Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald reported on how 45-year-old Belgium twins were allowed to access euthanasia because they had been recently told that they would soon both go blind. The twins were born deaf, were extremely close, and couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to see each other.
Warning bells should ring for New Zealand where Labour MP Maryann Street has her “End of Life Choices” Private Member Bill in the Ballot box. This Bill intends to legalise euthanasia and physician assisted suicide in this country.
Belgian law allows for euthanasia in cases where people are able speak and make decisions for themselves and where a doctor certifies that they are suffering unbearable pain.
Sad as their case may be, these two men certainly could not have been suffering unbearable pain. Their suffering was of the kind where something is about to happen and the person wishes that it would not. Certainly, this case has flouted the law.
And this is what people who continue to promote euthanasia choose to ignore: laws with supposed “safeguards” eventually become undone. These laws simply become the top of the slippery slope, eventually ending in involuntary euthanasia.
They were probably grieving the loss of their sight in which denial, anger, depression etc are all a part – it is wrong that they were not given help to work through their grief.