Belgium

I always enjoy Kathryn Lopez’s ongoing Corner feature in which she posts about news stories that “caught my eye.” So I decided to blatantly steal the concept to discuss euthanasia/assisted suicide stories that have recently been in the news.

1. A Spanish father lost a legal case to prevent his daughter’s euthanasia. The young woman, who has a severe mental illness, tried to commit suicide previously by jumping off a building, leaving her with paraplegia. A court has now decided, in a bitter irony, that due to her disability, doctors can finish what she started. Awful.
2. Euthanasia killings in the Netherlands increased by 10 percent between 2023 and 2024, with nearly 10,000 killed by doctors in one year. Lethal jabs for the mentally ill also increased to 219, and 427 dementia patients. There were also 54 reported cases of simultaneous euthanasia deaths of family members. The report doesn’t say how many of these people were organ-harvested.
3. Nearly 4,000 Belgians were euthanized in 2024. According to the Brussels Times, “The vast majority of patients experienced both physical and psychological suffering (82%). Just under 16% experienced only physical pain and 1.9% psychological suffering.” Belgium was also a euthanasia tourism destination, with 120 people traveling to Belgium from other countries to be killed.