Pediatric euthanasia in Belgium: some ethical considerations

On February 2014, the Belgian Parliament approved the first law on children euthanasia stating that also young children can make the autonomous choice to have their lives terminated. This article reviews the ethical objections to the law. These include the impossibility to gauge the competence of children and their vulnerability,and the fact that euthanasia itself implies that some lives are not worthy of living. The denial of life as a ‘‘bonum onticum’’ reneges the very principles on which civil laws and medical ethics are founded.