XPost: soc.retirement, rec.sport.tennis, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: alt.child-molester   
   From: nancy-pelosi-thief@barackobama.com   
      
   Legalized murder.  Watch the libtards coin the term "post-birth   
   abortion" to describe murdering children.   
      
   Belgium has just passed a law allowing euthanasia for children.   
   The Low Countries allow for suicide and doctor-assisted suicide,   
   but Brussels is the first to open to door to dealing death to   
   children of any age.   
      
   If the prospect of youngsters being helped to off themselves   
   seems horrifying, do not worry – the law has “safeguards” to   
   ensure all the killing will be purely voluntary: a psychologist   
   has to certify that the child has “capacity or discernment” to   
   understand what they are doing.   
      
   Aside from its inherent significance, Belgium’s move requires us   
   to revisit Roper v. Simmons, the 2005 Supreme Court case that   
   ruled it inherently unconstitutional to apply the death penalty   
   to anyone under 18. European nations had long waged a moral   
   campaign against America’s allowance of the death penalty for 16-   
   18 year olds, which they called barbaric and savage.   
      
   After all, minors are not really responsible for their actions.   
   America was labelled a human rights violator, an international   
   outlier.   
      
   Finally, in Roper, the Court caved in to this pressure. Indeed,   
   it cited the European position as support for its conclusion –   
   other countries do not allow for such a thing.   
      
   Why can a 17 year-old rapist-murderer not face capital   
   punishment? Because, as Justice Kennedy wrote in a 5-4 decision,   
   science has shown that minors, even 17-year-olds, are too   
   immature to truly understand the consequences of their   
   decisions, or the meaning of life and death.   
      
   Juveniles are prone to “impetuous and ill-considered actions”   
   that they should not be made to lose their life for, even if the   
   action involved taking the life of another.” Moreover, juveniles   
   are susceptible to peer pressure, Kennedy wrote. (Of course, one   
   of the concerns in allowing euthanasia is external pressure from   
   doctors, parents and others.)   
      
   Yet now we see Belgium thinks kids are responsible enough; the   
   Netherlands similarly allows euthanasia as young as 12. These   
   countries may be the way of the future, as they have been in   
   other areas of progressive mores. Roper misread their belief   
   system.   
      
   It is not one of paternalistic concern for youth. Rather, a   
   system that permits the euthanasia of innocent 12 year-olds but   
   not the punishment of guilty 17-year-olds is one that exalts   
   autonomy without culpability.   
      
   Of course, with the juvenile death penalty, only a small   
   fraction of minors who committed capital crimes would be   
   sentenced to death. On a case by case basis, hosts of   
   psychologists, jurors, and judges would have to be convinced   
   that the particular defendant truly knew what they were doing.   
      
   So it comes out that the juveniles cannot really make   
   accountable decisions when it comes to killing people, unless it   
   is themselves. Or to put it differently, Belgium will not hold   
   children responsible when they hurt others, but gives them free   
   license to hurt themselves. Perversely, in Belgium, the youths   
   who are considered grown up enough to be euthanized have not   
   done anything wrong at all, unlike Simmons, who tied up his   
   victim and thew him off a bridge.   
      
   Belgium’s law shows the folly of basing constitutional decisions   
   on the practice of other countries: though we all eat at   
   McDonalds, American and Belgian notions of decency are   
   fundamentally different. In American, an age-unlimited   
   euthanasia law would be unthinkable, in Belgium it apparently   
   has 75 percent popular support. American intellectual elites   
   became uncomfortable being the only Western nation with a   
   juvenile death penalty; the Belgians do not blush at standing   
   out.   
      
   Roper was wrong to look across the seas, and the campaigners   
   against the 16-18 year old death penalty were wrong to accept   
   the conceit of European moral superiority and American ugliness.   
   But to the extent that Roper did base its decision on a   
   theoretically unified consensus about juvenile responsibility,   
   Belgium’s action, which may be followed by other northern   
   European countries, gives an occasion to overrule it.   
      
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-   
   conspiracy/wp/2014/02/13/belgiums-kiddie-euthansia-law-and-roper-   
   v-simmons/   
      
        
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)