Belgium and the Netherlands take step towards euthanasia for dementia patients

Belgium and the Netherlands are considering extending their already liberal laws on euthanasia to patients with dementia. 

Both countries have taken steps to liberalising rules which allow people to choose when to die and with medical support, with Belgium mulling whether to allow euthanasia for people without terminal illness who consider their “lives fulfilled”. 

Euthanasia is only permitted in Belgium for people with all their faculties or those who have made a written declaration before falling into an irreversible coma. 

The Flemish socialists and liberal parties are pushing for the law to be changed to allow dementia patients to state their wish to die while they are still lucid. 

Euthanasia…