Belgian Bioethics Committee supports eugenic euthanasia for advanced dementia

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Alex Schadenberg

The Belga News Agency reported today that The Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics released an advisory report that supports euthanasia for people with advanced dementia.

Approval for euthanasia, which is killing a person by lethal poison, has moved from the terminally ill, to the chronically ill, to people with mental illness, to children and newborns and now to the incompetent.

Clearly The Belgian Advisory Committee have bought into a eugenic ideology based on the belief that some human lives are not worth living, and can be killed.

The Belga News Agency reported that:

At present, someone with advanced dementia cannot legally obtain euthanasia in Belgium. The current law requires that a person be mentally competent when requesting euthanasia, or that a prior living will or advance directive has been drawn up that applies when the patient is in a state of irreversible loss of consciousness – a coma.

This means that people with dementia can currently only request euthanasia if they are still sufficiently mentally competent. In 2024, 56 people with dementia in our country received euthanasia.

The Belga News Agency reported that Patrick Cras, vice-chairman of the Committee stated:

“It is not a black-and-white assessment, but doctors do feel that procedures for people with dementia have been carried out ‘too early’ because it will no longer be legally possible to do so later,”

The Committee therefore recommends extending the euthanasia law to include people who “are conscious, but whose mental competence and ability to express their wishes have been irreversibly impaired by illness or accident.”

In 2024 there were almost 4000 euthanasia deaths, which was almost a 64% increase since 2020. Belgium is known for having a high rate of unreported euthanasia deaths. Several years ago Dr Marc Cosyns stated that he does not report euthanasia deaths and studies show that Cosyns isn't alone in not reporting his deaths.

Euthanasia was sold to the public as being for mentally competent, terminally ill adults who were freely capable of consenting.

When Belgium expanded their euthanasia law, in February 2014, to include children, it was clear that eugenics was driving the force. Child euthanasia undermines the "safeguard" that a person is fully competent and capable of consenting.

By extending euthanasia to people with advanced dementia, the concept of being competent and consenting is completely ignored. These decisions are based on a decision that some human lives are not worth living.

The new eugenics is similar to the old eugenics, except that the new eugenics cloaks itself in the language of autonomy and choice, even when autonomy and choice are impossible.