Euthanasia in Belgium is becoming a celebration. Now, the nation’s 95-year-old “oldest athlete” was killed at his euthanasia party — complete with Champaign toasts for the about to be departed — and Belgian ethicists swoon. From the DH.be story (Google translation):

A ‘staging’ of death that has the gift to challenge Olivier Descamps, the chairman of the ethics committee of the hospital Jolimont. “This trend is very curious and beautiful at once. We are facing a new definition of what it is to die. It really is the emotional culture of today’s societies. We need the death penalty contributes to experience emotions and shared joys.”

Coming soon, a suicide service industry:

In Belgium, the staging of death she eventually a limit? “If the person wants to die under such conditions, it is his choice, said Olivier Descamps. But in the near future, I see great companies take ownership of this kind of events, like funerals to present where everything is organized in advance. A bit like packages for travel. Anyway, early requests for euthanasia is accelerating and will generalize, I’m sure.”

Belgians have embraced the logic of the culture of death. To again quote Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne’s comment on Canadians embracing a man who murdered his 12-year-old daughter because she had cerebral palsy:

A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.

The same nihilistic decay will happen — sometimes sooner, sometimes later — to any society that lets the euthanasia vampire in the door.

Somewhere, Jack Kevorkian is laughing.

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Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC
Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC