Veneer of euthanasia is being peeled back in Belgium

This article was published by OneNewsNow on February 23, 2018.

Alex Schadenberg

Records show an increasing number of people in Belgium are being euthanized without having agreed to it.

In the most recent case, a bedridden mental health patient was euthanized after his family members requested it. The patient had never given a hint that he would want doctors to kill him and was incapable of consent. According to Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, it was publicly reported and the doctor was not prosecuted.

"This has caused a fair amount of division within the whole euthanasia lobby and organizations within Belgium," he reports. "... One doctor who's a palliative care physician has resigned his position with the euthanasia commission because it just did not fit what was considered acceptable practice for euthanasia in Belgium."

It's not the only case. Schadenberg explains a fair amount of unrequested euthanasia is occurring in that country

"We see that in a study that was released looking at all deaths in 2015," he states. "There were 431 euthanasia deaths without request – and a study from 2013 in Belgium showed that in the Flanders region there were over a thousand."

OneNewsNow has reported on other cases, in Belgium and the Netherlands, where psychiatric patients are being euthanized, including a 29-year-old woman who was physically healthy but mentally not so. She was killed by her doctor.

Schadenberg says public knowledge of such cases is starting to "take away the veneer" being told the public that euthanasia merely brings on loving and peaceful death. "Which, of course, is a lie," he adds.