The Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics says that euthanasia should be made available to people with advanced dementia or other neurodegenerative disorders. The Committee published a comprehensive advisory report on the issue on Friday.
Advisory Committee on Bioethics says that euthanasia should be available to people with advanced dementia
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Currently a person with advanced dementia cannot legally obtain euthanasia in Belgium. Current legislation requires that a person be mentally competent when a request for euthanasia is made. Failing this, a prior living will or advance directive has to have been drawn up and signed prior to the patient’s dementia having advanced to the stage that they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves.
This means that people with dementia can currently only request euthanasia if they are still sufficiently mentally competent. In 2024, 56 people with dementia in Belgium received euthanasia.
“It is not a black-and-white, but doctors do feel that procedures for people with dementia have been carried out ‘too early’ because it will no longer be legally possible to do so later,” The Bioethics Committee’s Vice-Chairman Patrick Cras says. The Committee therefore recommends extending the euthanasia law to include people who “are conscious, but whose mental competence and ability to express their wishes have been irreversibly impaired by illness or accident.”
Although much public debates has focused on people with advanced dementia, the Bioethics Committee's description is deliberately broad. It also applies to people with other degenerative conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, ALS, Huntington's disease and people who experience similar consequences after having suffered a stroke or having been involved in an accident.
The Committee recognises that the patient may exhibit behavioural changes due to their condition as it progresses. Therefore, a living will must be carefully considered and formulated without pressure and it must clearly describe the complex suffering of the person in question. It must also describe clearly identified thresholds, at which point the person would find it unbearable to continue living.
Professor Martin Hiele told the press agency Belga that “The living will is not a piece of paper that someone draws up on their 60th birthday, so to speak, and then puts in a drawer. It is something that needs to be discussed with a doctor, family members and loved ones. Nor is it a document that remains the same forever. As long as a person is still conscious, the declaration can be amended according to the situation."
The Committee compiled the advisory report on its own initiative and not at the request of the government. Work on the report began in 2019 aznd resumed after a break due to the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2023.