Reporting of BastaBugie editorial team
Euthanasia of children is slipping into practice like late-term abortion, but like abortion it is murder
Of Caterina Giojelli

Toronto Children's Hospital lays the foundation for the “happy death” infantile. The possibility of administering it to minors without the consent of family members is normal, in the name of the right to privacy
«Patients' wishes must be respected», say doctors at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children to justify the possibility of administering euthanasia to children without informing their parents.
Nell’articolo Medical Assistance in Dying at a paediatric hospital, published on 21 settembre sul J Med Ethics del British Medical Journal, a team made up of staff, Sick Kids administrators and ethicists, with the support of the Joint Center for Bioethics of the University of Toronto, has in fact defined policies and procedures for practicing infant euthanasia on their patients if the law allows it.
Today, in fact, euthanasia is legal in Canada only above 18 years, by December, However, the Canadian Council of Academies will report to Parliament on the possibility of extending it in circumstances currently prohibited by law.
Specifically, it is about guaranteeing the right to assisted death even for patients under the age of 18 years, psychiatric patients and patients who have expressed the desire to receive euthanasia before being prevented by diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.
In other words, after approving the “worst law in the world”, pediatric hospitals are preparing to deal with euthanasia requests by regulating each scenario, including the possibility for children to require doctors not to inform or involve their parents and family members in their decisions until death.
THE TOTEM OF THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY THAT EXCLUDES PARENTS
The idea is simple: according to Sick Kids there is no ethical distinction between a patient who chooses to refuse a burdensome treatment in the face of inevitable death or a patient who chooses to die before the disease runs its course.
Since in Ontario a minor does not need parental consent to refuse further treatment, there is no legal reason why his parents should be informed if he chooses to die: considered practically and ethically equivalent to other end-of-life medical decisions, the right to privacy regarding euthanasia, they say, should be guaranteed in the same way.
Following the same logic we should also ask ourselves whether doctors will be prompt in suggesting euthanasia to children based on the obligation to inform patients of their healthcare options.
And what about the real understanding of a young person's option? "Usually, the family is intimately involved in this decision-making process (at the end of life)», the doctors write.
"However, if a patient capable of understanding and wanting explicitly indicates that he does not want to involve his family, although doctors can encourage him to reconsider his position", ultimately «the patients' wishes, respecting their privacy, must be respected".
Describing how a medically induced death would occur at Sick Kids, the authors do not mention any conversations with family members or parents about how the child would die until after the death, during what they call in the document “period of reflection”.
No wonder, commented bioethicist Bridget Campion, «now that euthanasia is legal it goes without saying that every hospital should ask itself “and now how to do it?”».
THE FORCE OF GRAVITY’ OF THE ABYSS
In the 2017, one year after the legalization of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia in Canada, the Canadian Pediatric Society published a study conducted on 1.050 medici: beyond 10 percent of them say they have had conversations with parents and children about assisted suicide or euthanasia for terminally ill patients under 18 years.
Sixty children explicitly asked if it was possible to obtain them and their parents more 400 children have raised the topic with their children's pediatricians.
Only the 33 percent of doctors interviewed are convinced that assisted suicide should remain off limits for all minors, regardless of the circumstances, half instead believe that "the time is now ripe" to give everyone this opportunity.
Today, conscientious objection in Canada is hanging by a thread: in a society that considers killing a response to human suffering and the killing of a patient a compassionate and merciful act, anyone who refuses to do so has become the new sinner.
Murder of terminally ill patient accepted, the step towards that of the madman, of the disabled person and even of the child is very short, stemming the waiting list for the dying is practically impossible.
It is a film already seen in Belgium, where a child of 11 years with cystic fibrosis has just received euthanasia, and in Holland, where «doctors eliminated patients who asked for it, disabled people who asked for it and, lastly, the newborns who have never asked for it", Wesley Smith told Times, American libertarian intellectual, author of dozens of essays on “peaceful death” and among the witnesses in Florida of Terri Schiavo's right to life.
«If you open up to this culture there is no way to stop. When they started killing depressed but not physically ill patients they said only conscious ones with a desire “rational” they would have to die “benefited”. Then, when they started killing disabled people, like Alzheimer's patients, they sang softly: only patients who would have asked for it. Then they moved on to the children. Even without parental consent. It is the implacable force of gravity of the abyss".

Original title: Euthanasia, Canada aims to kill children without telling their parents
Source: Times, 18 October 2018
Published on BastaBugie n. 595