“Should children have the right to die?”

Jacob M. Appel writing at the Huffington Post: “Unfortunately, much less attention has been paid to efforts to hasten the deaths of pediatric patients who lack any hope of recovery. That is why advocates for children should welcome an impressive study, published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, which revealed a considerable interest in euthanasia among the surviving parents of children who had died from cancer. In interviews with 141 such parents, Dr. Veronica Dussel and her colleagues found that greater than 10% considered hastening their children’s deaths, and that at least three families believed that physicians had expedited the deaths of their children in direct response to their requests.”

Considerations About Hastening Death Among Parents of Children Who Die of Cancer