutch pediatrician association NVK has called for the change; De Jonge said to parliament, “I want to ensure more legal safeguards for doctors who, on the basis of their professional standard, proceed with life-ending actions of children aged 1 to 12 years.”
Rather than a law change, doctors who euthanize patients aged 1-12 will be exempted from prosecution, De Jonge stated.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte leads a coalition government formed by the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the Christian Democratic Appeal, Democrats 66, and the Christian Union.
The Daily Wire noted: The government formerly required doctors to demonstrate before a committee that the administration of assisted suicide occurred with “due care,” after which the committee sent the assessment to the Public Prosecution Service, where officials would decide whether to initiate a criminal investigation. Officials will now consolidate the committee process and forward the case to the Public Prosecution Service without medical files, meaning that the agency must base any criminal investigation “exclusively on the judgment of the assessment committee.”
Physicians must, therefore “come to the conviction that termination of life is the only reasonable alternative to remove the child’s hopeless and unbearable suffering” based upon “prevailing medical opinion.”
Assisted suicide, or ‘medical assistance in dying,’ is becoming more popular in the West.
As The Daily Fetched reported last year, impoverished Canadian citizens requesting permission to terminate their life under the country’s euthanasia laws sounded the alarm worldwide about the true scale of the growing divide between the rich and poor.
Canadian citizen Amir Farsoud was on the verge of being homeless and admitted his health condition would not allow him to survive on the streets.
Farsoud said that he did not want to die but could not afford to find another place to live and instead opted for the country’s assisted suicide laws.
City News Reporter Cynthia Mulligan said: “Amir Farsoud has applied for medically assisted dying, known as (MAiD) he lives in constant agony due to a back injury but has started the process for end of life.”
“Because his rooming house is up for sale and he can’t find anywhere else to live that he can afford,” Mulligan added.
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