Belgium’s euthanasia law permits people to be killed by doctors because they are disabled. In such a discriminatory setting, is it any wonder that a Belgian court has now approved the odious notion of a wrongful life. From the story (may have to hit translation button):
The Court of Appeal in Brussels responds positively to this extremely sensitive issue. After noting that “certainly, the misdiagnosis did not cause the child’s disability, which existed before the error and which could not be remedied,” the Court considers that, “however, the injury must be compensated is not the disability itself, but the fact of being born with such disabilities. “ Thus, the child, the voice of his parents, may claim compensation for physicians who, through their fault, some were injured and legitimate interest to be a therapeutic abortion, as granted that his mother would have been appeal if it had been duly informed of the condition during pregnancy. In the opinion of the Court, by entering in the Penal Code article 350, paragraph 2, 4, authorizing therapeutic abortion, “the legislature must have intended to help avoid giving birth to children with abnormalities serious, having regard not only to the interests of the mother but also to that of the unborn child itself. ”
This is the first time in Belgium that an appellate court receives such a wrongful life action (wrongful life). Previously, a trial court of first instance of Brussels, released April 21, 2004, had adopted a similar solution, about a child with Down syndrome.
This is “life unworthy of life” thinking, “”useless eater” invidious discrimination against people with disabilities of the most pronounced kind. It breeds a deadly contempt for our brothers and sisters with disabilities. And the scary part: The Belgians see themselves as the epitome of modern tolerance because they couch their bigotry in oozing words of compa-aaaaa-ssssssion! Vile and disgusting.
Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
December 4th, 2010 | 11:28 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, jughead and Vt Conservative, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Belgium: Court Approves “Wrongful Life” Rule that Disabled Child Should Never Have Been Born » Sec.. http://bit.ly/dUnQEo [...]
December 4th, 2010 | 1:37 pm
Consider reverso.net if you have a lot of translating to do. It is one of the better ones available.
“The Court of Appeal of Brussels answers positively this extremely delicate question. Having raised(found) that, ” certainly, the error of diagnosis did not cause the handicap of the child, which preexisted before this error and whom(which) he could not be remedied “, the Court(Yard) considers that, ” however, the damage which must be indemnified is not the handicap as such, but makes him(it) have been born with the same handicap “. So, the child, by the voice(vote) of his(her) relatives(parents), can demand repair to the doctors who, by their fault, hurt its interest certain and justifiable to be the object of a therapeutic abortion, being acquired that her mother would have resorted(turned) to it if she had duly been informed about the affection in the course of pregnancy. In the opinion of the Court(Yard), by registering in the Penal code the article 350, the paragraph 2, 4 °, authorizing the therapeutic abortion, ” the legislator inevitably wanted to allow to avoid giving birth to children reached(affected) by grave abnormalities, by considering, not only in the interest of the mother, but also in that of the very unborn child “.
It is the first time in Belgium where a Court of Appeal welcomes such an action(share) for harmful life (wrongful life). Previously, a judgment(sentence) of the county court of Brussels, returned on April 21st, 2004, had held(retained) a similar solution, about a child reached(affected) by the Down’s Syndrome.
December 4th, 2010 | 1:39 pm
There are plenty of “useless eaters” in Belgium — they meet as the European Commission
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Steve Colby: Bueno!
December 4th, 2010 | 1:55 pm
Rulings like this make me very confident in the existence of hell. It’s a comforting belief when I read things like this.
December 4th, 2010 | 8:45 pm
I can’t imagine being the child in this. The whole argument is that you need to pay the parents because through doctors negligence, they let him be born. That the parents if they had known would have aborted him. The only reason he is alive is because of a mistake.
I don’t know how the judge making that ruling could sleep at night.
December 5th, 2010 | 10:49 am
Amen to calling this bigotry.
December 6th, 2010 | 12:44 am
what culture of death, indeed, Wesley. For anyone to argue that someone who’s disabled, should die, is absolutely horrible! Sometimes, although arguments are important, we need to show our outrage, and sadness, that disabled people, who are just as good as the rest of us, have a right to life! They’re feeling, conscious beings, and can have as good a life as anyone else!
My hope, is to have a “culture of life and respect”, which entails, accepting and protecting all human life, regardless of the disability suffered, all conscious animal life, all races, sexes, and sexual orientation, and religions, that transcends the petty ideological debates, between so called liberals and conservatives.
December 6th, 2010 | 2:01 pm
Well, a whole lot of people never should have been born. But this isn’t the way to make that happen.
December 6th, 2010 | 4:24 pm
un avortement thérapeutique
A theraputic abortion?!!
How can an abortion be theraputic? Therapy is medical treatment aimed at curing or healing.
Orwellian doublethink at its finest (worst?).
December 6th, 2010 | 4:45 pm
I think this ruling will have very little impact. What doctor will henceforth provide prenatal screening without a signed waiver?
December 6th, 2010 | 4:47 pm
This is the result of progressivism. Eugenics was a big part of the founding of the ideology. The killing of unfit people is necessary to ensure those receiving aren’t taking a disproportionate amount from society than others and that all are able to do their fair share of work.
December 7th, 2010 | 3:20 am
Does no-one at First Things know French? !
December 7th, 2010 | 8:58 am
If the child grows up to be a serial killer who will blame him?
December 7th, 2010 | 9:57 am
Is it not written that in the end times; Man will call evil good and good evil.
December 7th, 2010 | 9:58 am
Wait a minute. Nobody is “killing” anybody by having an abortion, therapeutic or not.
To hypothesize that a fetus has a “right to life” is not logical.
It is up to the parent(s) whether or not they want to have a child. Mistakes happen. A mistake can/should be remedied, no matter what the nature of it. Therefore, a parent also has rights. To say that somebody MUST have a child is a frightening concept.
Living adults also have rights. Let’s not forget that.
December 7th, 2010 | 10:06 am
LOL In this country the “progressives” want to apply this to the other end of the age spectrum.
December 7th, 2010 | 10:08 am
Who’s to say what is a “handicap” and what is not? Who’s to say that the life growing in the womb will be a life not worthy of life? What gives the courts the right to decide? What about the aborting of children where the parents have received “false positive” test results? My sister was told that her child would be born with Down Syndrome. Being Christians, her and her husband refused to abort. Had they aborted, they would have killed a perfectly healthy baby because their son was born absolutely healthy with no Down. Think of how many people we would lose on just the “assumption” of disabilities. Come to think of it, how many are we already losing to abortion each and every day anyway? All of these children, disability or not, have a right to be born and survive. God made these children, and they are all perfect in his sight. It’s the parents who would rather kill, than to be burdened with taking care of a child, with or without disabilities. They think it’s easier to just “dispose of the problem” because society says it’s okay. I can only pray that their eyes will be opened before their day of judgement!
December 7th, 2010 | 11:13 am
Um, Barbara, I hate to tell you this, but handicapped kids have rights too—even if their parents did try to kill them. (Sorry, abortion is killing someone. Deal.)
What next? Are we going to argue that parents who throw their toddler-age kids off bridges, or allow their shack-up partners to kill their out-of-the-womb kids “have rights” too? (One of which, apparently, is not to be troubled by inconvenient kids, who mess up one’s liberated life style?)
May you never become old, and/or handicapped, Barbara, and have to depend on the mercy of others. The way our society’s going, it’s not going to be there when you want it.
December 7th, 2010 | 11:26 am
Barbara, using your thinking, a parent would be justified in killing off, say, a one or two year old, if they interfered with their love life, or became ill, and inconvenient, because it’s now a mistake, and “A mistake can/should be remedied, no matter the nature of it.” (You do realize when you’re talking about “mistakes” here, you’re referring to actual people? Human beings?)
Well, the Nazis thought the “Jews” were mistakes, and that by killing them off, they’d be rectifying one great, big error on Mother Nature’s part! And the Communists thought that they killing off Kulaks, and all enemies of the state, they’d create the workers paradise! These people were historical “mistakes”, after all; I mean, it’s not as if they were REAL people, right?
December 7th, 2010 | 11:42 am
Barbara: It flies in the face of science for a species to conceive and/or carry a child that isn’t of the same species they are. i.e., it is *scientifically* illogical that a human fetus is “just a clump of tissue” or “isn’t human” before a certain point in the gestation. That baby may not be fully developed until nine months, but it is still a human.
As for parental rights, yeah, we all have options. One of the greatest ones for those who aren’t able to conceive or have children is *adoption*. There are many, many people out there who would be more than willing to adopt a special-needs child. That way, that baby doesn’t have to be a “burden” on its biological parents.
December 7th, 2010 | 12:17 pm
What is it with the Europeans? How do ideas like this get traction there? It’s been less than one lifetime since the end of the Third Reich and they’re at it again! Sheesh!
December 7th, 2010 | 12:22 pm
O goddess Barbara – If something has life and you end that life it is called killing. A fetus is alive . . .it moves and responds to stimuli. Therefore to terminate it’s existence is to end its life. To KILL it.
You reflect the poor, pitiable lamentations of all pro abortionists who need to wake up to what is science in these modern times with respect to when we know life is present in the womb. Stop with the insanity that suggests pre-birth life is non life. If it lives and you kill it we call that murder.
While you and your misled pro-choice fellows deny that a fetus is human just what would you have us believe it might be: a rabbit, squirrel, monkey or do you truly think that that which has life and DNA has no identifiable link to any living creature?
December 7th, 2010 | 1:00 pm
To Rhinestone, Stacey and Cuanmara, thank you for saying all that I am thinking and feeling but didn’t say myself. I praise God, the Creator of life, for people like you who believe all life is sacred, whether in or out of the womb!
December 7th, 2010 | 2:06 pm
Barbara, I really don’t know how you can even sleep at night. Your thinking is so far off from reality. I am an R.N. and I am here to tell you that birth begins at conception and [edited to take comment out of first person] anything [done] on purpose, to harm or cause the death of that little precious baby, [is] murder.
December 7th, 2010 | 2:52 pm
You are very welcome, Linda K.
December 7th, 2010 | 4:17 pm
I will adopt the child… send him to me. HE is a child, not a deformity. Created in the image of God, most likely intelligent and sweet… since he was meant to be born, I say let someone adopt him that agrees his life has purpose and meaning. I wonder what type of life this child will experience. Will he ever know his Creator? Let’s pray for him… He’ll probably show us by finding a cure for cancer or something. Man’s wisdom is like filthy rags to the Lord.
December 7th, 2010 | 4:38 pm
To Barbara: Yes, a fetus is life, and abortion is murder. Abortions have been done for as long as there have been births, but everybody knew it for what is was, that’s why it was done secretly. Now, we’re modern and progressive, so we have changed the name, and made it legal, but that doesn’t change what it is.
December 7th, 2010 | 5:40 pm
God is the author of life. Only God has the right to decide when life begins and when it ends. Do your really want your fellow citizens to have the right to decide if you should live or be killed? How about all those precious crimials on death row that our Liberal friends are so insistent should not be put to death. So a fetus, who has harmed no one, can be killed because they are inconvenient?!
December 7th, 2010 | 5:45 pm
That this should happen in that bastion of EU power should not surprise anyone. This ruling reflects that the natives would appear to be from another planet. Perhaps the EU planet rather than the planet Earth.
December 7th, 2010 | 7:29 pm
[...] Belgian Court approves “wrongful life” action; permissible for doctors to kill the disab… [...]
December 7th, 2010 | 8:28 pm
It is an upside world we live in.
December 7th, 2010 | 9:54 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong. We prosecuted NAZI’s for doing this same thing. What makes this any better? It comes from the very pits of hell and Satan. You better believe he is still operating. But God has Him in His crosshairs.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 7th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
James: Nobody was killed here. It was a lawsuit for damages. Alas, they were awarded for wrongful life. Where that leads in the future, it seems to me, is when in doubt about fetal disability, abort.
December 8th, 2010 | 12:21 am
Hitler began the Holocaust by “conditioning” the people by euthanizing the “crippled” and “feeble minded”. The crcle is unbroken. Here we go again.
December 9th, 2010 | 3:23 am
[...] Belgium: Court Approves “Wrongful Life” Rule that Disabled Child Should Never Have Been Born [...]
December 9th, 2010 | 10:21 am
You mean nobody’s been killed YET, Wesley.
Once you set the legal precedent of useless lives, and people who should not have been born. . . well, you’re only a few steps away from the Nazis, and their programs for “Useless eaters.”
Oh, yeah, when in doubt, just abort—’cuz we know doctors are never wrong, ‘cuz less than perfect kids are just a drag and who needs all those “useless eaters” anyway?
Lovely. (Not!)
December 9th, 2010 | 10:24 am
It’s interesting, by the way, that we’ve gone from trying to alleviate, or cure, disabilities, whether mental or physical, to the point of demanding that “kindly” Dr. abortionist just get rid of all those nasty, inconvenient disabled and sick people.
This says volumes about our culture, and the current state of medical research.
December 9th, 2010 | 4:10 pm
[...] “Belgium: Court Approves “Wrongful Life” Rule that Disabled Child Should Never Have Been …,” Wesley J. Smith, Secondhand Smoke [...]
December 12th, 2010 | 8:04 pm
I passed this one along to my FaceBook wall. The entire concept of “wrongful life” can’t be other than chilling for anyone with any respect at all for life… much less the lives of children. This is an object lesson as well as to why American jurists should never be allowed to cite foreign law as a basis for their rulings.
January 28th, 2011 | 11:52 am
Very nice ruling, abortion should have been performed.
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