Every two years the Belgium Federal Commission on the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia presents a report detailing statistics and developments in the practice of euthanasia in Belgium.
The report is currently only available in French and Dutch. However, in this article, with the help of Google Translate the information from 2016 and 2017 has been extracted...
read « Euthanasia in Belgium: updates on a social experiment »
Eric VERMEER
Ethicist and nurse
After working for a decade in a hematology-oncology service and another ten years in a palliative care service, I arrived, in all fairness to the conclusion that euthanasia is not the real answer expected by sick and severe suffering people. If the goal of medicine is "to serve life and promote health," there are other ways, more civilized and more responsible, to get there than to take life away to remove mental suffering or rebel pain.
I am even more appalled today to the proposed extension of decriminalization of euthanasia, concerning the "demented" patients in the early declaration and children suffering from an incurable disease, being in a situation of insatiable suffering...
read « Euthanasia in all its forms! »
Dr Benoît BEUSELINCK
Oncologist
Since 2002, euthanasia is, under certain conditions, decriminalized in Belgium. I belong to the increasing group of doctors who believe that the law brings more problems than it solves.
There is no need to quote the Bible or any encyclical, my argument can be based entirely on scientific / empirical observation. Indeed, the only "benefit" of this law is that it has transformed our country into a laboratory where we can see beyond the philosophical considerations and the reality of daily practice the profound changes in attitude and aberrations that such law may induce a decade...
read « We aim to protect all human life, also the doctor's life! ! »