Dutch government funds study to consider child euthanasia

lifesitenews.com

The Dutch minister for public health, Edith Schippers, has decided to award about 450,000 dollars of public money for scientific research on child euthanasia. She made the announcement last week in response to a request made in June 2015 by the Dutch Association of Pediatricians (NVK) asking for decriminalization of so-called “mercy-killing” of children aged between 1 and 12.

Last Friday, Schippers told the Second Chamber of Parliament that she is presently of the opinion that there are not enough reasons to make euthanasia available for this age group, and that the NVK’s request is being put on hold. But the debate has not been closed and the minister appears to be open to other solutions.

The decision to subsidize research on child euthanasia, as well as the one – also announced on Friday – to open a new support-desk for doctors who are facing difficult end-of-life situations regarding children aged 1 to 12, do show that sooner or later the slippery slope of legalized euthanasia leads medical practice to ever-increasing sympathy towards procuring death to larger and larger categories of patients.

The majority of the lower Chamber of the Netherlands has already expressed support for child euthanasia.