New Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide (EAS) Briefing Paper: ‘Euthanasia Case Studies from Belgium: Concerns About Legislation and Hope for Palliative Care’, by Prof. Benoit Beuselinck
Our latest paper in our euthanasia and assisted suicide (EAS) series is ‘Euthanasia Case Studies from Belgium: Concerns About Legislation and Hope for Palliative Care’ by Prof. Benoit Beuselinck, Professor of Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven / Louvain in Belgium.
In his paper, Prof. Beuselinck presents a number of real-life example cases from the medical front line of end-of-life care, and draws out some of the lessons that might be learned from those cases, such as the difficulty of estimating life expectancy, the confusion and distrust euthanasia causes in palliative care, how patients with major life-events to look forward to can live longer than prognosed, and the emotional cost of emphasising patient autonomy on the family of those presenting for EAS.
The papers in our EAS series clarify the issues at stake in the social, political, and medical discussion, examining the definitions concerning, and practical consequences of legalising physician involvement in assisting a patient to end their own life, or directly causing their death.
You can read our ongoing EAS briefing paper series on its dedicated page on our website, here.
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Sincerest Thanks for Your Support
Staff are grateful to all those who sustained the Centre in the past by their prayers and the generous financial support from trusts, organisations, communities and especially from individual donors, including the core funding that came through the Day for Life fund and so from the generosity of many thousands of parishioners. We would finally like to acknowledge the support the Centre has received from the Catholic community in Ireland, especially during the pandemic when second collections were not possible.
We would like to emphasise that, though the Centre is now closed, these donations have not been wasted but have helped educate and support generations of conscientious healthcare professionals, clerics, and lay people over almost 50 years. This support has also helped prevent repeated attempts to legalise euthanasia or assisted suicide in Britain and Ireland from 1993 till the end of the Centre’s work on 31 July 2025.