Terminally ill children - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Thu, 22 Oct 2020 04:36:44 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg Terminally ill children - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 Netherlands supports medically assisted dying for terminally ill children https://cathnews.co.nz/2020/10/22/medically-assisted-dying/ Thu, 22 Oct 2020 06:53:22 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=131814 It's an extremely sad reality and nobody wants to think about it, but it can't be avoided. Sometimes children get life-threateningly sick. Sometimes they get too sick to recover. And sometimes those illnesses can cause relentless and terrible suffering, sometimes even more than can be alleviated with palliative care. Adults who are terminally ill but Read more

Netherlands supports medically assisted dying for terminally ill children... Read more]]> It's an extremely sad reality and nobody wants to think about it, but it can't be avoided.

Sometimes children get life-threateningly sick. Sometimes they get too sick to recover. And sometimes those illnesses can cause relentless and terrible suffering, sometimes even more than can be alleviated with palliative care.

Adults who are terminally ill but otherwise mentally competent have the option of choosing medically-assisted dying. But a child with the identical condition and prognosis is usually out of luck.

The Netherlands is poised to change that.

The Dutch government has approved a change to their legal framework that will allow medically assisted dying for children ages 12 and under, with regulations currently being drafted by Health Minister Hugo de Jong. These regulations are expected to come into effect by early 2021.

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Netherlands supports medically assisted dying for terminally ill children]]> 131814