Professor in the Faculty of Medicine
Founding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine,
Ethics and Law at McGill University
Until very recently, all countries prohibited euthanasia....
Somerville, Margaret, Death Talk: The Case against Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide, McGill Queen's University Press; Montreal, 2001, pp 433. Chapter 6 reprinted in Wesley Cragg, Christine M. Koggel, Contemporary Moral Issues, 5th Ed., 2005.
Belgian Euthanasia Increases by 89% in four years.
The Act of 28 May 2002 concerning euthanasia stipulates that the Federal Committee on Oversight and Enforcement, shall biennially report to the legislature. Here is the sixth report, covering the years 2012-2013.
The report comprises firstly a statistical element, which we note here that the number of reported euthanasia has almost doubled in four years (an increase of 89%), from 953 reported in 2010 to 1,807 in 2013 euthanasia. The ...
Critical Observations and Suggestions for Improvement
ABSTRACT: The essay opens with some background information about the context of euthanasia in Belgium. It proceeds by discussing the Belgian law on euthanasia and concerns about the law, its interpretations and implementation. Finally, the major developments and controversies since the law came into effect are discussed. Suggestions as to how to improve the Belgian law and circumscribe the practice of euthanasia are made, urging Be...
Based on texts which have already been submitted during the previous legislature, three further proposals (put forward by Mme Karin Jiroflée et al, sp.A), seeking to modify the law of May 28, 2002 on euthanasia, have just recently been laid before the Chamber of Belgian Deputies, without any specific deadline for their adoption having for the moment been defined.
The first proposal (Doc 54 1013/001) aims to authorize the act of euthanasia for patients who are unable to express their wishes ...