Belgian Doctors Euthanizing Patients Without Their Consent

[Belgian Doctors Euthanizing Patients Without Their Consent by Abigail Wilkinson CNS News] "A study published this month in the Journal of Medical Ethics examined the “deliberate” euthanasia of patients in Belgium without their explicit, voluntary consent as required by law.

The study’s author, Raphael Cohen-Almagor, a professor of philosophy and ethics at the United Kingdom's Hull University, found that life-ending drugs were used “with the intention to shorten life and without explicit request” in 1.7 percent of all deaths in Belgium in 2013.

In 52.7 percent of these cases, the patients were 80 years of age or older. The decision to euthanize was not discussed with the patient in 77.9 percent of the cases because he/she was comatose, had dementia, or “because discussion would have been harmful to the patient’s best interest,” according to the study.

Belgium passed the Euthanasia Act in 2002, which states that only voluntary euthanasia is legally permissible.

“At the heart of this legislation is the free will of the patient who asks for euthanasia,” Cohen-Almagor noted. “It is worrying that some physicians take upon themselves the responsibility to deliberately shorten patients’ lives without a clear indication from the patients that this is what they would want...” Full text: Belgian Doctors Euthanizing Patients Without Their Consent Pr 8:36, 1 Jn 3:15

Didn't actually read the study did you?

The cases discussed fall into two categories: Either the cases were regarding palliative sedation which is not euthanasia

palliative sedation is "the monitored use of medications intended to induce varying degrees of unconsciousness, but not death, for relief of refractory and unendurable symptoms in imminently dying patients." HPNA position statement on palliative sedation at end of life. Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association, June 2003.

This is the practice of relieving uncontrollable pain in a terminally ill person in the last hours or days of a dying patient's life, usually by means of a continuous intravenous or subcutaneous infusion of a sedative drug, Palliative sedation is an option of last resort for patients approaching death whose symptoms cannot be controlled by any other means. It is generally administered when the patient has less than 72 hours to live. The intent is not to euthanize the patient just provide relief. The sedation does shorten the life of the patient by a few hours.


The remainder of the cases involve terminal patients who are unable to discuss their own end of life options usually due to sever dementia or brain trauma. In these cases decisions are made by family members with the legal power to make medical decisions.

Doctor's in Belgium are nto going around euthanizing random people