Article By Frank Bergman
Belgium euthanized more than 1,100 people suffering from common ailments whose deaths were not expected in the short term in 2025, a new government report reveals, as the country’s assisted death regime reaches record levels.
The Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation reports that 1,117 deaths, 24.9% of all registered euthanasia cases, involved patients who were not approaching an imminent death.
The findings expose how far the practice extends beyond terminal patients in their final days, encompassing chronic conditions, psychiatric illness, and cognitive disorders such as dementia.
Belgium recorded 4,486 euthanasia deaths in 2025, a 12.4% increase from the previous year and approximately 4% of all deaths nationwide.
Nearly One in Four Were Not Facing Imminent Death
The commission’s report identifies more than a quarter of the registered cases as involving people whose deaths were not “expected in the short term.”
Those patients had conditions described as incurable, including multiple chronic ailments common among older people.
Some cases involved psychiatric or cognitive conditions.
Although most people euthanized were elderly, the 2025 figures also include a teenager.
Belgian law does not require every person seeking euthanasia to be near the end of life.
The country removed age restrictions in 2014, extending access to minors assessed as having the capacity to understand the decision, subject to additional requirements.
The latest figures show a system in which an imminent death is no longer the defining circumstance for a substantial share of those euthanized.
Most Registered Cases Cleared Without Further Questions
The commission approved 85.6% of registered cases at its first review without requesting additional information about the patient.
That figure rose from 80% the previous year.
The remaining cases required further information or clarification from a doctor before ultimately receiving approval.
These figures concern the commission’s review of registered euthanasia deaths, rather than demonstrating that every initial request for euthanasia was granted.
Since legalization in 2002, more than 42,000 people have died through Belgium’s euthanasia system.
In 2003, the first full year under the law, the country recorded 235 deaths.
The 2025 total is more than 19 times that figure.
Australia Moves to Expand Access as Deaths Rise
The Belgian findings come amid rising assisted-death figures elsewhere.
In Victoria, Australia, practitioner-administered euthanasia deaths have increased by approximately 400% over five years.
The state recorded 140 such deaths between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026, according to its Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board’s latest annual report.
That represents a 59.09% increase from the previous year, when medical practitioners administered lethal substances in 88 cases.
Victoria is now preparing to widen eligibility, shorten waiting periods, and allow doctors to initiate conversations about euthanasia without a patient first asking.
Those changes would expand access while deaths under the existing framework are already climbing.
Canadian Doctors Warn Patients Are Being Approved Who Should Not Be
In Canada, two psychiatrists who helped implement assisted dying are warning that the system has moved beyond its promised role as an option of last resort.
Dr. Gary Rodin and Dr. Madeline Li outline their concerns in a New York Times opinion article.
Both support assisted dying in principle.
Both have counseled patients and assessed eligibility, and one has administered the drugs used to end patients’ lives.
Together, they helped establish the framework for handling assisted-death requests at one of Canada’s largest medical centers.
Now, they warn of dangerous failures.
“But Canada’s system for assisted death is no longer an option of last resort,” Rodin and Li write.
“Too many people are receiving the procedure without the opportunity for careful reflection about it with a health provider,” the psychiatrists write.
“In some cases, patients are being approved who should not be,” Rodin and Li warn.
“Reports have emerged of people seeking assisted death in the context of poverty or loneliness, raising concerns that they may feel they have no other options,” the psychiatrists write.
Even among cancer patients, Rodin and Li warn that “there’s a risk of rushing into it and shortening what can be a meaningful period in patients’ lives.”
Their warning comes from inside the system: doctors who helped build it now identify inappropriate approvals and missed opportunities for patients to reconsider an irreversible decision.
Alongside Belgium’s record death toll and Victoria’s planned expansion, their account raises a fundamental question about safeguards that are supposed to protect vulnerable patients before their lives are ended.
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