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Pediatric euthanasia in Belgium: some ethical considerations

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Medicine and the Person

Abstract

On February 2014, the Belgian Parliament approved the first law on children euthanasia stating that also young children can make the autonomous choice to have their lives terminated. This article reviews the ethical objections to the law. These include the impossibility to gauge the competence of children and their vulnerability, and the fact that euthanasia itself implies that some lives are not worthy of living. The denial of life as a “bonum onticum” reneges the very principles on which civil laws and medical ethics are founded.

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Notes

  1. Even though the law does not ratify a right to die but only decriminalizes euthanasia, de facto medical service is supplied that patients can require legitimately, establishing, therefore, an obligation by the society.

  2. There is a difference between a “logical” version and an “empirical” version of the slippery slope argument. The first version is not valid in a logical moral reasoning: the abuse of a right principle cannot determine the unlawfulness of the same principle. We use the slippery slope argument only in the empirical or psycho-social version.

  3. This is the meaning of decriminalize euthanasia and not ratify a right to die.

References

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Lodovico Balducci for the editorial assistance as well as the two anonymous reviewers for provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Bioethics, School of Medicine, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy

    Francesca Giglio & Antonio G. Spagnolo

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  1. Francesca Giglio
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  2. Antonio G. Spagnolo
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Correspondence to Antonio G. Spagnolo.

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Giglio, F., Spagnolo, A.G. Pediatric euthanasia in Belgium: some ethical considerations. J Med Pers 12, 146–149 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12682-014-0189-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12682-014-0189-y

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