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Advocates of euthanasia argue that the method offers greater autonomy in certain end-of-life situations or where life-prolonging treatments have reached their limits. A new report from the conservative think tank MCC Brussels claims that legalizing euthanasia increases bureaucratic control.
A new film directed by Pedro Almodovar - The Room Next Door - deals with a similar dilemma, assisted suicide. The film follows two friends in the US, where one of them is asked to keep the other company when she ends her life due to a terminal illness. While euthanasia is banned in the US, physician-assisted suicide (medical assistance in dying) is allowed in some states.
The author, Dr. Ashley Frawley, a sociologist and visiting researcher at MCC Brussels, presented the report at a public meeting, as the panel discussed euthanasia in Europe. The report examines what it claims is a growing movement to legalize euthanasia across Europe.
It gives examples of the manipulation of language (“death with dignity”), the intensification of strategic lobbying, the empowerment of bureaucracy to make decisions that end life, and the devaluation of the inherent value of human life. Euthanasia means ‘easy death’ in Greek. In what is currently a national competence, efforts to harmonise euthanasia laws risk undermining national sovereignty, according to the report.
Despite the findings or claims, the report concludes with a series of recommendations that can be accepted across political divides: Public debate should not be prejudiced by ambiguous language. Decisions on euthanasia should remain under the jurisdiction of EU member states. Where euthanasia is legalized today, the strict conditions should not be made less onerous.
According to the report, we need to be careful with the harmonisation of assisted suicide. Can you explain how this could happen? Even if there were a right to die, how could this be implemented given the principle of subsidiarity in the EU?
“As the report states, to date, institutions at the European level have rightly shown reluctance,” Ashley Frawley responded. The European Commission reiterates that healthcare falls under the jurisdiction of member states.
“However, activists continue to pursue strategic litigation by bringing cases to the European Court of Human Rights and have petitioned the European Parliament for EU legislation.”
Less than a quarter of Council of Europe member states have euthanasia laws, but there is an active push for legislation in many of them, she says. “If everyone had legalized euthanasia, there would be no need for this report.”
"Unfortunately, what often happens is that when something is in the law, the tendency is for things to stay that way or to have progressive expansion. That is why I wrote this report warning people across Europe to be wary of the movement to legalize euthanasia, which is very likely to come back to haunt them sooner or later."
“To say that legalizing euthanasia in one EU member state is enough to push another state to do the same is an unfounded claim,” a human rights lawyer who participated in the debate told The Brussels Times.
The bizarre claims about politicians wanting to pass sweeping euthanasia laws have not been confirmed by debates in various countries.
A story about euthanasia
"If you're talking about people in a coma, where death is not foreseeable soon, then we're no longer talking about autonomy and choice."
Ole Hartling, a retired physician and former chairman of the Danish Ethics Council, several years ago published "Euthanasia and the Ethics of a Physician's Decisions," an argument against assisted dying (Bloomsbury Academic 2021).
He agreed that there are situations, as defined in Danish health law, to stop treatment that can only prolong suffering.
"It is the primary duty of the doctor and other health personnel to alleviate suffering, and I like to put it this way: 'you should not be so afraid of death that you do not alleviate it, because this is an unceasing obligation.'"
But there is a difference between euthanasia and withholding treatment, he said. “If euthanasia is seen as a ‘treatment’, it should be seen as a failure if the patient does not die, whereas with symptom relief (or cessation of treatment), it is not a failure if the patient does not die, because relief, not death, was the goal of the treatment.”
In other words, if life is inherently sacred, stopping a treatment may only be acceptable if there is a chance that the patient will survive – but isn't the point of stopping treatment the opposite?
In a 2019 document, the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, all of which sanctify life and oppose any form of euthanasia, argued that it is justified to make the decision to prohibit some forms of medical treatment that will only prolong suffering when death is imminent, regardless of the means used.
How autonomous is a person's decision when they are at the end of their life?
First, a person who exercises their supposed right to self-determination to choose euthanasia or assisted suicide ultimately excludes them from deciding or choosing anything forever.
Second, the decision to die is not made in a situation where the person is in supreme self-control, because the desire for one's death is not an everyday state. It is a desire that arises against the backdrop of despair and a sense of hopelessness, and perhaps a sense of being superfluous.
Therefore, the choice regarding one's death becomes completely different from most other choices typically associated with the concept of autonomy.
Third, autonomy is not the only factor or the key factor when deciding whether euthanasia should be granted. It is not just the patient who makes the decisive assessment.
Can any lessons be learned from Belgium, one of the leading countries in euthanasia legislation? In 2002, Belgium became only the second country in the world to legalize euthanasia, two months after its neighbor, the Netherlands.
Since then, Belgium and the Netherlands have been joined by a number of other countries that have made some form of assisted dying legal, including Luxembourg, Spain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, as well as several US states.
As previously reported, Belgium's euthanasia law covers "the intentional termination of life by someone other than the person concerned, at that person's request." Specifically, the law states that a patient can request euthanasia when:
There is ongoing unbearable physical or psychological suffering
the suffering is due to a serious and incurable illness caused by an accident or disease
The request for euthanasia must be voluntary, in writing and repeatedly
Euthanasia in Belgium can only be practiced by a doctor, who administers drugs intravenously or orally (although the latter is rare).
In a case concerning the right to life and the right to respect for private and family life (Mortier v. Belgium, Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights), an applicant alleged that the Belgian authorities had failed in their duty to ensure that he was informed and involved in the process of euthanasia of his mother.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2022 that it considered that the applicant's right to respect for his private and family life had not been violated solely because his mother had undergone euthanasia. The Court found that Belgian legislation, as applied in the case, struck a fair balance between the various interests.
Since the introduction of the law, Belgium has recorded around 2,500 cases of euthanasia each year and the number is increasing. In 2023, the number of euthanasia procedures increased by 15% to 3,423 cases. Cancer remains the main justification for euthanasia. Psychiatric conditions accounted for only 1.4% of the total cases. /Adapted from Pamphlet by Brussels Times/
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