Belgium legalises euthanasia

Critics say they believe more in the right to life

Belgium has legalised euthanasia - becoming the second country in the world to do so, after the Netherlands.

People aren't afraid of being dead but they fear the process of dying. I'm sure that having the option of euthanasia actually gives people the courage to go on day after day

Anne-Mie Descheemaeker, Flemish Green Party

After two days of heated debate, the lower house of the Belgian parliament endorsed the bill by 86 votes in favour, 51 against and with 10 abstentions.

The result was widely expected following the Belgian Senate's approval of the law last October.

The Belgian bill - like the one in the Netherlands - sets out strict conditions governing assisted suicide.

It is expected to come into force before parliament breaks for summer.

Restrictions

The Belgian law sets out conditions under which suicide can be practised without giving doctors a licence to kill, correspondents say.

The law makes it easy for people who are not terminally ill to commit euthanasia

Filip Dewinter, Vlaams Blok

Patients wishing to end their own lives must be conscious when the demand is made and repeat their request for euthanasia. They have to be under "constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain" resulting from an accident or incurable illness.

The law gives patients the right to receive ongoing treatment with painkillers - the authorities have to pay to ensure that poor or isolated patients do not ask to die because they do not have money for such treatment.

Unlike the Dutch legislation approved last month, minors cannot seek assistance to die.

In the case of someone who is not in the terminal stages of illness, a third medical opinion must be sought.

Every mercy killing case will have to be filed at a special commission to decide if the doctors in charge are following the regulations.

Splits

The debate has split the Belgian political scene.

"Everyone has the right to die in dignity," Anne-Mie Descheemaeker of the Flemish Green Party said, according to Reuters news agency.

"People aren't afraid of being dead but they fear the process of dying. I'm sure that having the option of euthanasia actually gives people the courage to go on day after day," she added.

But critics of the legislation say it does not do enough to safeguard against abuses of the law.

Filip Dewinter, leader of the far-right Vlaams Blok, said his party was against the bill because it believed in the right to life more.

"The law makes it easy for people who are not terminally ill to commit euthanasia," Mr Dewinter said.

And the opposition Christian Democrats say they may take their case to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights