A long, long time ago . . . I can still remember
my World History class at La. Tech. I minored in History, by the way. A major in English, minor in History. What major/minor could possibly be more useless? Maybe, uh . . .
no, I think I nailed it.
Anyway . . . my World History class. It was taught by a woman who knew everything there was to know about World War II - without notes. She was amazing and must have been 12 at the time because 25 years later she taught Ross high school English. I'm sure she couldn't have been over 37. She was not only smart, but really pretty. Definitely didn't look as old as I do now!
I digress . . . my World History class. We were all taking notes as the inevitable subject of Adolf Hitler surfaced. When she mentioned some of the horrors of this time, the girl across from me wrote "Youth in Asia" so big and glaring on her notebook, I couldn't help but notice it.
I wondered how long, if ever, it took her to figure out our lesson had nothing to do with Chinese teenagers.
Euthanasia - literally means "an easy death".
In all the world, active euthanasia (as opposed to assisted suicide) is only legal in Belgium and the Netherlands. So I wasn't too surprised to read this article in the newspaper this week:
Bruno Waterfield, The Daily Telegraph | Jan. 14, 2013, 2:35 PM
Identical twins were killed by Belgian doctors last month in a unique mercy killing under Belgium's euthanasia laws.
The two men, 45, from the Antwerp region were both born deaf and sought euthanasia after finding that they would also soon go blind. The pair told doctors that they were unable to bear the thought of not being able to see each other again. The twin brothers had spent their entire lives together, sharing a flat and both working as cobblers.
Doctors at Brussels University Hospital in Jette "euthanised" the two men by lethal injection on 14 December 2012. David Dufour, the doctor who presided over the euthanasia, told RTL television news the twins who died together had taken the decision to die in “full conscience”.
“They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering,” he said. “They had a cup of coffee in the hall, it went well and a rich conversation. The the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful. At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.”
Under Belgian law euthanasia is allowed if the person wishing to end his life is able to make their wishes clear and a doctor judges that he is suffering unbearable pain. The case is unusual because neither of the men was terminally ill nor suffering physical pain.
Just days after the twins were killed by doctors, Belgium's ruling Socialists tabled a new legal amendment that will allow the euthanasia of children and Alzheimer's sufferers. The major and controversial change will allow minors and people suffering from dementia to seek permission to die.
"The idea is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing cases we must find a response to," said Thierry Giet, the Socialist leader.
If passed later this year, the new law will allow euthanasia to be "extended to minors if they are capable of discernment or affected by an incurable illness or suffering that we cannot alleviate".
In 2002, Belgium was the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalise euthanasia, but it currently only applies to people over the age of 18. Some 1,133 cases of euthanasia - mostly for terminal cancer - were recorded in 2011, according to the last official figures.
In 2011, it emerged that people killed by euthanasia in Belgium are having their organs harvested for transplant surgery. Last December, the Belgium-based European Institute of Bioethics published a report raising concerns over "the absence of any effective control" over euthanasia and "ever-widening interpretation" of the law.
The institute noted that over 10 years and 5,500 euthanasia cases not one had ever been referred to the police for investigation.
________________________________________________So there you have it. Right or wrong . . . Youth in Asia - legal in Belgium.
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