by Hilary White
ROME, March 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Italy’s Minister of Parliamentary Affairs was excoriated by Dutch officials for comparing Dutch legalization of euthanasia, including for ‘defective’ infants, to the Nazi eugenics programme that preceded the Holocaust. But Giovanardi says he has nothing to apologise for.
Minister Carlo Giovanardi, a member of Italy’s centre right Christian Democrat party, said on an Italian radio programme last Friday, “Nazi legislation and Hitler’s ideas are re-emerging in Europe via Dutch euthanasia laws and the debate on how to kill ill children.” He said it is “eugenics” to debate killing children “who are ill or have Down syndrome. “We could just as easily apply this to senior citizens.”
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said on Thursday that he had told the Italian Prime Minister at a meeting of Christian Democrat leaders at Meise near Brussels that Giovanardi’s comments were unacceptable. “We were in agreement about this. Berlusconi noted Giovanardi was speaking for himself and not for the Italian government,” Balkenende said.
Giovanardi reacted to Dutch demands for an apology saying, “I have nothing to apologize for, because I am against murders of ill people,” Giovanardi said. “It is the Dutch, who are to explain to Europe their homicidal practices. In the Netherlands it is allowed to put to death gravely ill children starting from the age of 12.”
In a newspaper interview he said the Netherlands had renounced “two thousand years of Christianity,” and chosen the path of “eliminating the deaf, blind and elderly.”
Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Prime Minister Berlusconi’s brother published an editorial saying that a victory by the centre-left in the general election on 9 April could see Italy threatened with a move towards “infanticide.”
Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Italian Minister Accuses Holland of “Nazism” for Euthanasia Laws
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06032003.html