Cases of euthanasia jump in Belgium after new law

By CONSTANT BRAND
September 9, 2009

BRUSSELS — Cases of euthanasia in Belgium's Flanders region soared to nearly 2 percent of all deaths in 2007 after the country legalized the practice a few years earlier, a medical study has shown.

The survey, conducted by an end-of-life research group at the Brussels-based Free University, said the rise was mainly due to Belgium's 2002 euthanasia law, which gave terminally ill patients more choices.

"We found that the enactment of the Belgian euthanasia law was followed by an increase in all types of medical end-of-life practices, with the exception of the use of lethal drugs without the patient's explicit request," the group said in a letter published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. the rest