Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
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Question: When should voluntary euthanasia not be an option? This week a court in Belgium announced that the convicted rapist and murderer Frank Van Den Bleeken would be put to death by a lethal injection, in spite of the fact that the death penalty is banned across Europe . Van Den Bleeken's case was unusual : having previously been declared insane and not criminally responsible, he had himself asked to be euthanised on the grounds that he would rather die than spend the rest of his life in jail . Today the Belgian justice minister announced that Van Den Bleeken would not be euthanised after all, amid reports that the prisoner had changed his mind . Nonetheless ,  the case provides a fascinating twist to the old debate about euthanasia . Should Van Den Bleeken have been allowed to die? The moral defence of voluntary euthanasia is usually applied to people suffering from a terminal illness . But Van Den Bleeken isn't terminally ill and isn't in physical pain . Another traditional requirement is that the wish to die should be voluntary and competent . But how can the choices of someone who has been declared insane be regarded as voluntary and competent? The concern is that granting his request would make it a case of involuntary euthanasia , and that is usually seen as morally unacceptable . If there is an issue about Van Bleeken's sanity that is because of his alleged inability to control his sexual impulses . But it could be argued that this doesn't affect the validity of his request to be euthanised . The implication is that while some of his decisions might be involuntary or incompetent, this doesn't apply to his choice of death over a lifetime behind bars . Even so , should his request have been granted, given that he isn't terminally ill? One argument for allowing voluntary euthanasia where terminal illness isn't an issue turns on the idea of wellbeing : people should be allowed to choose death where they would literally be better off dead or where their life literally isn't worth living . Another argument turns on human autonomy : we should respect a person's free choices as long as they don't harm anyone else . Someone who is not terminally ill could still satisfy these requirements . Had Van Den Bleeken been allowed to die, critics may say it would have risked opening the floodgates for other similar cases . Belgium has seen a dramatic rise in euthanasia since the practice was legalised in 2002 and permitted in cases of pain and psychological distress, as well as terminal illness . Some are opposed to voluntary euthanasia as a matter of principle . The philosopher David Velleman argues that there isn't a fundamental right to choose between life and death, and that a person's rights don't expand when they become terminally ill or psychologically distressed . He is heavily influenced by 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant . According to Kant, morality requires that we respect the dignity of persons, and the dignity of persons makes them intrinsically valuable . For Kant, a person's dignity can't be traded against their wellbeing or happiness , and the fact that a person believes that their life isn't worth living doesn't make it acceptable for them to be euthanised . The Van Den Bleeken case puts pressure on these standard arguments for and against voluntary euthanasia . Suppose that, contrary to Kant's view, voluntary euthanasia is morally permissible as long as the person asking to be euthanised would be genuinely better off dead . Relatives of Van Den Bleeken's victim may well argue that the fact(if it is a fact) that he would be better off dead is precisely a reason for not allowing him to be put to death . From this perspective, euthanasia looks like a way for him to circumvent his sentence . Van Den Bleeken's victim was Christiane Remacle, a 19-year-old he raped and strangled in 1989 . Her sisters are reported to have said that Van Den Bleeken should be forced to languish in jail , and their reaction brings out an ambivalence in how we think about the death penalty for murder . Relatives of murder victims often demand the death penalty as the ultimate punishment , but the Van Den Bleeken case suggests that, at least from the standpoint of the perpetrator, the ultimate sanction may be life behind bars . But the intrinsic value argument against voluntary euthanasia can also be hard to swallow, in this case . Christiane Remacle's sisters might balk at the idea that a murderer's life is intrinsically valuable . It's hard not to sympathise , and there remain strong reasons for not allowing Van Den Bleeken to be euthanised regardless of whether his life is intrinsically valuable . As long as euthanasia is seen as a way for him to circumvent his sentence, respect for his victim and her family demands that he isn't given the option .

Answer: One argument for allowing voluntary euthanasia where terminal illness isn't an issue turns on the idea of wellbeing Some are opposed to voluntary euthanasia as a matter of principle


Question: Children in our towns and cities are being robbed of safe spaces to play. Where do the children play? Where can they run around unsupervised? On most of the housing estates I visit, the answer is hardly anywhere . A community not built around children is no community at all . A place that functions socially is one in which they are drawn to play outdoors . As Jay Griffiths argues in her heartrending book Kith, children fill the "unoccupied territories", the spaces not controlled by tidy-minded adults, "the commons of mud, moss, roots and grass" . But such places are being purged from the land and their lives . "Today's children are enclosed in school and home, enclosed in cars to shuttle between them, enclosed by fear, by surveillance and poverty and enclosed in rigid schedules of time." Since the 1970s the area in which children roam without adults has decreased by almost 90% . "Childhood is losing its commons." Given all that we know about the physical and psychological impacts of this confinement , you would expect the authorities to ensure that the remaining 10% of their diminished range is designed to draw children out of their homes . Yet almost everywhere they are designed out . Housing estates are built on the playing fields and rough patches children used to inhabit, and offer almost nothing in return . In the government's masterplan for England, the national planning policy framework, children are mentioned only twice: in a catalogue of housing types . In parliament's review of these plans, they aren't mentioned at all . Young people, around whom our lives should revolve, have been airbrushed from the planning system . I spent Monday wandering around the new and newish housing developments on the east side of Northampton . I chose this area because the estates here are spacious and mostly built for families : in other words, there is no possible excuse for excluding young people . In the places built 10 or 20 years ago, there is plenty of shared space , but almost all of it is allocated to cars . (You can see the photos on my website .) Grass is confined to the roundabouts or to coffin-like gardens , in which you can't turn a cartwheel without hitting the fence . I came across one exception - a street with wide grass verges . But they sloped towards the road: dangerous and useless, a perfect waste of space . This land of missed opportunities, designed by people without a spark of joy in their hearts, reifies the idea that there is no such thing as society . Had you set out to ensure that children were neither seen nor heard, you could not have done a better job . On the last day of the holidays, which was warm and dry, across four estates I saw only one child . By comparison, the Cherry Orchard estate just completed by Bellway Homes is a children's paradise . But only by comparison . Next to the primary school, with plenty of three- and four-bedroom houses, it is designed to appeal to young families . But in the middle of the development, where a village green might have been, there' s a strange grassy sump, surrounded by a low fence . It's an empty balancing pond, to catch water during exceptional floods . Remove the fence, plant it with trees, throw in some rocks and logs, and you'd have a rough and mossy playground . But no such thing was in the plans . Other shared spaces on the estate have the charming ambience of a prison yard : paved and surrounded by garden fences almost nine feet high . There were a few children outdoors but they seemed pressed to the edges, sitting in doorways or leaning on fences . Children don't buy houses , so who cares? Throughout the country, they become prisoners of bad design, and so do adults . Without safe and engaging places in which they can come together, no tribe forms . So parents must play the games that children would otherwise play among themselves , and everyone is bored to tears . The exclusion of children arises from the same pathology that denies us decent housing . In the name of market freedom, the volume housebuilders, sitting on their land banks, are free to preside over speculative chaos , while we are free to buy dog kennels priced like palaces in placeless estates so badly designed that community is dead on arrival . Many want to design and build their own homes , but almost no plots are available , as the big builders have seized them . In Scotland the government is considering compulsory sale orders , which would pull down prices - essential when the speculative price of land has risen from 2% of the cost of a home in the 1930s to 70% today . A national housing land corporation would assemble the sites and supply the infrastructure, then sell plots to community groups, housing associations and people who want to build their own . It goes far beyond England's feeble community right-to-build measures , which lack the muscular facilitation that only public authorities can provide . But it's still not far enough . What if people were entitled to buy an option for a plot on a new estate, which they would then help to plan? Not just the houses, but the entire estate would be built for and by those who would live there . The council or land corporation would specify the number and type of homes , then the future residents - including people on the social housing waiting list - would design the layout . Their children would help to create the public spaces . Communities would start to form even before people moved in , and the estates would doubtless look nothing like those built today . To the Westminster government, this probably sounds like communism . But as countries elsewhere in Europe have found, we don't need volume house builders, except to construct high-rises . They do not assist the provision of decent, affordable homes . They impede it . What is good for them is bad for us . Bellway, its brochure reveals, asked children at the neighbouring primary school to paint a picture of a cherry orchard, and displayed the winning entries in its show home . "Why not pop over to say hello, view our wonderful development and sneak a peek?", it asks . That's the role the children were given: helping the company to sell the houses it had already built . Why can't we shape the places that shape our lives?

Answer: A place that functions socially is one in which they are drawn to play outdoors


Question: We are the last generation that can fight climate change. We have a duty to act. This year the UN marks its 70th anniversary . Sadly, there is little time for reflection or celebration . More pressing are the competing demands and challenges fuelled by an upsurge in conflict, disease and human suffering . These compel the international community to step up and provide the leadership needed to tackle them . Ebola continues to plague west Africa . For some of the affected countries, struggling to overcome the effects of bitter civil war, the outbreak has been a major setback for development . We are beginning to see some improvements . During my visit to the region in December, I was deeply moved by the efforts of local Ebola responders and health workers from across Africa and the world . But rebuilding shattered lives and economies will require significantly more resources and long-term commitment . As conflicts raged and extremism rose , 2014 pushed the UN's humanitarian, peacekeeping and diplomatic efforts to the limit . More than 100 million people needed assistance . An unprecedented number of UN troops and police are deployed in highly volatile security environments . The elimination of Syria's chemical weapons programme was a major achievement , but the conflict continues to inflict immense suffering and will soon enter its fifth year . As bitter winter conditions set in , millions of refugees are in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance . The presence of thousands of foreign terrorist fighters there and in Iraq has added a further volatile dimension . Groups responsible for atrocities have capitalised on a legacy of atrocious governance towards disenfranchised populations . Our response to brutality and extremism cannot be limited to military action, important as it is . We must address the conditions that give rise to such poison in the first place . In the same vein, those conducting military actions against terrorists must be sure that such efforts fully observe human rights . As we have seen time and again , failure to do so can end up serving as a recruiting agent for terrorists . Elsewhere, the recent appalling terrorist attacks in Paris show how vulnerable any society can be . Countries in Europe and elsewhere have witnessed a deeply worrying escalation of tensions between communities and within societies . Giving in to hatred and sowing division only guarantees a spiral of violence- precisely what terrorists seek . We must not fall into that trap . Addressing discord in a manner that solves, rather than multiplies, the problem may be the greatest test our human family faces in the 21st century . There is a long list of other hot-spots- stretching from Nigeria to Yemen, from the rise in fighting in Darfur to the transition in Afghanistan . Conflict in Ukraine has endangered security and stability in Europe, and reanimated the ghosts of the cold war . Israelis and Palestinians must ease the explosive situation in Gaza and the West Bank, and move away from confrontation and towards a negotiated settlement . But in a year marked by turmoil, UN member states have also proposed an initial draft set of sustainable development goals that will guide anti- poverty efforts for the next generation . Further negotiations will begin this month and culminate at a special summit in New York in September with the adoption of a development agenda that can help tackle inequality, empower women and girls, and promote shared prosperity . Climate action took on significant momentum with major announcements by the EU, the US and China, and a successful climate conference in Lima, Peru , that kept complex negotiations on track . We must aim high: for the adoption of an ambitious and universal agreement in Paris in December to keep the rise in global temperatures below the dangerous threshold of 2C . Ours is the first generation that can end poverty, and the last that can take steps to avoid the worst impacts of climate change . In this 70th anniversary year in which we renew our commitment to the goals and principles of the UN charter, the international community must rise to the moment .

Answer:
Ours is the first generation that can end poverty, and the last that can take steps to avoid the worst impacts of climate change


