Ethics of Legalizing Euthanasia for Sick Children and Infants

Running head: ETHICS 1
Ethics
Name
Institution

Ethics 2
ETHICS
Introduction
Voluntary euthanasia is the act of ending the life of an individual at their request. In
Belgium, the first child to die by voluntary euthanasia took place in the year 2016 after the nation
introduced the law that permits for the children’s voluntary euthanasia.
This type of law that legalizes euthanasia for sick children and infants is not ethical. This
is because it is the most difficult decisions that require the support and consent of parents,
Psychiatrists and Doctors (Nieminen, 2018). Therefore, minors should not be allowed to make
decisions on weighty matters like that of euthanasia or they should not be permitted to decide
matters of death and life. The law will only put the lives of vulnerable children at risk. The
Oldest oath in medicine confers that Doctors have to prevent death rather than cause suffering.
So, when it comes to treating doctors, children must consider this obligation. It also
understandable that some children in extreme duress; for example, those suffering from the
painful, debilitating disease may decide that death is desirable to live. Nevertheless, allowing
Doctors to involve in assisted suicide would eventually cause more damage than good. Doctors
supported suicide is mostly not in line with their role as healer, and this would create severe
societal risks (Grodin, Miller & Kelly, 2018). This is because euthanasia is fundamentally
incompatible with the role of Physicians as the healer. It will only encourage the law to be
extended both to vulnerable populations and incompetent patients. The participation of the
Doctors to euthanasia heightens the importance of its ethical prohibition. Therefore, Doctors who
undertake euthanasia assumes sole obligation for the performance of ending the Children’s life.
English law states that children have no capacity of charging what is right and wrong; the
age limit of criminal obligation is set at Ten years old. Therefore, this kind of responsibility for

Ethics 3
making the extraordinary decision will only place an inappropriate burden to small children. It is
also cruel. For example, asking parents whether the life of their young one should be taken
(whether their child should die). In the long run, this law will also cause harm to parents and
their children (Cuman & Gastmans, 2017).
The new law will allow many children to end their life. Most of the Doctors from Belgian
Medical Association argued that they were worried because the law will open the door for
ending the lives of children in situations where an individual has an incurable disease, but they
still have more years to live (Siegel, Sisti & Caplan, 2014). Legalizing euthanasia would reduce
the protection offered to the children’s lives. It would permit the killing of children who could
easily recover in future.
The other reasons why the law is not ethical include:
Campaigning to end Children’s lives does not end distress. It only passes on the danger to
other children who now have to fear that they are the next in the line. The children will see that
they have worthless lives. Also, societies that approve suicide as a choice for children only put
pressure on them to kill themselves. By taking suicide as the immediate solution for some
disease can demoralize the willingness of medical professionals and society at large to learn how
to address patient’s pain as well as other problems. This law will only encourage children to
develop some negative attitudes such as to request for the lethal drugs not for fear of future pain,
but because of the concerns like becoming a burden to their parents and loss of dignity. The
solution is to treat or care for the children in ways that reassure them that they both have dignity.
Care for the children should be a privilege, not a burden to parents and children should be treated
as long as they live (Elliot, 2018).