By Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick OBE Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International.Spokesperson - Not Dead Yet UK Campaign. Originally published on Alex Schadenberg's blog.  (Link to a PDF of the article)Belgium's leading euthanasia practitioner recently conducted a 'study tour' of Auschwitz (reported in Der Spiegel Nov 21, 2014). His group of seventy included doctors, psychologists and nurses from Belgium, all in favour of euthanasia; with no-one to challenge their world-view that they are right in taking the lives of other human beings. One is a psychiatrist, deliberating a request for euthanasia by a man with bi-polar disorder who loses thousands gambling during his manic phases. That such a request can be considered at all shows just how far they have travelled already in Belgium under Wim Distelmans. Continue reading

These two videos presentations were recorded in the UK as part of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre's recent lectures. Dr Benoit Beuselinck is a Medical Oncologist working at University Hospitals Leuven. He has been an Oncologist for 10 years. He talks about the development of euthanasia in Belgium, giving examples and explanation of the incremental nature of the extension of euthanasia.Dr Beuselinck also gives some fine examples of cases where he has dealt with the question of people saying that they don't want to be a burden. Continue reading

This article first appeared on Wesley Smith's Blog, Human Exceptionalism on the 23rd of November 2014 Imagine you are at work, going about your day. The phone rings. You pick up and it is a mortuary informing you they have your mother's body."What do you mean you have my mother's body!" you exclaim in utter shock. Continue reading

This article was first published in the journal 'Eureka Street'.  A Belgian court recently granted permission for a psychiatrically ill prisoner to be euthanised. The prisoner, 50 year old Frank Van Den Bleeken, is serving a life sentence for rape and murder and has requested euthanasia due to his 'unbearable psychological anguish'.The psychological anguish component is nothing new: in 2013 a Belgian man was euthanised due to the psychological burden of a failed sex-change operation, while earlier that same year deaf identical-twin brothers were euthanised for reasons of psychological suffering when they discovered they were losing their eyesight. Continue reading

This man will die from a lethal injection where they do it best. In BelgiumBY MICHAEL COOK Article first appeared on MercatorNet's website. Crossposeted with permissionA prisoner has been allowed by a Belgian court to undergo euthanasia. Claiming that he is unable to control the violent sexual urges which impelled him to commit several rapes and a murder, 50-year-old Frank Van Den Bleeken wants to die. "My life has now absolutely no meaning. They may as well put a flower pot here," he said in a television documentary earlier this year. He says that he is suffering "unbearable psychological anguish".Mr Van Den Bleeken's crimes go back to the late 1980s. At his trial, he was found not to be criminally responsible and was incarcerated in the psychiatric wing of Merksplas, an ageing penal complex near Antwerp. More recently he was moved the psychiatric wing of Turnhout, a another ageing prison. It appears that in neither place did he receive adequate psychological treatment. This is not uncommon in Belgium, which has been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights for the low level of care for inmates with mental disorders. Continue reading

The Belgian online news service Moustique (the Mosquito) is featuring an interview with an elderly Belgian couple and their son in which they discuss the couple's plans to die together by euthanasia. Couple euthanasia is not a new phenomenon. In June 2013 we reported on an eerily similar case of an elderly couple dying together by euthanasia in what can only be concluded as euthanasia for social reasons.Like the earlier couple, Francis and Anne are both in their 80s and, while they do have health problems, neither is terminally ill. Moustique conducted a long interview with the couple and their son, John Paul and, while we have characterised this article as an advertorial for such actions, contained in the interview are disturbing facts and comments that seem sadly to be accepted as 'normal' in terms of reasons why such a couple would want euthanasia together. Continue reading

Media from across the globe are reporting on the planned euthanasia death of long-term Belgian prison inmate, Frank Van Den Bleeken. Van Den Bleeken applied for euthanasia originally in 2010. He has been in prison for thirty years and is serving a life sentence for sexual crimes including rape. The Dutch news service, Volksrant says that Van Den Bleeken was determined to be criminally insane by the Belgian Courts after being tried for numerous rapes, one including murder. He is reported as saying that he is a 'menace to society' and, on those grounds has refused any consideration for parole. Yet he also says that the conditions in his internment are 'inhumane'. Volksrant clarifies Van Den Bleeken's intolerable situation:"Due to lack of space in the psychiatric institutions more than 1,100 forensic psychiatric patients just sit in jail, where they hardly get therapy.Thirty years Van den Bleeken is in a cell, without any hope of change."I'm sitting here in a sort of sarcophagus, to wait until I die," he said in a documentary." Continue reading

The European Institute of Bioethics looks at the latest data release on the incidence of euthanasia in Belgium. (Google translated from French) 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 version, 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 Commission considers that this increase is due to the "gradual release of information to the public and physicians ." The deaths caused today represent 1.7% of all deaths in Belgium. Continue reading

 The European Court of Human Rights is set to hear a challenge to the Belgian euthanasia law. It is a most difficult and demanding task to fight for justice as our friend Tom Mortier is doing. A mutual friend, Kevin Fitzpatrick recently sketched out just how difficult it is to speak out in Belgium. We congratulate Tom and his family for their courage and commitment. This article first appeared on Alex Schadenbergs blogsite:ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM NEWS RELEASE3 September 2014 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEE-MAIL: [email protected] Continue reading

  By: Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick - Not Dead Yet UK and Director of EPC - Europe.People in Belgium more or less 'go along' with the idea of euthanasia, even as the practice of euthanasia becomes more than problematic. Continue reading