Belgium's experience with euthanasia, teaches that safeguards are an illusion

This article was written by: Dr. Sc. Tom Mortier, Leuven University College and published in the Montreal Gazette on December 5 

Professor Tom Mortier

Rotselaar, Belgium — I believe that before Quebec passes its own legislation to legalize euthanasia, it needs to take a good look at Belgium, which last week took legal steps to extend euthanasia to children. After all, my country has more than 10 years of experience.

In 2002, when euthanasia was legalized, it was said that it would only be performed in very rare circumstances. We were supposed to have had all the safeguards. Two doctors were to agree, and if the patient was not terminally ill, a third doctor would be consulted, a psychiatrist. A month was to pass between the written request for euthanasia and the lethal injection.

However, 10 years and 8,000 deaths later, these rules are being ignored and euthanasia is out of control. On Wednesday of last week, a parliamentary committee voted to remove age restrictions on euthanasia, and so the proposal to extend it to children with incurable diseases is now headed for a vote in the full Parliament.

The leading euthanasia doctor in Belgium, oncologist Wim Distelmans, received international media attention last December when 45-year-old deaf identical twins under his “medical guidance,” who were gradually were going blind, were killed. The twins thought that they had nothing to live for, and had asked for euthanasia.

Then Distelmans killed 44-year-old Nathan Verhelst, a transgender person who was born as Nancy. On Belgian radio, Distelmans said that his patient met “all” conditions of the euthanasia law. But physically, Nathan was not terminally ill, or even ill at all, but was suffering mentally.

Tom Mortier's mother

Distelmans acknowledged that it is not exceptional for mentally-ill patients to be euthanized. He ought to know: He is the chairman of the Belgian Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission (Belgian Commission).

In fact, Distelmans gave my own mother a lethal injection on April 19, 2012 — because she had chronic depression. Her departure wasn’t the serene family gathering, full of peace and reconciliation, which euthanasia supporters gush about.

The University Hospital in Brussels phoned my wife the day after.

It was the first we had heard of it.

My mother died without her closest family at her bedside.

The business of “consultation” is a sham. Yes, on the one hand, another doctor has to be asked for advice. But no, the euthanizing doctor does not have to heed the advice.

All you need to do is find yourself a euthanasia doctor who is willing to kill you.

Distelmans constantly propagates his ideology in the Belgian media. He has even started his own ideological association, Leif, to train other doctors. Furthermore, his organization recently gave a retired Belgian Senator and pro-euthanasia activist, Jacinta De Roeck, a “lifetime achievement award.”

Whether or not a person approves of the concept of euthanasia, most would insist that if it is legal, it must be carefully controlled. If this isn’t possible, it must not be legalized in the first place. It is too dangerous. Innocent people will die.

Belgium’s experience clearly demonstrates that controls and safeguards are not possible. Despite all the assurances they gave to the public, the government appointed Distelmans, the leading propagandist for euthanasia in Belgium, to chair the commissions that decide whether euthanasia cases have been carried out in accordance with the law. He has been in that position for all the time that the law has been in effect. And so everything we know about Belgian euthanasia flows through the hands of its leading practitioner. Can a man who is judge, jury and executioner be expected to tell the world about the defects in his euthanasia empire?

If we have learned anything in Belgium, it is that euthanasia is an open bar that gives an illusion of safeguards and controls. It promises autonomy and self-determination. In fact, euthanasia gives all the power to the doctors. Patients are at the receiving end of the lethal injection.

A bill to introduce “assisted death” in Quebec is currently before the National Assembly in Quebec City. Although the bill has received approval in principle, it still hasn’t been officially been passed into law. Quebecers should demand that the bill be abandoned.

Dr Tom Mortier, Leuven University College, Belgium.

Tom Mortier warns of "Slippery Slope" as euthanasia is normalized.

The National Post is publishing a series of articles on euthanasia. The following article was written by Graeme Hamilton and published on the front page of the National Post on November 25 under the title: Death By Doctor: Belgium's Slippery Slope.

By Graeme Hamilton - National Post, November 25, 2013.

Tom Mortier

Tom Mortier never paid much attention to the discussion about euthanasia in his country. “I was like just about anyone else here in Belgium: I didn’t care at all,” he said in a recent interview. “If people want to die, it’s probably their choice. It didn’t concern me.”

Then in April 2012, Mr. Mortier, a university lecturer, got a message at work. His 64-year-old mother, in the throes of severe depression, had been euthanized the previous day. He would need to make arrangements at the morgue. His mother, Godelieva De Troyer, had largely broken off contact with her family but informed him by email three months earlier that she was looking into euthanasia. He never dreamed her request would be granted because she was in perfect physical health.

His mother’s death has transformed Mr. Mortier, 37, from a typically indifferent Belgian into a critic of the country’s euthanasia law, which came into force in 2002. “This is suicide with the approval of society,” he said of her death. “This has nothing to do with euthanasia.”

When Belgium legalized euthanasia, there were assurances that it would be tightly controlled and limited to exceptional cases. But the number of cases rises every year – reaching nearly 2% of total deaths last year — and the definition of what is acceptable is expanding. The country’s Senate is currently debating a proposal to permit euthanasia of minors with a “capacity of discernment” and of people suffering from dementia.

The Belgian experience is of particular interest in Quebec, where a bill to legalize euthanasia passed second reading last month and is now undergoing detailed study in committee. Architects of the Quebec legislation, Bill 52, were inspired by the Belgian example. Last year, a special committee of the Quebec legislature studying euthanasia and assisted suicide visited Belgium and reported back in glowing terms. “Everyone agrees that there has been no abuse. No slippery slope has materialized,” the committee concluded. If there was any problem in Belgium, it was insufficient euthanasia: Patients were being denied euthanasia because of doctors’ “personal reluctance,” the committee said.

Étienne Montero, dean of law at Belgium’s Université de Namur, has looked at Quebec’s legislation and sees clear similarities to the Belgian law.

The Quebec bill says that to qualify for euthanasia a patient must:

• suffer from an incurable serious illness; 
• suffer from an advanced state of irreversible decline in capacity; and 
• suffer from constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain that cannot be relieved in a manner the person deems tolerable. 

Before performing euthanasia, a doctor needs a second opinion from an independent physician confirming that the criteria for euthanasia have been met.

That echoes the wording in Belgium, where euthanasia is legal if a patient:
suffers from a serious and incurable accidental or pathological condition;
is in a hopeless medical condition; and
suffers constant and unbearable physical or mental pain that cannot be relieved.

An independent physician must be consulted, and in cases where death is not imminent, a third physician must also be consulted, either a psychiatrist or a specialist in the patient’s condition.

Mr. Montero’s warning to Canadians is that once euthanasia is allowed, even supposedly for the most exceptional cases, it opens a crack that will widen over time. “I believe that once you accept the principle of euthanasia, we do not know how to set the limits or how to assure control of its practice,” he said. “We set strict conditions but we do not stick to them, not at all. Why? I think because euthanasia is made banal. It becomes a dignified exit. It becomes more and more normal.”

The normalization of euthanasia is something Jacqueline Herremans, president of Belgium’s francophone death-with-dignity association, welcomes. And opinion polls suggest she has the population behind her. A survey last month for the newspaper La Libre found that three-quarters of Belgians want the law extended to cover children with an incurable illness and adults with advanced dementia. The Brussels lawyer noted how the culture has changed in the 11 years since euthanasia became legal. New rituals have emerged, such as the last supper before a lethal injection.

“With a euthanasia, we prepare our mourning well in advance. We get ready for the separation. We try with the loved one to multiply cherished moments,” she said. “This means that when the action is taken, it is easier to turn the page. It was her will, she has left serenely, and now we can think about the good times. The mourning has been done before.”

She spoke of a friend suffering from Parkinson’s disease who died by euthanasia three years ago. “She loved sweets, so the night before she went to one of her children’s homes and they had a crepe evening,” she said. “The day itself, she went with her daughter to get her hair and nails done so she would be completely beautiful.”

Michèle Coerten, 73, is preparing for her own euthanasia. A retired union activist, Ms. Coerten has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and two months ago she decided to stop all treatments. Her hope is to spend one more Christmas at home with her husband.

In a telephone interview, she said knowing that euthanasia is available has made it easier for her to live with her illness. “Everyone is afraid of suffering, and the only way to avoid suffering is through euthanasia,” she said. She has asked one of her best friends, a family physician, if she would perform the euthanasia, and she has begun telling friends that she is preparing to end her life. “Everyone receives the news well,” she said. “People say, ‘Yes, Michèle, you are right.’ ”

Kenneth Chambaere, a postdoctoral fellow at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, said Belgians who oppose euthanasia are a small minority. “In Belgium, the fact that the majority supports euthanasia means that it has actually become part of our culture,” he said. “Ethical paradigms change over time. We’ve seen that throughout history.”

The acceptance of euthanasia has been smoothed by a few prominent cases. Christian de Duve, winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize for medicine, died by euthanasia last May at age 95. Though he had cancer, it was not terminal. Rather, it was a fall that left him unable to get up that convinced him it was time to die before he lost his dignity and became a burden. He followed Hugo Claus, a well-known Belgian writer, who received euthanasia in 2008 while in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Mr. Montero is troubled by the fact that the deaths of Dr. de Duve and Mr. Claus, neither of whom was terminally ill, were portrayed in Belgium as noble examples. “I am persuaded that there are vulnerable people who think today, ‘I must request euthanasia. I represent a burden for my loved ones. I am contributing nothing to society any more,’ ” he said. “What is presented at first as a right is going to become a kind of obligation.”

Belgium’s 16-member Federal Commission of Control and Evaluation is supposed to guard against any abuses, although it only analyzes cases after the patient is dead. It has reviewed more than 8,000 deaths since euthanasia was legalized, and not one has been referred to prosecutors. Critics like Mr. Montero say this is because its membership is heavily stacked with euthanasia advocates who have stretched the acceptable criteria. Wim Distelmans, the country’s leading euthanasia doctor, has been the co-president since its creation.

Tom Mortier's mother

Psychiatric illnesses, such as the depression that afflicted Mr. Mortier’s mother, are now accepted as grounds for euthanasia. The commission also approves euthanasia when a patient has a combination of ailments – none of them life-threatening – that together produce unbearable suffering.

Ms. Herremans, a member of the control commission, elaborated. “Being tired of life is not an acceptable diagnosis,” she said. “But if, for example, someone is afflicted with osteoarthritis, can no longer leave the rest home where she lives, is losing her eyesight, losing her hearing, in that case you have the necessary information about the person’s medical condition.” Having lost a spouse can also be a factor. “It sometimes enters into the consideration of suffering,” she said.

Marc Van Hoey, a physician who performs euthanasia and is head of the Flemish death-with-dignity association, said there has been a shift toward euthanasia of what he called the high elderly. “Recently I went to see a lady of 95 years old, sitting in a nursing home all by herself. All her friends and family had died. The only people she had good contact with were the nursing team. She said every evening she goes to bed, she hopes, ‘Don’t let me wake up any more,’ ” he said. He told her she was a candidate for euthanasia.

“Why do I say that? Because maybe if you say to that kind of person, ‘We are not going to give you euthanasia,’ they open the window on the fourth floor and jump down. And that’s traumatic for everyone.”

Dr. Van Hoey is remarkably frank about how flexible the euthanasia law is. It requires a written request for euthanasia from a patient, but it can be written on a napkin, he said. The control commission has even approved euthanasia when there was no written request, taking the doctor’s word that an oral request had been made.

Assisted suicide — when the doctor prescribes a patient lethal medication instead of administering it himself – is not legal in Belgium. But Dr. Van Hoey said he has aided the suicides of two of his patients, including one a few years ago who had been refused euthanasia. The 56-year-old businessman was half-paralyzed after a stroke and did not want to live, but he had trouble finding a psychiatrist who would approve euthanasia. Dr. Van Hoey said today he would have gone ahead and performed the euthanasia without the approval of a psychiatrist instead of surreptitiously prescribing lethal drugs. He noted that Belgian law only says a third doctor must be “consulted” if death is not imminent. “It is not said [the doctors] have to agree,” he said.

Mr. Mortier remains haunted by his mother’s death, convinced her depression, prompted by the end of a 10-year romantic relationship, would have eventually improved as it had in the past. “It comes and it goes,” he said. “Almost everyone has been depressed. They don’t see the point in life.”

In looking at her medical file, he learned that she had essentially gone euthanasia shopping after initially being refused. Eventually she found a psychiatrist who concluded her depression was incurable and her suffering unbearable, and Dr. Distelmans performed the euthanasia.

“What he created is unbearable suffering for me,” Mr. Mortier said.

Links to similar articles:

• Belgian Senate will vote on bill to extend euthanasia to children with disabilities.
• Wim Distelmans has made his name doing euthanasia.
• Members of the Belgian Euthanasia Evaluation and Control Commission appear to be in a conflict of interest.

The Great Euthanasia Debate.

This article was written by Paul Russell, the director of HOPE Australia and the Vice Chair of EPC-International, and published on the HOPE Australia blog on November 23.

By Paul Russell

On the 13^th of November in the Goethe Institute in Brussels, Alex Schadenberg, chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International, debated noted pro-euthanasia medical academic, Dr Jan Bernheim. The panel discussion afterwards included Carine Brochier from the European Bioethics Institute (on the no side) and Professor Etienne Vermeersch, one of the authors of the Belgian euthanasia legislation and a government advisor.

The Question & Answer Session.

The debate became quite animated at times and even heated for a moment or two. Both Bernheim and Vermeersch tried in different ways to make it a ‘Catholics versus sensible people’ debate; which neither Schadenberg nor Brochier bought into at all. Vermeersch at one point declaring his frustration that euthanasia practice in Belgium was being hampered by Catholic-run hospitals (“there are not enough euthanasia deaths occurring”) and even going so far as to blame ‘the Walloons’ - the predominantly French-speaking region in south Belgium - for not embracing Belgian death culture.

Bernheim opened by drawing our attention to the typhoon disaster in the Philippines. The context however was made clear in the very next statement where Bernhiem expounded his theory that climate change was caused by over-population. In saying as much, Bernheim declared himself a card-carrying Malthusian. One wonders what effect this kind of thinking has had upon his drive to bring euthanasia to Belgium.

Bernheim then explained that it was he who first visited the UK to study the hospice movement with a view to bringing palliative care practice to his homeland. He then suggested to the audience that, while Dame Cicily Saunders’ aim in creating the hospice movement was to stop euthanasia, that his reasoning for wanting to bring hospice to Belgium was precisely the reverse – to also bring with it the deliberate killing of patients. He misreads Saunders’ aims to make a chilling point.

He then proceeded to show the audience some data on the increase in government spending on palliative care services in Belgium adding that Belgian practice was now amongst the best in Europe. Given that acts of euthanasia are conducted falsely within the paradigm of palliative care, we are left to wonder what the real position vis-à-vis the European context would be if spending on the killing of patients were removed from these totals. Moreover, given both Bernheim and Vermeersch’s continual references to Belgians dying in excruciating pain it is legitimate to ask whether their palliative care services are indeed world class or just how much access Belgians have to these services?

Alex Schadenberg

Schadenberg simply asked the question: is euthanasia safe?

He then gave a number of contemporary examples of situations that earlier would have been considered to be outside even the Belgian law. We think of stories such as Nathan Verhelst who sought euthanasia after botched sex-change surgery; the Verbessem twins who sought euthanasia because they were going blind; the woman with Anorexia Nervosa who was euthanased after exposing that her psychiatrist was sexually abusing her and a woman who died by euthanasia who was clinically depressed.

Schadenberg went on to relate the studies concluded from data collected in the Flanders Region of Belgium that showed that almost half of the deaths were not reported, that of those reported there was no evidence of request in 32% of cases.

“…the data proves that the assisted deaths that are done without request, the assisted deaths that are done by nurses and the unreported assisted deaths share a high co-relation with the same demographic group, that being people who are over the age of 80, who are incompetent to make decisions, who die in a hospital and usually have an unpredictable end-of-life trajectory. This is a vulnerable patient group at risk of having euthanasia imposed upon them. Sadly these people are also known as bed blockers.” Said Schadenberg.

Wim Distelmans has made his name doing euthanasia

The National Post published an article, today, written by Graeme Hamilton concerning Dr Wim Distelmans, a Belgian euthanasia doctor who both chairs the Belgian euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission and he specifically does euthanasia in controversial cases.

Tom Mortier

Articles concerning the Belgium euthanasia law are important considering the fact that Quebec's Bill 52 is based on the Belgian euthanasia law. Bill 52 in Quebec is a very dangerous bill.

A recent article by Belgian Professor Tom Mortier & Dr Georges Casteur stated that members of the Belgian euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission appear to be in a conflict of interest. The article also stated that the Commission is stacked with pro-euthanasia members and the reason there has never been an attempted prosecution for an abuse of the Belgian euthanasia law is because it requires a two-thirds vote from the Commission.

The National Post article states that Distelmans has become a "hero" in Belgium for his involvement in the controversial euthanasia deaths. The article states that Distelmans wants to see the Belgian euthanasia law expanded to include children:

In an interview at a clinic he runs in the Brussels suburb of Wemmel, Dr. Distelmans defended his actions and argued that Belgian euthanasia law — which some argue has opened the door to abuses — should be expanded to cover children and people suffering from dementia.

Wim Distelmans

Distelmans opened the ULteam clinic to euthanize people with controversial conditions. The article stated:

Dr. Distelmans, who is a professor at the Brussels university VUB, opened the ULteam clinic with colleagues two years ago to provide a sympathetic ear to patients seeking euthanasia. Its name is a play on the Dutch word for ultimate, or final. 

“There are still a lot of people suffering unbearably because they ask for euthanasia and they don’t get it. That’s the reason we started an emergency consultation.” 

Last year, during ULteam’s first year of operation, its doctors performed euthanasia on 33 patients, according to Belgian media.

In the article Distelmans responded to those who have accused him of seeking attention. The article stated:

Some accuse Dr. Distelmans of courting controversy to build his public profile. He acknowledged that in addition to the Verhelst and Verbessem cases, “there are a lot more borderline cases which are not known.” But he prefers to keep it that way because the publicity “is not good to convince people that euthanasia should be legal.”

Distelmans was then reported to have said:

He has not performed a single euthanasia that he has questioned after the fact. “If I hesitate for any reason, I don’t perform euthanasia,” he said. “That is very simple. So for my peace of mind, there is no problem.”

The National Post article then acknowledges that, even member of the euthanasia lobby question the power Distelmans has amassed.

In 11 years of existence, all with Dr. Distelmans as co-chairman, the commission has not referred a single case to prosecutors for study. To critics, including one leading euthanasia advocate, Dr. Distelmans has too much influence. “He wants a little too much to be the Pope of euthanasia in Belgium, and that’s not a good thing,” said Marc Van Hoey, a physician and president of the Flemish death-with-dignity group known as RWS. 

Chris Gastmans, a professor of medical ethics at the Catholic University of Leuven, said it is dangerous to have so much power concentrated in one person. “He is doing euthanasia very frequently, especially extreme cases, and at the same time he is president of the federal control commission,”

The article then reports on the recent meeting of the Belgian Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Committee.

Dr. Distelmans countered that some of the control commission’s 16 members oppose euthanasia, and he is not in a position to dictate decisions. But the outcome of its last meeting is striking. Before meeting, members receive a thick stack of confidential forms providing the attending physician’s explanation for each euthanasia. Among the 172 cases up for review — just over a month’s worth — was the Sept. 30 death of Mr. Verhelst, the transsexual whose story was reported around the world and cited by critics as an example of euthanasia run amok. On the committee, no one batted an eye.

The euthanasia death rate increased by 25% in 2012 with 1432 reported cases. It is clear that the number of euthanasia deaths continues to increase in Belgium. In one month they had 172 cases. At that rate Belgium will have approximately 2064 cases in 2013 representing a 40% increase from 2012

Distelmans is committed to further expansion of the Belgian euthanasia law. The article reported:

Dr. Distelmans seeks to push the envelope further. At the moment, “advanced declarations” requesting euthanasia can only be acted upon if a patient falls into an irreversible coma. Dr. Distelmans said people should be able to request euthanasia in the event that they develop dementia. He also argued that minors, currently forbidden from receiving euthanasia, should be eligible if they possess the intellectual maturity to make their own decisions.

It is clear that euthanasia is out-of-control in Belgium. The National Post article clearly identifies how Distelmans is doing the controversial euthanasia cases and he is controlling the euthanasia law. Distelmans has become the judge and the executioner.

Recently Professor Etienne Vermeersch, an author of the Belgian euthanasia law admitted that the euthanasia law was designed to include people with disabilities who are not terminally ill and Dr Jan Bernheim, a long-time promoter of euthanasia, who had taught Wim Distelmans, stated that there are problems with the Belgian euthanasia law.

The euthanasia bill in Quebec needs to be defeated. Bill 52 is based on the Belgian euthanasia law. The safeguards in Bill 52 are an illusion and the ever expanding reasons for euthanasia in Belgium, will also occur in Quebec.

Bill 52 in Quebec is not designed to protect vulnerable people but rather it is designed to protect doctors. The definitions in the law are the same as those used in Belgium, that are ambiguous and unenforceable.

Pew research survey: Americans oppose assisted suicide.

By Alex Schadenberg, 
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The latest Pew Research Center survey found that the majority of Americans oppose assisted suicide. The survey also questioned Americans on their attitudes towards medical treatment decisions and found that a growing number of Americans want medical treatment, even when their prognosis is poor.

The Pew Research survey was conducted by telephone from March 21 to April 8, 2013 among a nationally representative sample of 1994 adults with a 2.9% margin of error.

They survey asked if they: approve or disapprove of laws that allow doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. 49% stated that they disapproved while 47% stated that they approved.

Pew research stated that the response was very similar to its 2005 survey results and the results were nearly identical to a Gallup poll in March 2013 that found that 49% stated that assisted suicide was morally wrong while 45% stated that it was morally acceptable.

When further analysis was done on who supported or opposed assisted suicide, good news was found. The survey found that:

"A majority of white mainline Protestants (61%) and about half of white Catholics (55%) approve of laws that allow physician-assisted suicide, as do two-thirds of religiously unaffiliated adults. However, by a margin of about two-to-one or more, black Protestants, white evangelical Protestants and Hispanic Catholics disapprove of laws that allow doctor-assisted suicide." 

Since the people who strongly oppose assisted suicide represent a growing demographic in the United States, we can predict that opposition to assisted suicide will strengthen.

On the question of receiving medical treatment, even when the prognosis may be poor, the survey indicated that 31 percent, said doctors should always do everything possible to save a patient's life, which is up from 15 percent in 1990.

• 35% wanted everything possible done when they had no hope of improvement and were suffering a great deal of pain;• 37% wanted everything possible done when they were totally dependent on the care of others; and• 46% wanted everything possible done when they found it hard to function in day to day activities.

It is possible that Americans are responding to the Obama care debate by wanting to receive medical treatment, even when the benefit of the treatment may be in doubt. These people fear that they will be denied medical treatment based on cost containment or futile care policies.

The survey also asked whether people about a "moral right to suicide" in certain circumstances.

Suicide is not the same as assisted suicide. Suicide is an act one does to oneself whereas assisted suicide involves the direct and intentional involvement of another person.

The poll found that Americans thought suicide was morally right: 62% of the time when a person was suffering great pain with no hope of improvement; 56% of the time when a person had an incurable disease; 38% of the time when living became a burden; and 32% of the time when the person was an extreme burden on the family.

Americans continue to be concerned about the equality of each person. They recognize that legalizing assisted suicide opens the door to significant possibilities of abuse and that the taking of human life must be treated with the upper most concern.

Americans have been inundated with propaganda from groups that support assisted suicide. The fact that the majority of Americans remain opposed to assisted suicide speaks to the innate belief in human exceptionalism.

Links to similar articles:

• Poll: The majority of doctors oppose assisted suicide.
• Gallop: Support for assisted suicide fluctuates based on the wording of the question.
• Why the assisted suicide referendum was defeated in Massachusetts.

Belgium’s Culture of Death

The following article was written by Wesley Smith and published by the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBC) on November 21, 2013

By: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network.

Wesley J Smith

If you want to see what happens when a society enthusiastically swallows the euthanasia poison, look at Belgium. Perhaps influenced by its neighbor the Netherlands — which pioneered euthanasia permissiveness — Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002. The country has since leaped head-first off a vertical moral cliff.

As usual, when the law was being debated, supporters described it as being strictly limited to those at the end of life for whom nothing else but killing would adequately alleviate suffering. That is definitely not how things have worked out.

The international media usually ignore euthanasia and assisted suicide abuses. But even the complacent Fourth Estate couldn’t ignore the joint euthanasia deaths of disabled Belgian identical twins named Marc and Eddy Verbessem.

Neither of the brothers had contracted a terminal illness. Nor were they in physical pain. Rather, having been born deaf, and at age 45, both were progressively losing their eyesight. As the Telegraph reported, “The pair told doctors that they were unable to bear the thought of being unable to see each other again.” When their own doctor wouldn’t kill them, they found their executioner in one Dr. David Dufour, who calmly and coolly told a television newscast:

They had a cup of coffee in the hall, it went well and a rich conversation. Then they separation from their parents and [each] brother was very serene and beautiful. At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.

In a morally sane society, Dufour would lose his license to practice medicine and be tried for homicide. But Belgium apparently no longer fits that description.

Perhaps the Verbessem lethal injections should not surprise us. In the last few years, euthanasia consciousness has bored deeply into Belgian societal bone marrow.

Joint Euthanasia Deaths of Elderly Couples. At least two elderly couples who didn’t want to live apart have also been reported. The first was in 2011 — and apparently the local community knew about the plan and approved. They even made their final arrangements at the local mortuary before being killed. The couple’s demise was celebrated by a Belgian bioethicist who said: “It is an important signal to break a taboo,” adding, “This is a beautiful example that allows us to provide a dignified death to this couple, thanks to euthanasia.” Most societies see joint suicides by elderly couples as tragic. In Belgium, apparently, they are ‘beautiful.’

Euthanasia After Sexual Exploitation by Psychiatrist: Bioedge recently posted a story, taken from Belgian news reports, about the euthanasia of “Ann G.” Ann was a suicidal anorexia patient who publicly accused her previous psychiatrist of persuading her into sexual relations. When the psychiatrist — who admitted the charge — was not severely disciplined, Ann went to a second psychiatrist for euthanasia. She died at age 44.

Belgian Senate committee to vote on bill to extend euthanasia to children with disabilities on November 26.

Alex Schadenberg

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Euthanasie Stop in Belgium is reporting that the Belgian Senate will vote on the bill to extend euthanasia to children with disabilities on November 26. Earlier reports suggested that the bill might be delayed until after the next election. Insiders recently learned of a political trade-off with the Flanders N-VA party which has enabled the Socialist party to bring this bill to a vote immediately.

Currently the Belgian euthanasia law limits euthanasia to people who are at least 18 years old. This unprecedented bill would extend euthanasia to children with disabilities.

The Belgian Socialist government is adamant that the euthanasia law needs to extend to minors and people with dementia even though there is significant examples of how the current law is being abused and the bracket creep of acceptable reasons for euthanasia continues to grow. The current practice of euthanasia in Belgium appears to have become an easy way to cover-up medical errors.

EPC needs you to email Annemie Turlelboom, Minister of Justice at: info@just.fgov.be  and Laurette Onkelinx, Minister of Social Affairs and Health at: info@laurette-onkelinx.be or dg-soc@minsoc.fed.be. 

Sample letter: 

I am writing to urge you to stop the initiative that promotes euthanasia of minors. 

Regardless of disability, life should be valued. To pass legislation that allows termination of life for people with disabilities who are minors is unacceptable. 

Instead we must make every effort to use the research provided to us to provide attentive care to relieve their physical suffering in a moral way. 

Please oppose the euthanasia of children! 

Sincerely...

The number of euthanasia deaths in Belgium is skyrocketing with an increase of 25% in 2012. Recent studies indicate that up to 47% of all assisted deaths are not being reported, 32% of all assisted deaths are being done without request and nurses are killing their patients, even though the law restricts euthanasia to doctors.

Some Belgian experts are supporting the extension of euthanasia to children with disabilities because they say that it is being done already. The same medical experts suggest that the extension of euthanasia will result in an increase of 10 to 100 euthanasia deaths each year.

The Belgian euthanasia law appears out-of-control. The Belgian Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission appear to be in a conflict of interest. The Commission supported the euthanasia deaths of: Nathan Verhelst (44) who was born as Nancy, Ann G who had Anorexia Nervosa and was sexually exploited by her psychiatrist, Mark & Eddy Verbessem, and at least one depressed woman. These are only the cases that we know about.

Dr Wim Distelmans, who is the leading euthanasia doctor in Belgium has also been the chairman of the Belgian euthanasia commission for more than 10 years, and the commission has been stacked with supporters of the euthanasia lobby.

All of this is occurring after the recent launch of EPC - Europe, a coalition of groups and individuals from across Europe who are working together to halt the growing threat of state-sanctioned euthanasia.

The EPC - Europe launch included a debate between myself and euthanasia promoter Professor Jan Bernheim. During the question and answer session, Bernheim admitted that there are problems with the Belgian euthanasia law while Professor Etienne Vermeersch, an author of the Belgian euthanasia law stated that the euthanasia law was designed for people with disabilities.

The experience with euthanasia in Belgium should concern everyone.

Links to similar articles:
Members of the Belgian Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission appear to be in a conflict of interest.

Belgian euthanasia promoter admits that there are problems with euthanasia in Belgium and the author of the Belgian law admits that it was designed for people with disabilities.

Assisted Suicide in fact involves killing

The following letter was written by Aidan Cook, the Campaign Director for the Care Not Killing Alliance in Scotland and published in the Herald Scotland.

ie: Malcolm Allan (Letters, November 15) argues that assisted suicide is not killing.

Quite simply, to deliberately bring about someone's death is to kill. Modern law and opinion is clear that to kill has a much broader sense than simply pulling the trigger. With assisted suicide, we as a society, and the individuals involved, would be bringing about the death of those whose lives we see to have no value.

John Black (Letters, November 15) is wrong to suggest that this is a boundary society crossed long ago. While some countries have introduced assisted suicide or euthanasia, Scotland has not, nor have the vast majority of societies.

He is also mistaken in suggesting that the criteria for assisted suicide in Margo MacDonald's bill are "carefully defined". Indeed, Ms MacDonald is clear that she is deliberately not defining the medical conditions. Moreover, the additional condition that the person find their quality of life unacceptable could hardly be less clearly defined.

Assisted suicide is killing and as such would cross a fundamental boundary with untold consequences for our society. That the conditions are so ill-defined points to the incremental extension of any legislation, an extension Ms MacDonald acknowledges in her policy memorandum. True compassion is found in good care, not in killing.

Aidan Cook,
Campaign officer,
Care Not Killing Scotland,

Members of the Belgium Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission appear to be in a deadly Conflict of Interest?

Dr Tom Mortier

Dr. Sc. Tom Mortier, Leuven University College
Dr. Med. Georges Casteur, General Medical Practitioner, Ostend

Parts of this article were published by the Belgian Medical Newspaper (www.artsenkrant.com)

In October 2013, the leading euthanasia doctor in Belgium, Wim Distelmans, received international media attention for the second time. Under his “medical” guidance, he killed 44-year-old Nathan Verhelst, who was born as Nancy. Distelmans, who is an oncologist, said on the Belgian radio that his patient met “all” the conditions of the euthanasia law. Furthermore, Distelmans said that unbearable suffering under the Belgian euthanasia law can be both physical and psychological.

In the case of Nathan Verhelst, euthanasia was done for reasons of psychological suffering. Distelmans said that it is not exceptional for mentally ill patients to be euthanized. When he was asked about the terms of the legislation, Distelmans replied laconically that a second opinion should be sought from two other doctors, and when the patient is not terminally ill, one doctor must be a psychiatrist. Furthermore, a month must pass between the written request for euthanasia and the lethal injection.

However, according to the Belgian euthanasia law, the opinions of the two other doctors are not binding; and the doctor who does the euthanasia can ignore a negative opinion and still give a patient the lethal injection. Basically, in Belgium, a person only needs to find a euthanasia doctor who is willing to kill! The euthanasia doctor only has to have two written reports in the medical record approving euthanasia of the patient and the doctor can ignore any negative reports.

It is striking to see that Distelmans, as the leading euthanasia doctor in Belgium, has been given so much freedom. Distelmans has become a Belgian media icon who continually propagates his ideology through various newspapers and magazines. His institutional background also has enabled him to be honoured as the “hero of the Belgian euthanasia law.” He has been the chairman of the Belgian Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission (Belgian Commission) for more than 10 years.

Furthermore, he has started his own ideological association (Leif) that is giving awards to other members of the Belgian Commission. For instance, the retired Senator Jacinta De Roeck, a pro-euthanasia activist, was recently honoured by Distelmans with a “lifetime achievement award,” which is ironic as already more than 8000 euthanasia cases have been registered in Belgium since 2002.

As the chairman of the Belgian Commission, Distelmans is “controlling” his euthanasia law, while continuing to administer lethal injections after “consulting” with his close colleagues. Therefore, we strongly question whether independent consultations, a legal requirement of the law, are actually occurring during these so-called medical consultations. Is it not a conflict of interest when Distelmans declares euthanasia cases performed by himself to the Belgian Commission when he is also the chairman and when the members of the Belgian Commission include pro-euthanasia activists like Jacinta De Roeck and Jacqueline Herremans?

Furthermore, there will never be a two-thirds majority to send a case to a judge because the members of the Belgian Commission and its chairman are in a conflict of interest!

It appears that Distelmans has become both the judge and the executioner.

If the euthanasia law in Belgium has taught us anything, it is that in Belgium the euthanasia doctors have been given all of the power in contrast to the patients who are given lethal injections!

Dr Tom Mortier is also a member of the Belgian group - Euthanasie Stop.

Links to similar articles:
Belgium euthanasia promoter admits that there are problems with the Belgian euthanasia law.
Euthanasia: An easy way to cover-up medical mistakes.
Belgian bill would extend euthanasia to children with disabilities and people with dementia.

The BBC rightly earned its title of euthanasia cheerleader by sensationally propagating Ray Gosling’s lies as truth.

The following article was written by Dr Peter Saunders, the campaign director of the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK, and published on his blog on November 20, 2013.

Peter Saunders

By Dr Peter Saunders

As reported by the BBC today, Journalist, broadcaster and gay rights activist Ray Gosling has died in hospital in Nottingham.

My sympathy is with Gosling’s family.
However his death revives memories of the time when the BBC’s flagrant promotion of assisted suicide and euthanasia arguably reached its greatest depths.

When the former television journalist confessed on BBC’s Inside Out programme on 15 February 2010 that he had taken a pillow and smothered a gay lover with AIDS who was in ‘terrible, terrible pain’ it very quickly became an international news story.

But it later transpired, after a police investigation involving 32 officers, lasting six months and taking 1,800 hours at a cost of over £45,000 in taxpayers money, that Goslings’ ‘confession’ was simply made up. He did not kill his lover and in fact was not even in the country at the time he died. Furthermore the man did not die in pain.

Gosling was given a 90-day suspended prison sentence at Nottingham Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to wasting police time. The judge in passing sentence branded him as ‘a sheer liar and fantasist’ guilty of ‘creating and maintaining this cruel fabrication’.

It was very clear at the time the story broke that the BBC intended it to have maximum impact.

The Care Not Killing Alliance (CNK) started getting media calls hours before the programme was originally broadcast regarding a ‘new euthanasia story’ involving a ‘prominent BBC employee’ but we were not allowed to know any of the details. Meanwhile every regional and national BBC news outlet was lining up interviews for the ensuing 24 hours.

We later learnt that Gosling had made his original confession to BBC colleagues four months earlier over a ‘beery lunch’. And the programme itself was filmed some months before it was shown and eventually screened just one week before the Director of Public Prosecutions published his prosecution policy for cases of assisted suicide.

Why did the BBC not inform the police during this time or more carefully investigate what was effectively a confession of murder? How many BBC employees actually knew about it? Was this actually a cynical attempt to influence public and judicial opinion at a critical point in time?

These questions were never satisfactorily answered.

In the days that followed the screening, as well as giving a spate of national and regional broadcasts in the UK (including Five Live and BBC breakfast), I was interviewed by a host of international outlets covering the story – including Italian and Spanish newspaper journalists, Russian, Bolivian, Brazilian and Indian television and the BBC world service. The international interest was huge.

The very same week, both the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph carried the story of Lord Carlile, CNK Chairman, writing to the BBC Director General to allege media bias and to accuse the corporation of adopting an ‘incredibly zealous’ ‘campaigning stance’ on assisted suicide.

The BBC has a long history of acting as a cheerleader for euthanasia and assisted suicide, but with the Gosling affair it plumbed its greatest depths.

The corporation cynically planned months ahead to release a story that was total untrue at a time and in a manner guaranteed to maximise its international impact and to influence public policy.

Not only did it fail in its duty to provide fair and impartial broadcasting. It also failed to report a criminal act to the police, opting instead for the sensational proliferation of partisan propaganda and, in this case, downright lies.

And it used our licence fees to do it.

Link to a previous article on the same topic.

Dignity in Dying proves that it lives in the same fantasy world as Ray Gosling.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition launches complaint concerning CBC national program.