The Right to Life Wins Against Euthanasia at the European Court of Human Rights

It was a victory for life over euthanasia at the European Court of Human Rights Tuesday.

The court ruled that Belgium violated the "right to life" expressed and protected in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of the euthanasia of Godelieva de Troyer in 2012 without ruling against Belgium's euthanasia law.

Sixty-four years old De Troyer died in euthanasia through legal injection. She was physically well, yet her euthanasia was propelled because her diagnosis stated she had "incurable depression."

However, her family did not know anything about the procedure. De Troyer's son, Tom Mortier, received a call from the hospital one day instructing him to collect his mother's belongings. He had no idea that his mother had died because she was euthanized.

Mortier then decided to file a case to Europe's highest human rights court to give his mother's death justice.

Legalized euthanasia is never safe

In the case of Mortier vs. Belgium, the human rights court ruled "that Belgium's euthanasia commission lacked the requisite independence to offer real oversight," resulting in a violation of the right of life of De Troyer.

The court's ruling highlighted the problems of the euthanasia commission as the basis for the right-to-life violation. It was said that "legal safeguards" can never make euthanasia safe, even if they did not directly rule against euthanasia in Belgium as a whole.

Nevertheless, the human rights court stood in favor of more "safeguards" for the improvement of the euthanasia practice. Yet, in the case of Mortier vs. Belgium, the legal protections were insufficient to protect the right to life.

Thus, the ruling is clear enough, the mother of Mortier's right to life was violated, and that, according to journalist Elyssa Koren, no rules and regulations, even agreements, that can ever make legalized euthanasia "safe."

People have lost the meaning of 'taking care of each other'

Allegedly, De Troyer went to Belgium's leading euthanasia advocate, also a cancer specialist, who agreed to euthanize her.

Within months, she was said to provide financial payments to his organization. This leading advocate then referred her to see other specialists who were members of the same organization, when supposedly the requirement for the valid procedure was to have independent opinions in cases of people who are not expected to die soon.

Mortier said in an interview that a serious problem with society is that people have lost the meaning of "taking care of each other."

The law of Belgium about euthanasia states that an individual, to be qualified for the procedure, must be in a medical condition of perpetual and unendurable suffering, physically or mentally, which cannot be alleviated that it results in an incurable disorder due to illness or accident.

Depression, in the case of De Troyer, was not "medically futile" and should not have been a valid reason for death. The latter's longtime doctor said she did not meet the legal criteria.

Data from the Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia revealed that there are already 30,000 deaths through euthanasia in the past two decades, and this count is more than likely underreported. The procedure is now said to be the reason for 1 in 50 deaths in the country. As of 2021, 1 out of 5 deaths by euthanasia was not expected to die naturally in the near future. In 2014, Belgium also leagalized euthanasia for children.

In an article with the Daily Signal, Koren boldly expressed to Americans, "We must stand firm against a culture of death that denies the truth of what it means to accompany someone in their suffering. A society that encourages the vulnerable to end their lives never can be truly progressive."