(SPUC) – Three children were killed by euthanasia in 2016 and 2017 in Belgium, according to a report by the country’s federal control and evaluation committee.
Belgium legalised euthanasia for minors in 2014 – the only country in the world to have done so for children of all ages (although there is evidence of doctors intervening in the deaths of disabled babies in both Belgium and the Netherlands).
In 2016, Professor Wim Distelmans, the head of Belgium’s Federal Control and Evaluation Committee on Euthanasia, issued a statement confirming the first physician induced death of a minor, a 17 year old boy. The Committee also reports that the number of euthanasia cases rose by 13 per cent from 2016 to 2017.
In the majority of cases the increase was accounted for by patients aged between 60 and 89 years old, who were suffering from “polypathology – a combination of different illnesses, such as blindness, hearing loss and incontinence, which together make life for the patient unbearable.” CONTINUE