PATIENTS KILLED: Euthanizing without consent in Belgium

New study opens up about euthanasia in Belgium.

In Belgium, a law requires that euthanasia shall only be administered with clear and voluntary consent from patients. In 2002, Belgium passed the Euthanasia Act, which states that only voluntary euthanasia is legally acceptable.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - However, a very recent study has been published and released in the Journal of Medical Ethics; the study looked into the "deliberate" euthanasia of the patients in Belgium, without the patients' consent - a procedure which violates the requirements of the law.
 
The author, Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor, discovered that drugs aimed to end life were administered "with the intention to shorten life and without explicit request" in 1.7 percent of all the recorded deaths in Belgium in 2013.

However, in 77.9 percent of the recorded cases, the choice to euthanize was not discussed because the patient was in a coma, had dementia or "because discussion would have been harmful to the patient's best interest," the study indicated. In 52.7 percent of these cases, the patients were 80-years-old or older.

"At the heart of this legislation is the free will of the patient who asks for euthanasia." Professor Cohen-Almagor said. "It is worrying that some physicians take upon themselves the responsibility to deliberately shorten patients' lives without a clear indication from the patients that this is what they would want."

The law strictly states that the patient must be the one to request euthanasia and that such a request must be "voluntary, well-considered, and repeated and... not the result of any external pressure." Additionally, the patient must be "an adult or an emancipated minor, capable and conscious at the time of his/her request."

Although, euthanasia cases are increasing in Belgium, the cases of euthanasia without the patient's consent have actually decreased since 1996, according to Professor Cohen-Almagor.

A 2010 research study carried out in Flanders shows only 1 out of every 2 instances of euthanasia was reported to Belgium's Federal Control and Evaluation Committee. This is because most non-reporting physicians did not perceive the deliberate intention to accelerate their patients' deaths as euthanasia.

The study adds that, in these unreported cases, "the lethal drugs were often administered by a nurse alone, not by a physician."

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