Australia Human Rights Commission pushes Assisted Suicide for Children

This article was published by National Review online on January 4, 2024.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Assisted suicide is being legalized all over Australia, and I fear the country is going to go the dark route Canada has after it legalized euthanasia. Case in point: There is a bill before the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) to legalize assisted suicide. The Human Rights Commission criticizes the proposal for restricting assisted-suicide eligibility to adults:

Improvements to the proposed scheme:

We detail below certain of our earlier recommendations that have not been incorporated into the Bill.

1. Access for Children and Young People under 18: the current scheme is limited to individuals over the age of 18 years old. Human rights principles require due consideration for the rights of children and young people, including their right to access health care without discrimination and their right to have their views taken into account.

It is the Commission’s view that this extends to decisions for a child or young person to voluntarily end their life with dignity in the same circumstances as adults: namely where they have a condition that is advanced, progressive and expected to cause their death, where they are suffering intolerably, where they are acting voluntarily, and where they have demonstrated maturity and capacity to make such a decision. We recognise that there may need to be additional steps and safeguards for children and young people, particularly where the views of parents and carers differ from the young person or from each other.

If adopted, this means that “mature” minors would be able to be made dead without their parents’ permission and children no matter how young could be put down.

Canada isn’t there yet, but the same approach has been seriously proposed in that country. Belgium and the Netherlands already permit euthanizing children, and the Netherlands allows infanticide under the “Groningen Protocol.” 

Previous articles on this topic:

• The euthanasia lobby is pushing for child and infant euthanasia (Link).
•  Canadian children may be euthanized with or without parental consent (Link).