Europe Human rights court to hear Belgian euthanasia case

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The European Court of Human Rights has announced that it will take up a case considering whether Belgium wrongly allowed a woman to be euthanized on the grounds of “untreatable depression.”

Tom Mortier says that his mother, Godelieva De Troyer, suffered from depression for a majority of her life. Her doctor of over 20 years had refused her request for end-of-life treatment in 2011.

She then donated more than $2,800 to Life End Information Forum, an organization co-founded by oncologist Wim Distelmans. Shortly after, Distelmans agreed to carry out a lethal injection of De Troyer, doing so in April 2012.

Mortier is arguing that this donation created a conflict-of-interest.

The European Court of Human Rights will address whether Belgium violated human rights conventions by failing to protect the life of De Troyer and failing to carry out an effective investigation into her death.

The psychiatrist who approved De Troyer’s euthanasia request, Dr. Lieve Thienpont, is already under investigation in another wrongful death allegation – that of Tine Nys, who was euthanized in 2010, two months after being diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome by Thienpont.

Thienpoint is believed by some experts to be involved in one-third of the nation’s psychiatric-based euthanasia cases.

Under Belgian law, euthanasia is permissible when there is a “medically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident.”

A Belgian report on euthanasia in 2016 -17 suggests that an estimated six people are euthanized daily in the country, where the practice has been legal since 2002.