Children dying at parents' request

A recent study revealed that terminally ill children have been assisted in their death (physician assisted suicide) by their physicians. This study was published in the March edition of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The author Dr. Joanne Wolfe, a palliative pain specialist in Boston, wrote the study. Dr. Wolfe interviewed 141 parents of children who had died of cancer.

 

"They had had found out ... in that study 19 of the parents had thought about having their child euthanized, 13 had actually talked about it seriously, 5 spoke to their physicians about it, and in 3 cases, the parents said that the doctor agreed to give their child a lethal overdoes, and the child died."

This report is from Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC).

 

This practice is illegal in all 50 states. The study  points to better pain management and a need for support for parents going through the most difficult time of their lives, watching their child's suffering and impending death.  

The solution isn't to kill the child. The solution is to provide the most beneficial care for both child and parent. If a child is going to die, and the parents are aware, every effort should be made to strengthen the family in their time of crisis. If that's done, then the child dies in a natural and normative setting.

 

The Netherlands is euthanizing children and it's legal. In fact, most children in the Netherlands are afraid to drink their orange juice, because they know their lives may be lost because they're sick. Do you see any parallels to the abortion debate? I sure do. If a child is a choice, it's really not a child, it's an object .. not part of the human family, but isolated. If a child is considered an object because it is sick, and not part of the human family, the choice is society can kill it. This process is called dehumanization and has been used successfully in every genocidal movement, since the beginning of time.

 

In the Netherlands the protocol says, that children under the age of 12 are not to be euthanized. But we all know there are ways and guidelines to work around a law. I suspect, after the killing starts, it's only a matter of time before we're all at risk.

 

In Nazi Germany it started from small beginnings; "from the idea that if the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work, whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state".Dr. Christopher Hufland.