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DARK & TWISTED DEVELOPMENT: the Netherlands Minister of Health announced that their government will permit child euthanasia. Doctors should be caring for children who need pain and symptom management, not killing them. If we let activists in the Netherlands get away with this, this could influence our local policies in the upcoming years. Sign now to demand that the Netherlands government does not go forward with their plans to permit child euthanasia. SIGN THE PETITION |
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Dear John,
In the Netherlands, we are seeing the dignity of life being attacked on a new front. Pro-euthanasia activists are now abandoning the belief in bodily autonomy to allow the killing of children through euthanasia. Already, children in the Netherlands between the age of twelve and sixteen are able to die by assisted suicide and euthanasia with parental consent, and minors above the age of sixteen are able to request it without parental consent. Even the euthanasia of infants under the age of one has been permitted since the creation of the Groningen Protocol in 2005. Now Health Minister Hugo de Jonge has told Parliament that he is working to make it so that children between the ages of one and twelve can be killed through euthanasia. This is a stark and disturbing departure from the rhetoric we are used to seeing from euthanasia supporters about how euthanasia is only for people who are near death and have the full capacity to consent. Children below twelve certainly do not have the capacity to consent. But clearly, if this new change will apply to children as young as one, they do not care about the consent of the child. Everyone who believes at all in the sanctity of life needs to speak out against this proposed change in the Netherlands. This is not only because killing someone or affirming someone’s suicide is wrong, but because a major shift like this in euthanasia policy is bound to influence the policies that euthanasia lobbies put forward in other countries. It is naive to think that if child euthanasia can happen in the Netherlands, it cannot happen elsewhere in the future.
CitizenGO has teamed up with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition on a petition to speak out against child euthanasia. Please sign to tell the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health in the Netherlands that you oppose the extension of euthanasia to children.
Minister Hugo de Jonge has even said he wants to pass this without changing the law. According to NPO Radio 1 (the Dutch equivalent to CBC Radio): “The minister emphasizes that the law will not be changed, but that there will be a "further elaboration of a ground for exclusion from punishment" for doctors. This elaboration is done together with the Public Prosecution Service and doctors' organizations. The ground for exclusion from punishment must mean that the doctor is not punishable.” In other words, the Netherlands may just do something similar to the Groningen Protocol. Euthanasia advocates may just collaborate with the Public Prosecution Service to come up with an agreement that prosecutors will refuse to punish doctors who follow certain guidelines when euthanizing people. And as long as these guidelines do not contradict the Netherlands’ euthanasia law, they can use these guidelines to euthanize anyone they want to without punishment.
Join our campaign to speak out against the radical euthanasia regime in the Netherlands. If we all stand together to say that we oppose child euthanasia, maybe we can get them to back down from these awful plans.
We must stress to the Netherlands government the importance of caring for children who need pain and symptom management, not killing them. We must demand that the right to life of young children be respected and treated with dignity. We must also recognize that we are witnessing is the outcome of the “slippery slope” that the pro-life community has always warned about when euthanasia laws get introduced in countries around the world. Allowing doctors to kill people without punishment creates a paradigm shift in our cultural understanding of the roles of medical professionals. Even if safeguards such as informed consent are put forward, these principles and safeguards can simply be chipped away at any time.
Please stand up for the lives of children in the Netherlands and worldwide. Sign our petition to aid the pro-life community in the Netherlands in stopping the government’s plan to allow the killing of children between one and twelve, and then pass it along to your friends. Thank you, Gregory Mertz and the entire CitizenGO Team --
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