Belgium grants minor children a 'right to die' - archbishop refuses final rites

An investigation to determine whether the child understands what euthanasia really means must conclude successfully before the child's case can move forward.

A child suffering the effects of an incurable disease asked for euthanasia - and got it.The Catholic Church is completely opposed to euthanasia, whether active or passive. It is the intentional taking of human life. The Catholic Church affirms that every life has an intrinsic dignity and value and must never be taken by any act of euthanasia. Period.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to CNN, Sen. Jean-Jeacques De Gucht told VTM the child was suffering and received what is now called "physician-assisted suicide" in Belgium.

The child's age and identity are not available at this time.

For a physician to take the life of a patient constitutes a complete rejection of the physicians moral obligation. The Hippocratic Oath, which has guided the medical profession for centuries, states:

"I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art."

Countries across the globe are implementing euthanasia for anyone in "constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated," Wilm Distelmans, a chair on Belgium's Federal Control and Evaluation Committee on Euthanasia, told RTBF.

Of course, the immediate question arises, "who determines" when a life is unworthy of living?

Distelmans explained there weren't many children who asked for death but added: "That does not mean we should deny them the right to a dignified death."

Senator Gucht stated: "I think it's very important that we, as a society, have given the opportunity to those people to decide for themselves in what manner they cope with that situation."

Jacqueline Herremans, the president of Belgium's "Association for the Right to Die with Dignity" and a member of the federal committee on euthanasia, explained parents or guardians must give permission for anyone under 18-years-old.

An investigation to determine whether the child understands what euthanasia really means must conclude successfully before the child's case can move forward.

Herremans further explained: "This can only be in cases of serious and incurable diseases, which is the same thing for adults...but for minors an additional condition is that the death must be expected in the near future."

Currently, Belgium is the only country to allow people of any age to choose doctor-assisted suicide but The Netherlands allows anyone 12 and older.

According to Life News, 650 babies were intentionally killed via "assisted suicide" in 2013 in the Netherlands, but laws have since tightened.

In February of this year, Canadian archbishop Terrence Prendergast announced that Catholics seeking euthanasia or assisted suicide would no longer be eligible to receive their last rites.

According to the Catholic Herald, he stated: "Asking to be killed is gravely disordered and is a rejection of the hope that the rite calls for and tries to bring into the situation.

"Asking your priest to be present to something that is in direct contradiction to our Catholic values is not fair to the pastor. Of course a pastor will try to dissuade a patient from requesting suicide and will pray with them and their family, but asking him to be present is in effect asking him to condone a serious sin."

The Catholic Church is completely opposed to euthanasia, whether active or passive. It is the intentional taking of human life. The Catholic Church affirms that every life has an intrinsic dignity and value and must never be taken by any act of euthanasia. She urges the faithful to offer even their suffering to the Lord as they face the passage through death to life eternal.

Caregivers are urged to offer palliative care in such instances of providing care at the end of life, and to help the dying person pass on to eternal life in peace, as free from pain as possible. For the Christian, death is not an end. The early believers used to speak of it as a "change of habitation."

Suicide, of any kind, is a mortal sin, a sin which leads to spiritual death. The Christian is to turn to the Lord in times of pain and hold tightly to faith in His love. They are to be counseled to prepare for eternal life, and given compassionate palliative care.

The Lord granted us the gift of life - we must never even consider stealing that which belongs to Him.

To be clear, a Catholic's duty is to respect, protect and preserve life, at all times. However, Catholic moral teaching uses two distinct terms in offering counsel for the preservation of life: "Ordinary" and "extraordinary."

The teaching of the Church does not require the use of extraordinary medical means to keep a person alive who is in the dying process.

Catholic Christians are obligated to use ordinary means of medical care, such as treatments and procedures that provide a patient some sort of benefit without excessive hardship or undue burdens which only prolong the dying process.

An example of an ordinary treatment would be taking doctor-prescribed antibiotics or receiving dialysis treatments.

Receiving food and water are not to be considered extraordinary means of medical care. Everyone has a right to food and water. If it can be assimilated, withholding food and water from a patient is an act of euthanasia.

Extraordinary medical means are optional to Catholics. These measures may present an excessive burden, such as a person being kept alive via machines while in the dying process.

Terms such as "vegetative state" are sometimes used in these discussions. However, no human person, no matter how debilitated, is a vegetable.

A Catholic Christian may allow the natural dying process to take its course but, if that person expedites death, actively or through the hands of another, they sin against the good of life itself.

The teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Paragraphs #2278-2279) reflects the overwhelming witness of the Bible and the unbroken Christian tradition:

"Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted.

"The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.

"Even if the death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted.

"The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged."

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