change language
you are in: home - news newslettercontact uslink

Support the Community

  
December 11 2013

"To stop euthanasia of children in Belgium"

An appeal of the Community of Sant'Egidio on the eve of the Belgian Senate vote on the bill that would allow euthanasia on children. "It is not compassion, but a serious lack of responsibility towards those who are weak"

 
printable version

The Community of Sant'Egidio expresses its concern about the process taking place in Belgium, where they are about to vote on a bill that, if passed, will allow euthanasia for minors when they are suffering from a disease considered incurable.

 The conditions imposed by the bill to euthanasia of children are parental consent and that "the capacity of discernment of the child has been verified".

 In this way, the right to practise euthanasia, already legal in Belgium since 2002, is extended to all those who are suffering from serious illnesses and whose free power of choice would have been verified.

A proposal strongly opposed by all religious communities: Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists. 

 "To stop the euthanasia train" is all that is required by the Community of Sant'Egidio in an appeal published today by the leading Belgian newspapers.

Behind an act of so-called 'compassion' - it says - a growing collective irresponsibility is hidden.

"In front of the sick, society does not say any longer: 'we will be in solidarity with you, we will help you to live with all the means and as long as possible', but instead it asks him: 'Think carefully. Are you sure you want to live like this?' In this way it erodes the desire to live and does not support it in resisting the temptation to end their own suffering".

 For the Community of Sant'Egidio, this legal possibility to ask for euthanasia is a form of pressure that can induce in people who are sick, especially in younger people, the idea of ​​being a burden to others and then push the desire to die.

 The article concludes: "As in a collective loss, our society glorifies the death chosen and performed by a physician, as progress of civilization and the maximum of humanism. Allow us to have a point of view, basically the opposite. In the ever-increasing legal possibilities to recourse to euthanasia, we see rather a new form of barbarism: the choice acclaimed by society of the self-elimination of sick and weak people.”


 ALSO READ
• NEWS
October 5 2017

October 5th, World Teachers' Day 2017: Let everyone go to school... of language, culture, and peace!

IT | EN | ID
September 21 2017

'At the School of Peace' is now in Italian bookshops: a book that gives a voice to thousands of children in the global world.

IT | EN
June 1 2017
ANTWERP, BELGIUM

The bar 'Friends - Coffee & Books' opens in Antwerp

IT | EN | ES | DE | FR | PT | NL | HU
October 5 2016

5th October, World Teacher’s Day: All to school…of peace!

IT | EN | ES | DE | PT | RU | ID | HU
July 30 2016
MANILA, PHILIPPINES

In Manila, the Jubilee Year of Mercy for Children and Young People with Sant'Egidio

IT | EN | ES | DE | FR | PT | ID
July 2 2016
GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Education is a right for all: the children of the School of Peace of the refugee camp of Mugunga "draw" it

IT | EN | ES | DE | FR | PT | HU
all the news
• PRINT
January 30 2018
Avvenire

Corridoi umanitari. Italia, Francia, Belgio, Andorra: l'Europa che accoglie i siriani

January 13 2018
SIR

Belgio: vescovi in visita alle famiglie di profughi accolti nelle diocesi

December 27 2017
SIR

Chiesa e disabilità. Nulla può impedire l’incontro con Cristo

December 23 2017
Vatican Insider

Migranti, ieri primo arrivo in Belgio con corridoi umanitari

December 23 2017
SIR

Corridoi umanitari: Comunità Sant’Egidio, “in due anni diventati modello europeo. Dopo Italia e Francia ieri sera il primo arrivo in Belgio”

December 9 2017
Il Secolo XIX

Migranti e studenti volontari per il Rigiocattolo

all press releases
• EVENTS
December 7 2017 | GENOA, ITALY

Presentazione del libro ''Alla Scuola della Pace'' a Genova

ALL MEETINGS OF PRAYER FOR PEACE
• DOCUMENTS

Stop de euthanasietrein

Andrea Riccardi

Europa: oltre la crisi, la speranza. Intervento di ANDREA RICCARDI

all documents

PHOTO

1085 visits

1261 visits

1264 visits

1075 visits
all the related media