All news

More and more teenagers in Belgium are taking puberty blockers to halt the sexual development of their bodies during adolescence. In just three years, 60% more of them have been prescribed these hormone treatments by their doctors, in an attempt to relieve the unease they feel about their biological sex. They are 684 young people between the ages of 9 and 17 in 2022, compared with 432 in 2019, reveals a survey carried out by the De Morgen (24/01/2024). Half of them are being treated at the...

Read more 

The figures for 2023 also confirm the increase in euthanasia for polypathologies (+3% compared with 2022), the second most common type of illness mentioned, after cancer. Euthanasia for multiple diseases thus accounts for 23.2% of all euthanasia, almost half of which (47%) were carried out when death was not expected in the short term. As the Commission points out, polypathologies refer to "a combination of suffering caused by several chronic conditions that are progressing towards a final...

Read more 

This development raises questions about the confusion that is developing around these two practices, which have completely different, if not irreconcilable, moral values. Little by little, the altruism of organ donation ends up masking the serious attack on the life and dignity of the person being euthanised. Far from being alarmed by this utilitarian shift, Dr Matthew Weiss, medical director of organ donation at Transplant Québec and author of the study, would like to increase...

Read more 

To develop this proposal, the Amfora association organises training courses for palliative care networks, care for the elderly and institutions for the disabled, to help them conduct and develop end-of-life interviews. Amfora also works with the Samana association, to train their volunteers to work with people at the end of their lives. These interviews are an original and creative way of developing the fourth pillar of palliative care, which aims to meet patients' spiritual and existential...

Read more 

"From all my research, I cannot see there is a ‘good’ version of surrogacy," she tells the Daily Mail. Even when the surrogate mother doesn't donate her eggs, the reality remains that "it's a woman's body that's being rented out, and it's a baby who will be separated from its mother at birth", whereas "it's to her that it feels connected". And in countries that prohibit so-called commercial surrogacy, considerable sums of money are nevertheless paid as compensation. Olivia Maurel also cites th...

Read more 

Guy Dembour was keen to set up a multidisciplinary medical program to monitor the overall development of children with Down's syndrome, who present difficulties in a number of areas (cardiac, auditory, visual, etc.). Monitoring begins with an assessment of the child's development, highlighting positive aspects and building on achievements. We then work with the parents, who are given the means to take concrete action through everyday activities and games they can play with their child. The...

Read more 

The bill is particularly opposed by many healthcare professionals, who see the constitutionalization of abortion as a direct threat to their freedom of conscience. In the event of the constitutionalization of abortion, Emmanuel Sapin, Professor of Pediatric and Neonatal Surgery, calls for the right of healthcare professionals to conscientious objection to abortion to be enshrined in the Constitution. In a letter co-signed by numerous healthcare professionals...

Read more 

In 2022, this same professor said: "Euthanasia is not the right word, because the law on euthanasia does not apply here. [Euthanasia] is based on the capacity to give consent, which the patient can request for his or her own end of life. These children are not always capable of doing so. Active interruption of life is the right term". Beyond the impossibility for these children to consent to such a serious and irreversible act, the major ethical concern remains the fact of considering...

Read more 

This case of Mortier v. Belgium, named after the applicant, the son of the euthanized person, was the first case in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was called upon to assess the compatibility of euthanasiaalready practiced with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Tom Mortier alleged a violation of his mother's right to life, protected by Article 2 of the Convention, and of his right to respect for his private and family life, protected by Article 8 of the...

Read more 

As a reminder, the law passed in 2020 first provides that 'no written or unwritten clause can prevent a doctor from performing euthanasia'. This provision aims to de facto prohibit retirement homes or hospitals whose care project excludes the fact of ending the life of their residents or patients by euthanasia, and which favor accompaniment through palliative care. The applicant citizens, as well as the European Institute of Bioethics, the intervener in the action, considered that such a...

Read more