This Blog considers assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, biotechnology, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation. My views expressed here, as in my books and other writings, reflect my understanding that the philosophy of human exceptionalism is the bedrock of universal human rights. Or, to put it another way: human life matters. (The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
Euthanasia activists in Belgium want to expand the law to permit the euthanizing of children and the mentally incompetent. Is anyone surprised?
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:17 AM
3 Comments
I am a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the author of 12 books, including A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, which is relevant to the issues considered by this blog.
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3 Comments:
Not surprised at all.
There's a chap in the UK with a wife who has Alzheimer's. He says he was going to kill her in the nursing home a few weeks ago but has now been told "her brain is dying." (Whatever that means.) Anyway, he's pushing for euthanasia for Alzheimer's patients, which he calls "voluntary." (Huh?)
http://www.hucknalltoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=743&ArticleID=1968918
Sick. Very sick.
You can't tell me that people who are for euthanasia of children are doing it to "empower" them. They're looking to get rid of a burden, which should automatically make them unfit parents and force them to give up all children, healthy or impared, because where does the whole "burden" issue end? When is a kid "worthy" of living? I don't know a single mother who hasn't at some point thought, "Dear God, I didn't realize what I was getting into, so please take this baby away," or something akin to it, only to look back later and say, "Yes, I was stressed out at the time, but that was a temporary problem, and I learned to cope, and even to find joy in my child."
Now Belgium wants to let people kill off babies who are mentally handicapped. Talk about instant gratification gone wrong. Instead of being strengthened and honed through trials, people are wussing out and wanting to throw away anything that causes difficulties.
I'm living with a 70-year-old parent who's refusing to do his therapy to improve after having had colon surgery, and I get tired, and I get bored, and there are days when I want to run away and leave the whole mess to someone else. But most of the time I'm happy to have him home, alive, and healthy, and no matter how bad things get, I am strong enough to get through them because I refuse to quit. I'm going to keep that old man alive as long as I can, and sacrifice if I need to, because you only get one chance at having your father, and when he's gone, he's gone.
Who's to say having a disabled child is going to cause more pain and torture than a healthy child? Who's to say that life would be harder, worse, more demanding? How you handle a situation is what matters, not the situation itself.
People are giving up too easily because they won't balls up and handle a situation. Running away is easier.
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