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.

Ontario Bill 4: We oppose presumed consent for organ donation.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Please sign and share our petition opposing Ontario Bill 4: Peter Kormos Memorial Act. (Petition Link).

Ontario NDP MLA France Gélinas introduced Bill 4 on April 16, 2025. Bill 4 has not yet been debated in the Ontario legislature. Bill 4 states:

The Gift of Life Act currently requires that consent be obtained before tissue can be removed from a human body and used for therapeutic purposes, medical education or scientific research. Under the proposed amendments, consent is no longer required except from parents or guardians on behalf of children under 16 years of age. A person may object to the removal and use of the tissue prior to the person’s death or a substitute may object on the person’s behalf after the death has occurred.

Bill 4 would change The Gift of Life Act (Ontario), which requires consent to obtain organs and tissues and replaces it with presumed consent. The Ontario government would consider you to be an organ donor unless you have stated otherwise.

Bill 4 also changes the Connecting Care Act 2019 for the planning, co-ordinating, undertaking, supporting and promoting of activities relating to the removal, donation and use of human tissue, including the co-ordinating and supporting of designated facilities in connection with the removal and use of human tissue for transplant.

Please sign and share the following petition (Petition Link).

To the Hon Sylvia Jones, Ontario Minister of Health

As a citizen of Ontario I oppose Bill 4, Peter Kormos Memorial Act (Saving Organs to Save Lives). This bill that would institute a system of presumed consent for organ donation in Ontario.

A study by the US Department of Health and Human Services examined 351 organ donation approvals and determined that 103 of the cases may have violated the dead donor rule.

The government does not own my organs. I consider organ donation as a voluntary gift of life that is made after I have died. 

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports the Dead Donor rule, meaning, the person must be dead before organs can be removed from a person. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition calls for a re-affirmation of the dead donor rule and rejects a presumed consent for organ donation.

On July 23 we published an article about The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) media release concerning the American organ transplant system. The HHS examined 351 organ donation approvals and determined that in 103 cases their were concerns that either ethics or the dead donor rule was violated.

In 2023, an effort to legitimize harvesting organs from living people was prevented when The Uniform Law Commission stopped an effort to revise the UDDA. The revision to the UDDA would have redefined death to permit organ removal when a person, is not yet dead but has an irreversible condition.