As is known, Belgium is one of the most liberal countries when it comes to assisted death, and the “Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia” has just publish the numbers about “gentle death”. In 2023, therefore, registered and official euthanasias, in a population of not even 12 million citizens, “totaled 3,423”. With a net increase of 15% compared to 2022, when there were 2,966. Thus, the escalation of requested (or induced) deaths continues unabated, as in 2021 there were 2,699. Deaths due to euthanasia in 2023 reached 3.1% of total deaths, while in the previous year they were 2.5%.
Regarding the age of people who chose euthanasia, the most represented age group is 70 to 90 years old. But in 83 cases, a doctor killed a citizen who was not even 50 years old. In 30 cases, euthanasia was performed on people under 40 years of age and in eight cases on people under 30 years of age. There was even the case of a 16-year-old girl who was killed because of “a brain tumor”. According to Jacqueline Herremans, co-president of the Commission, since 2014 when the law authorized the euthanasia of minors “there have been five cases”. And in the future?
Men who received lethal injection were 1,662, women 1,761. The death of men and women was distributed equally.
The main reason for requesting euthanasia was cancer (almost 1,900 cases), followed by problems with the nervous, circulatory and respiratory systems. But pathologies are often varied and combined. “Psychiatric afflictions” – which in themselves have neither improvement nor cure – “are cited with increasing frequency” by those calling for an end to it. And in 2023, they would be the cause of 48 euthanasias. Therefore, in Belgium, so that the whole world knows, chronic depressives, schizophrenics and the mentally ill are being killed.
Another element admitted by Herremans is the fact that there is “a progression of requests from patients who do not reside in Belgium”. And this says a lot about the contagion effect that every bad law has, especially when it is presented in the media as beneficial and progressive. The Commission, the statement explains reassuringly, “is in charge of evaluating the process of each euthanasia carried out in Belgium” and also of “checking whether all legal conditions have been respected”.
But beyond legality and the numbers presented, the issue of euthanasia (and assisted suicide) raises at least three inevitable ethical questions. Which the pro-euthanasia commission clearly does not mention.
Firstly, there is the legal obligation that, sooner or later, could fall on the doctor to practice it, even if it is repugnant to his conscience. And in many countries, like Canada, there is a tendency to clamp down on sacrosanct conscientious objection, a bit like what happens in the case of abortion. And this is serious because the doctor's vocation is to heal and save lives, not to suppress them to get rid of problems.
The second ethical dilemma lies in the progressive loosening of the conditions that would justify euthanasia. From excruciating physical pain, associated with a certain impossibility of recovery and advanced age, to the euthanasia of minors, who may not present any specific pain, but have parents who see them as a burden (children with disabilities, Down etc.).
The third point, which summarizes the entire ethical issue, is the following. If the request for the death of the sick person becomes part of a nation's custom and becomes normal, it will gradually become increasingly abnormal and strange—if not selfish—to request life-saving assistance and care, especially in the most serious cases. And many lonely elderly people, without specific pathologies, but perhaps with little autonomy, are induced to euthanasia due to a degraded social context.
Suicides are also increasing in Europe, especially among young people and teenagers. And there is a reason for that. If adult society suppresses those who “can't cope”, then, if I'm the one who can't cope, instead of asking for help, I let myself be seduced by the temptation of the damned sting.
Fabrizio Cannone is a Benedictine oblate, teacher and journalist. He contributes to several Catholic magazines; in 2008 he published the essay La democrazia in Giovanni Paolo II (Democracy in John Paul II).
©2024 La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. Published with permission. Original in Italian: “Boom of euthanasia in Belgio, all the numbers of deaths”.
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