Saturday 2 November 2013

Belgium contemplates extending legal euthanasia to children

I came across this disturbing article the other day.  It seems Belgian lawmakers are contemplating extending the "right" to euthanasia to children.  After all, one wouldn't want to discriminate based on age.  A Catholic Archbishop makes and interesting observation to the Belgian senate:
“It is strange that minors are considered legally incompetent in key areas, such as getting married, but might (be able) to decide to die,” Catholic Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard testified.
I agree with him that this distribution of "rights" to children is highly schizophrenic.  However, I am afraid that, in the far-gone West, and especially in nations as far gone as Belgium in embracing a fully secular humanist society, his comments are less likely to halt euthanasia for children and far more likely to extend decision-making rights to them in the other areas (such as age of sexual consent, marriage, etc.).  The article mentions that parents could help children make such a crucial decision.  I'm sure many adults would be willing to help minors make key decisions on sexuality as well, and I'm sure many of them would not be encouraging those children to wait until adulthood.

Francis Schaeffer warned that this is where relativistic secular humanism would lead.  Oh that we would read him and his present-day mantle-bearers more (Nancy Pearcey, Os Guinness, Douglas Wilson, D.A. Carson, John Piper, Ravi Zacharias, Herbert Schlossberg, etc.).  Oh, that we would see the heights from which we have fallen in the post-Christian West.  The title of one of Schaeffer's books says it well:  "What ever happened to the human race?"

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