"Doctors in Belgium are granting a 24-year-old woman who is suffering from depression but is otherwise healthy the right to die as she qualifies for euthanasia under the Belgian law, even though she does not have a terminal or life-threatening illness.
The 24-year-old woman, known simply as Laura, has been given the go-ahead by health professionals in Belgium to receive a lethal injection after spending both her childhood and adult life suffering from "suicidal thoughts", she told local Belgian media.
Laura has been a patient of a psychiatric institution since the age of 21 and says she has previously tried to kill herself on several occasions. She told journalists: "Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful." The date of Laura's death is yet to be decided. . .
Dr Marc Van Hoey, a general practitioner and president of the Right to Die Association in northern Belgium, is a vocal supporter of the legislation. Van Hoey told the Independent newspaper that he believes that sometimes euthanasia is the kindest option. 'I've seen quite a lot of persons dying in - how do you say in proper English - agony?' Van Hoey said. 'I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for.'
Over the past few years there has been a sharp increase in the number of euthanasia cases in Belgium. In 2013, there were 1,807 deaths recorded compared with 1,432 in 2012. More than half of last year's cases were patients aged 70 and over but there are increasing numbers of young people requesting to die legally, with the majority citing depression as their "intractable and unbearable pain. . ."
http://europe.newsweek.com/healthy-24-year-old-granted-right-die-belgium-329504
I guess it had to happen sooner or later - but I had been hoping later . . . much later - like, never.
It would also be be hoped that such news might raise the heads of some of the lawmakers of this province over on the other side of the Atlantic, who see Belgium as a great model and who have thus already gone ahead and passed a considerably reckless euthanasia bill . Where there is no respect for life , there is the culture of death.
Interesting words from Dr. Van Hoey :" I've seen quite a lot of persons dying in - how do you say in proper English - agony?" Van Hoey said. "I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for."
First of all , pain is subjective , and no one can measure the intensity of someone else's mental anguish . But that doesn't mean you should just go ahead and kill them each time they say they're suffering, or that the suffering has become unbearable. (If that were the rule, one could easily imagine a whole lot of mothers who when giving birth for the first time , might, in anticipation, request euthanasia be administered just before they deliver the child . . .except that mothers who deliver children understand life on a much deeper level than even most doctors ever will).
"I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for." . . . Well Duhhh !
Dr. Van Hoey's statement is a little imbalanced : Euthanasia is done in a very short interval of time. A person's suffering, on the other hand - particularly in the cases being considered, is not something abrupt like euthanasia is - it is always over a protracted period of time : That's the whole argument - shortening the time of one's suffering by killing them. The (ir)rationale is : To end the suffering, you end their life.
The essence of the human spirit is to live . Christ came to restore that : "I came that they may have life and have it to the fullest."
Making euthanasia widespread and commonplace robs all of us of our human dignity - but particularly the victims of euthanasia who can no longer see their lives being of any value in this world.
Doctors are meant to be some of society's greatest philanthropists , but the ones who buy into the euthanasia lie remind me of half-assed mechanics, who look at a car, shrug, and say: "We can't fix it, so we'll kill it."