Belgium now euthanizes children as young as 7

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: Deuteronomy 30:19

For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.
But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death. Proverbs 8:35-36

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12 (also Proverbs 16:25)

Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,...
...And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Romans 1:22,28

Surely some future historian, surveying our times, will note sardonically that it took no more than three decades to transform a war crime into an act of compassion, thereby enabling the victors in the war against Nazism to mount their own humane holocaust, which in its range and in the number of its victims, may soon far surpass the Nazi one. It is significant that, whereas the Nazi holocaust has received lavish TV and film coverage, the humane one goes rolling along largely unnoticed by the media. Malcolm Muggeridge, Sanctity of Life, Chatelaine, December 1979, p. 138

Professing themselves to be "progressives," they became "regressives," going back to the days before Hippocrates, when doctors were as likely to kill their patients as heal them. This blogger predicted exactly this sort of thing years ago; countries that once fought against the Nazis are increasingly adopting their policies, while still regarding the Nazis as villains. It therefore comes as no surprise to this blogger to see items such as the following, as reported by Henry Samuel of the London Daily Telegraph, August 7, 2018 (links in original):

Paris--Two children, aged nine and 11, have become the world’s youngest to be euthanised, according to a report.

The unnamed minors were administered lethal injections in Belgium, which has the world’s only law allowing terminally ill children in “unbearable suffering” to choose to die.

Their deaths, which occurred in 2016 or 2017, were revealed in a report from the CFCEE; the commission that regulates euthanasia in Belgium, and their ages were confirmed by a Belgian official.

It confirmed that Belgian doctors had given lethal injections to three children over the two-year period, including to a 17-year-old who was suffering from muscular dystrophy.

The nine-year-old, who had a brain tumour, and the 11-year-old, who was suffering from cystic fibrosis, were the first children under 12 to be euthanised anywhere, a member of the CFCEE told The Washington Post.

One of the most permissive countries in the world, Belgium amended its euthanasia law in 2014 to make it legal for doctors to terminate the life of a child, however young, who makes the request.

They must be judged to have the mental capacity to make the decision and receive parental consent.

Supporters of the law say a child should not be made to suffer against their will but opponents say children are too young to make the decision to die.

The July 17 report notes that three minors were among thousands of people to have died under Belgium's radical euthanasia regime between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017.

It merely describes all three as under 18 but a Belgian official has now disclosed their ages to the Washington Post.

Luc Proot, a member of the CFCEE, defended the decision to authorise the young euthanasia cases, saying: “I saw mental and physical suffering so overwhelming that I thought we did a good thing.”

For euthanasia to proceed in Belgium, doctors must first verify that a child is “in a hopeless medical situation of constant and unbearable suffering that cannot be eased and which will cause death in the short term.”

Once a child has expressed a wish for euthanasia in writing, child psychiatrists conduct examinations, including intelligence tests, to determine their level of discernment and ensure they were “not influenced by a third party.” Parents can, however, overuse their request.

Belgium's decision to extend its euthanasia laws to all minors provoked outrage in the country and abroad.

Belgium’s bishops called the law “a step too far”, while a group of 162 Belgian paediatricians wrote: “We are today able to perfectly control physical pain, choking or anxiety at the approach of death.”

Prof Stefaan Van Gool, a child cancer specialist in Belgium, said: "There is, in fact, no objective tool today available that really can help you say 'this child has the full competence or capacity to give with full understanding informed consent'."

Wim Distelmans, head of the Belgian euthanasia commission countered: “Thankfully, there are very few children who fit the criteria, but that doesn’t mean that we should refuse (them) the right to die with dignity.”

The annual number of euthanasia cases across all age groups has multiplied almost five-fold in ten years in Belgium.

Of the 4,337 to opt for assisted dying in Belgium in 2016 and 2017, most were cancer patients.

However 710 were mainly elderly people who suffered from comparatively minor complaints such as blindness and incontinence. Some 77 chose to die because of unbearable psychiatric suffering. A further 19 young people between 18 and 29 decided to end their lives.

Last year, neurologist Dr Ludo Vanopdenbosch resigned from the CFCEE, in protest at the failure to prosecute when a dementia patient’s life was terminated without her prior consent.

Since then, 360 Belgian doctors, academics and others have signed a petition calling for tighter controls on euthanasia for psychiatric patients.

Despite the controversy, there is widespread backing for Belgium's euthanasia legislation, polls suggest.

As was the case in Germany in the 1920s through the end of World War II, the situation is going to get worse. The German mass killing program began in 1920 with the publication of a little book titled The Release of the Destruction of Life Devoid of Value by Dr. Alfred Hoche, a psychaiatrist, and Karl Binding, a jurist. Those who read it may be as surprised as I was to discover that the authors weren't advocating mass killing, but advocated a euthanasia program under strict controls.

Somehow, however, the the number of categories of people, and thus the number of people to be euthanized increased. When the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, they didn't introduce euthanasia, but expanded a program that was already in existence. In Belgium now, as in the Netherlands, legalizing of euthanasia has "progressed" from adults to children; from physical to "psychological" suffering; from euthanasia with the consent of the patient to euthanasia without the consent of the patient (historically known as "murder").

The restrictions on euthanasia in Belgium as elsewhere, are increasingly disappearing, just as in Germany all those decades ago. We're already seeing it, with the dramatic recent increase in the number of people being killed in various countries practicing legal euthanasia. I find it hard to believe that the amount of actual suffering has increased in proportion to the number of people killed. The eventual result will be the same as that in Germany: mass slaughter.