also chaired the Belgium Control and Evaluation Commission since euthanasia was legalized in Belgium in 2000 (a commission unique in its inglorious record of never having investigated a single death), is organizing an instructional tour about euthanasia for health care professionals to take place in â�¦ Auschwitz.  Continue reading

"Firstly, this is not a symposium about euthanasia. It's a study trip focusing on human rights, suffering and palliative care. We will mention euthanasia but that's not the main goal of the trip. The participants are all professionals working in palliative care. They work every day with patients who suffer pain and death. Our main goal is to visit the death camp where all these atrocities took place. "Secondly, many of the participants don't even support euthanasia. Several of them belong to the Catholic University of Louvain. The main speaker is a renowned researcher in her 80s who was detained in a Japanese concentration camp during the war â�¦ It's obvious there's no link between euthanasia in Belgium and what happened in Auschwitz. The Nazis used the term 'euthanasia' wrongfully." Continue reading

Linking the right to die and the Nazis is a no-no in most circles. In fact, opponents are usually deemed to have lost the argument as soon as they mention the word "Nazi". But Dr Distelmans's breath-taking initiative could change that rule. To hold a seminar on euthanasia in an extermination camp where the idea of 'lives not worth living' took its most extreme form, is peculiar, to say the least. Dr Distelmans has also chaired the Belgium Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission since euthanasia was legalised in 2000 - a commission which has never investigated a single death."Belgium is the only country in the world with a law that is concerned about a dignified end-of-life for everyone because of the patients rights law, the law on palliative care and the euthanasia law. In our country there is - unlike other countries of continental Europe - already 25 years of excellent professional palliative care and for more than 10 years we also have experience with transparent euthanasia requests and respect for patient rights.  Continue reading