{"id":24815,"date":"2024-02-23T15:47:22","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T23:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/?p=24815"},"modified":"2024-02-23T15:47:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T23:47:22","slug":"dutch-law-allowing-euthanasia-for-children-takes-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/dutch-law-allowing-euthanasia-for-children-takes-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch law allowing euthanasia for children takes effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 1, a Dutch law allowing the euthanasia of terminally ill children went into effect. The law legalizes the killing of children ages one through 12 who are\u00a0deemed<\/a>\u00a0to be \u201csuffering hopelessly and unbearably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, the country allowed euthanasia of children older than 12, along with infants under age one who could be killed if their parents and doctors agreed and they faced an illness labeled as terminal or faced serious suffering. In 2023, lawmakers passed a\u00a0controversial expansion<\/a>\u00a0of the eligibility guidelines to include children of\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0ages.<\/p>\n

According to reports, the new guidelines\u00a0state<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe child\u2019s opinion should be sought as far as possible in a way appropriate to the child\u2019s understanding and age,\u201d though parents can decide to have their child euthanized in conjunction with a doctor\u00a0even if the child is unwilling or unable to consent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Though the Ministry of Health expects that the new guidelines will affect only a \u201csmall group\u201d of cases \u2014 about five to ten children a year \u2014 opponents are warning that there is nothing to keep this broadened rule from spiraling out of control.<\/p>\n

In an op-ed, Elise van Hoek-Burgerhart and Yvonne Gueze-van Horssen, both from the group NPV-Care for Life, warn that the \u201cdistressing\u201d regulation has many flaws, including the fact that children are unable to consent to their own deaths. \u201cWhile the \u2018voluntary and well-considered request\u2019 is an important building block of Dutch euthanasia policy, this request is absent for children. Children are impressionable and are (often) not mentally competent,\u201d they\u00a0wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Physician-assisted death in the Netherlands has continued to climb since it was first legalized. The period from 2021 to 2022 saw a 14% increase in euthanasia deaths, with a\u00a0record number<\/a>\u00a0of 8,720 people dying via assisted death. Of those, 115 people were killed simply due to psychiatric illness \u2014 not because of any terminal diagnosis. In July 2023, it was revealed that\u00a0numerous autistic people<\/a>\u00a0and people with intellectual disabilities had been euthanized solely because they felt they couldn\u2019t lead \u201cnormal\u201d lives.<\/p>\n

Read more at: liveaction.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 1, a Dutch law allowing the euthanasia of terminally ill children went into effect. The law legalizes the killing of children ages one through 12 who are\u00a0deemed\u00a0to be \u201csuffering hopelessly and unbearably.\u201d Previously, the country allowed euthanasia of children older than 12, along with infants under age one who could be killed if … Continue reading Dutch law allowing euthanasia for children takes effect<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/watching-300x100-300x100-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-6sf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24816,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24815\/revisions\/24816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}