Since some of people don't seem to know exactly what the bill entails and are jumping to the wrong conclusions ("they're just letting a child decide to die???"), I'll explain it a little further.
The current Euthanasia Law in Belgium states that any adult can request and receive euthanasia under certain conditions. This proposal seeks to amend the law and expand it to people of any age, being children.
For a child to request euthanasia, he or she needs to be:
-fully capable of judgment, understanding and rationale at the time of the decision
-in a 'medically hopeless scenario of intolerable and continuous pain that can not be relieved and will lead to death within a short time, as a result of a severe and incurable condition'
If the child decides to request the procedure, the assistance, advice and evaluation by both a youth psychiatrist and psychologist are mandatory. That specialist will get familiar with the child's medical file, personality, capability of judgment, understanding of the procedure and its consequnces.
Those findings will be written down in a report that will then be evaluated by the doctors responsible for the child's treatment. They take it up with the parents or legal guardian of the child, who need to consent with the procedure too.
Furthermore, the doctor in charge needs to educate the child about the entire procedure. All possible scenarios need to be evaluated and it is only if the child fully understands everything as best as possible, if the doctor reaches the conclusion that this is the best (and only reasonable) solution and that the child decides this without any coercion, that the procedure can continue.
Also, if it seems that the patient's death is not due within a short period of time, a panel will be involved to give a second opinion and re-evaluate everything before making the final choice.
English
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If this procedure happened in the uk it would have took too long and the child would have passed away before the decision was cleared, just saying we're not too good at this stuff, and I'm glad they've made sure the child has the capacity to make the decision and are fully informed on what will happen; if this wasn't the case then it would be madness
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A great explanation, it does seem like too few people read the article. I'll edit this into the OP if you are ok for me to?
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Sure, go right ahead.