(ZENIT News / Rome, 09.03.2025).- In 2024, there was 3.5% of deaths by euthanasia. Of 112,100 deaths in that year, around 5,000 were registered as euthanasia.
In 2023 there were 3,423 officially registered cases of euthanasia, or 3.1% of all deaths, as opposed to 483 victims of traffic accidents. Comparing deaths by euthanasia with other causes, in 2020 there were 2,111 deaths by suicide and 2,587 from breast cancer of the 126,850 in the whole country: 2,445 cases of euthanasia is a higher figure, which expresses a disproportionate use of the law, because access is available to a procedure that initially was thought to be reserved for extreme cases.
The Christian Democrats were out of power in 1999, and the Coalition of Socialists, Liberals and Greens focused on reform of bioethical questions, obtaining a law on euthanasia in 2002.
The legal requirements to be able to request euthanasia in Belgium specify that the patient must be able and aware, with unbearable and persistent physical psychological suffering from an incurable disease. Moreover, each case must be justified with precision by at least two doctors in a document that is examined by the Belgian Euthanasia Commission for approval.
In 2024, the Commission received 4,000 documents to verify. At the beginning of the application of the law, it received around 350 requestss a year. Today there are almost 350 per month.
The main group of those requesting euthanasia are between 70 and 90 years of age. However, doctors performed euthanasia in Belgium on 83 cases involving people under 50 years of age, 30 of whom were people under 40 years of age and 8 people under 50 years of age, 30 of whom were people under 40 years of age and 8 under 30 years of age. There was a 16-year-old girl who was euthanized because of a brain tumor.
The main reason for requests in 2023 was cancer, with 1,900 cases, followed by problems of the nervous, circulatory and respiratory system. The pathologies of those requesting euthanasia are varied and combined.
Requests for euthanasia have also increased by those suffering psychiatric problems, which are not incurable, with 48 cases in 2023.
The Belgian law, which they describe as perfect in the practice of euthanasia, has black holes, such as the possibility of skipping procedural steps lightly: it happened in 2010 with Tine Nys, a young girls, whose family denounced irregularities. The Federal Commission for Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia, responsible at the national level, did not take the required month to respond to the request, but gave an immediate yes.
The Commission publishes a statistical report annually. In 2020 it stated “in the last two years, the implementation of the law has not given place to difficulties or important abuses that require legislative initiatives.”
In the face of euthanasia cases officially supported by the Commission, «scientific studies estimate that between 25 and 35% of euthanasia cases are not declared» and are illegal, according to lawyer and researcher Leopold Vanbellingen of the European Institute of Bioethics.
