BRUSSELS-
The Belgium Parliament has passed a bill, allowing euthanasia for terminally ill children without any age limit.
The law was backed by 86 votes to 44, with 12 abstentions.
When the bill is signed by the king, Belgium will become the first country in the world to remove any age limit on the practice, the BBC reports.
In the Netherlands, Belgium’s northern neighbour, euthanasia is legal for children over the age of 12, if there is parental consent.
The Belgian law states that any incurably sick child may request to end their suffering if “conscious”, and if equipped with “a capacity of discernment”.
An emotional debate before the vote was interrupted by a man who shouted out “murderers” in French, before being removed from the house.
“It is not a question of imposing euthanasia on anyone… but of allowing a child not to agonise in pain,” said Socialist MP Karine Lalieux ahead of the vote.
“The right to consider the question of life and death cannot be restricted to adults,” said liberal MP Daniel Bacquelaine.
Addressing controversy over the decision not to set an age restriction for “discernment”, he said a child’s “legal age isn’t the same as mental age”.
But opponents, largely members of centrist Christian-leaning parties, attacked the legislation for failing to set a minimum age for youngsters to be able to request euthanasia.
In recent days, the Catholic Church staged “a day of fasting and prayer” in protest, and this week some 160 pediatricians petitioned lawmakers to postpone the vote on the grounds it was both ill-prepared and unnecessary.
Thursday’s vote went “a step too far”, Belgian bishops said in a joint statement.