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File Yves Logghe/AP/Press Association Images

Euthanasia for terminally ill children legalised in Belgium

In total, there were 86 votes in favour and 44 against from the country’s lower House of Representatives.

TWELVE YEARS AFTER legalising euthanasia for adults, Belgium’s parliament extended the right to die to terminally ill children of any age Thursday, despite opposition from the Church and some pediatricians.

After months of heated debate, the lower House of Representatives adopted legislation making the largely Catholic country the second after the Netherlands to allow mercy-killing for children, and the first to lift all age restrictions.

Euthanasia

The ground-breaking legislation was adopted by 86 votes in favour, 44 against and with 12 abstentions. Belgium is one of three countries in Europe to allow euthanasia for adults.

“It is not a question of imposing euthanasia on anyone … but of allowing a child not to agonise in pain,” said Socialist MP Karine Lalieux ahead of the vote.

Unlike the Dutch across the border, where euthanasia is allowed for children over 12, the law states that any incurably sick child may request to end their suffering if “conscious”, and if equipped with “a capacity of discernment”.

“The right to consider the question of life and death cannot be restricted to adults,” said liberal MP Daniel Bacquelaine.

Addressing controversy over the decision not to set an age restriction for “discernment”, he said a child’s “legal age isn’t the same as mental age.”

But opponents, largely members of centrist Christian-leaning parties, attacked the legislation for failing to set a minimum age for youngsters to be able to request euthanasia.

‘The world is watching us in amazement’

Saying “the world is watching us in amazement”, Christian Democrat Sonja Becq said a child’s “capacity of discernment” was a “vague” concept, “a grey area”.

“How will a doctor determine whether a child has a capacity of discernment?” she asked.

Socialist senator Philippe Mahoux, author of Belgium’s historic 2002 “right to die” legislation and himself a doctor, had called for the law to be widened to minors so as to provide a legal framework for medics who help children in pain die as a question of mercy, but outside the law.

Euthanasia is “the ultimate gesture of humanity” and “not a scandal”, he said. “The scandal is illness and the death of children from disease.”

The law offers the possibility of euthanasia to children “in a hopeless medical situation of constant and unbearable suffering that cannot be eased and which will cause death in the short-term”.

Counselling by doctors and a psychiatrist or psychologist is required, as is parental approval.

Before its adoption by a huge majority in the Senate in December, the upper house consulted dozens of medical specialists, lawyers and interest groups.

But during public debate, religious leaders of all faiths argued that extending euthanasia to the young risked “trivialising” death.

‘A step too far’

In recent days, the Catholic Church staged “a day of fasting and prayer” in protest and this week some 160 pediatricians petitioned lawmakers to postpone the vote on the grounds it was both ill-prepared and unnecessary.

Today’s vote went “a step too far”, Belgian bishops said in a joint statement.

They said they feared the legislation would “open the way to handicapped people, people with dementia, the mentally ill or those who are tired of living” to seek mercy-killing.

“Pain can be eased nowadays, there’s been huge progress in palliative care,” said cancer specialist and signatory Nadine Francotte.

In a stormy exchange in parliament on the eve of the vote, opponents argued that modern palliative medication could relieve pain in very sick youngsters, therefore allowing illness to run a natural course to death.

Thursday’s vote saw Socialists, Liberals and Greens members largely line up in favour, with centrist Christian-leaning parties opposed.

But party whips said it was up to individuals to decide how to vote on this life and death issue.

Ill minors are often more mature

Critics said the legislation failed to address problems and potential loopholes such as possible discord between the two parents over a child’s request to be euthanised.

And they asked how adults could be sure that a child had the “discernment” necessary to decide to give up life or even really understand the notion?

“Experience shows us that in cases of serious illness and imminent death, minors develop very quickly a great maturity, to the point where they are often better able to reflect and express themselves on life than healthy people,” a group of pediatricians in favour of the legislation said in December.

Polls showed a majority of Belgians backing the proposal but there was a surge of concern last year when a 44-year-old in distress after a failed sex change was euthanised on psychological grounds in a highly publicised case.

Belgium registered 1,432 cases of euthanasia in 2012, up 25 percent. They represented two percent of all deaths.

Neighbouring Netherlands has seen only five euthanasia requests from youngsters in the last decade.

Read: Belgium set to extend euthanasia law to cover children>

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    Mute Mark Miller
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:29 PM

    Wow! Only 18 years old!!!
    I could barely set the V.C.R. at 18…

    182
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    Mute Frank
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:03 PM

    This is why I would doubt the credibility of this story.

    If its not Kim Kung Un its some school kid.

    Any excuse to usher in the Global cyber police state.

    35
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    Mute Jim Butler
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:05 PM

    Careful Frank the Gov’ment is probably monitoring your posts on here…

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    Mute Frank
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:39 PM

    Jim Butler_ I think Declan Noonan has that job.

    19
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    Mute Tony Canning
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    Jan 16th 2015, 5:22 PM

    To be fair, what this guy did wasn’t a hack. A DDoS attack is basically downloading a tool, sticking in an IP and hitting “start”.

    35
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    Mute Matthew Fitzpatrick
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    Jan 16th 2015, 5:28 PM

    We call them “Script Kiddies”

    21
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    Mute Andrew Doyle
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:21 PM

    Hope the litte sh!t gets put behind bars for a long time and is never allowed near a computer again

    126
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    Mute Sam Bartell
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:36 PM

    Or a life term of commador64…..with no pencil to wind the tapes back in

    151
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    Mute Justin Devaney
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:38 PM

    He should be sentenced to dial up for life,.

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    Mute David Jackman
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:54 PM

    Haha look who got FIFA for Christmas.

    11
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    Mute Davida De La Harpe
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:27 PM

    Hope MI6 and FBI give him a good job offer- seems he is way ahead of them in IT skills!

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    Mute Aaron
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:35 PM

    Not that far ahead if he was still caught.

    35
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    Mute Maurice Dancer
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:40 PM

    An ape could do a DDOS attack. What this little runt did was not hacking.

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    Mute Juninho
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    Jan 16th 2015, 5:57 PM

    I think those agencies have slightly bigger fish to fry

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    Mute Maurice Dancer
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    Jan 16th 2015, 6:00 PM

    Indeed they do but still these people should still be punished for the disruption they caused.

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    Mute Del Haven
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:40 PM

    Apparently ddos attacks are not that difficult for those in the know. I doubt he’ll be employed by any government agency.

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    Mute Ruairi Flanagan
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:00 PM

    Anybody with internet access and the will to do it will find a program in seconds , a lot use ” near orbit ion cannon ” ( typical anon tool of the mid 2000′s ) and various others , it takes no understanding what so ever with these programs

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    Mute Charles Mcdonald
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:21 PM

    It’s not a hack as the media love to call it. A hack is breaking through or bypassing security to gain access or control of a network. Example north Korea gained access to Sony and stole info. This indeed is a hack.

    These kids carried out a ddos attack. Just causing to much traffic that’s all. Not accessing just collapsing the server.

    Apparently not hard to do if you have the network and software to do it

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    Mute Niall Heffernan
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:56 PM

    They aren’t complicated attacks at all. Anyone can launch one from their computer really easily. A ddos (distributed) using more than one computer is a bit trickier but still not a technical masterpiece.

    This attack actually leveraged normal joke routers with default passwords on them from around the world

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    Mute Gavin Scott
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:57 PM

    They should lock him away for a while. Took me three days to download “the last of us”….this attack cost sony and Microsoft a lot of revenue, all thanks to one clever idiot!

    13
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    Mute Del Haven
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:21 PM

    Ha, reminds me of Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski. “This is what happens when you **** a stranger in the ass”

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    Mute Justin Devaney
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:39 PM

    You’re killing your father Larry.

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    Mute Byyys
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:50 PM

    This is the second arrest made by police in the UK involving the Lizard Squad hacking group who are Responsibility for the attacks over Christmas. they only stopped after Kim Dotcom offered them 3,000 vouchers for his Mega cloud storage service worth $99 (€90) each.

    Shorty after Xmas a user by the name of “Vinny” tried to sell 3,000 Mega vouchers In a thread on Hackforums. more can be read about that here http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/12/whos-in-the-lizard-squad/
    Also Lizard squad announced on 30 December a “booter” service called LizardStresser, which charges between $6 and $500 – paid for using the bitcoin cryptocurrency – to help any person launch DDoS attacks on any website or internet service they choose.

    In an interview with Daily Dot, (http://www.dailydot.com/crime/lizard-squad-lizard-stresser-ddos-service-psn-xbox-live-sony-microsoft/) a representative of Lizard Squad claimed that the Christmas attacks on Sony and Microsoft had been “a huge marketing scheme” for the DDoS service, He added that 25 people had paid to use LizardStresser within hours of its launch.

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    Mute mia..moore
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:25 PM

    Wisked away to do some good work for the FBI now.MI6,grab him,his the next Bond.If he goes the chances are he’ll become a supervillan!

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    Mute mia..moore
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:25 PM

    Forgot my spelling:meant “he’s” not “his”

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    Mute tractor1000
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    Jan 17th 2015, 12:20 AM

    Jail the little bollix for 5 years it might teach the rest of the nerdy shites to get a life and use the internet for porn like normal guys!

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    Mute Anthony Lang
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:35 PM

    I hope that a disproportionate view is not taken. I don’t like emergency services being diverted or wasted but this does not look a life threatening situation.

    A sense of perspective can be helpful. After all, this is an 18 year old male and perhaps emotionally immature.

    13
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    Mute Rochelle
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:56 PM

    Only seeing him hung,drawn and quartered will appease those who were unable to play Destiny over the christmas! Boys will be boys and they have more tools for mischief now than ever before, lessons need to be learned but destroying a kids life for it isn’t justice.

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    Mute Joanna
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:29 PM

    More of this please, world.

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    Mute Frank
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:53 PM

    Fascist US President Barack Obama and David Cameron are both itching them selves to usher in the CISPA cyber security bill and take control of the Internet, usher in police state censorship and attack online free online speech.

    Interestingly the H.R.234 – Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has been in the background for quite some time and the US Government looks like it was waiting for this opportunity to usher it in. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is another filthy lie by Western Powers.. The guy is 18 years old 18 = 6+6+6

    http://fedscoop.com/cispa-sony-hack/

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    Mute Aaron
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:41 PM

    Frank – there’s some truth behind a lot of what you post but the numerology stuff is rubbish.

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    Mute Charlie Mountney
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:44 PM

    Bit the guy arrested in Finland recently for the same reason was only 17 Frank.

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    Mute Charlie Mountney
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:44 PM

    But.

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    Mute Dec B
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    Jan 16th 2015, 4:46 PM

    665+1=666.

    Be very afraid.

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    Mute Frank
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    Jan 16th 2015, 5:01 PM

    Aaron_ Interestingly enough the Controversial CISPA Cyber Security Bill in question is HR234

    http://www.theeventchronicle.com/news/north-america/cispa-back-sneak-peak-cispa-2015/

    The Number 234 = 6x6x6+6+6+6 It is also the Greek ordinal value of “Barak”

    http://www.biblewheel.com//GR/GR_Database.php?Gem_Num=234

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    Mute Grant Masterson
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    Jan 16th 2015, 5:04 PM

    There was a story last year where A judge made an example out of a 16 year old after being nicked for a “swatting” incident by giving him25 years in jail. Turned out to be fake. Scare tactics?

    4
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