Belgian doctor accused of five nursing home murders
A Belgian doctor has admitted killing five nursing home patients with injections of morphine, but insists that he did it out of compassion. The newspaper Het Nieuwsblad reported that the doctor, known only as Boudewijn D.W. had discussed what he was about to do with nursing staff and relatives. All five patients were suffering from dementia.
The nursing home reported the deaths to the police, as Belgium has legalised voluntary euthanasia, but not non-voluntary euthanasia. A request for death must come from the patient himself and the doctor must be certain that he is suffering from a terminal illness. A second doctor’s opinion is also needed.
Latest posts by Mumbai (see all)
- Prescribe morning-after pills to young teenagers, say US pediatric group - November 30, 2012
- Bahrain sentences protest docs to prison - November 28, 2012
- Terry Pratchett assisted suicide documentary wins International Emmy - November 27, 2012
More Stories
Australian woman freed after 20 years after new genetic evidence raised ‘reasonable doubt’
An Australian woman who spent 20 years in jail for murdering her four infant children has been pardoned on the...
Is surrogacy a way of combatting ‘compulsory familialism’?
For people on either side of the debate, surrogacy can seem like a black-and-white issue. Opponents stress human dignity; supporters...
The FDA finally approved Elon Musk’s Neuralink chip for human trials. Have all the concerns been addressed?
Since its founding in 2016, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company Neuralink has had the ambitious mission to build a next-generation brain...
You shed DNA everywhere you go – trace samples in the water, sand and air are enough to identify who you are, raising ethical questions about privacy
Human DNA can be sequenced from small amounts of water, sand and air in the environment to potentially extract identifiable...
Are Dutch doctors too willing to euthanise people with autism and intellectual disability?
Will legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide lead to unnecessary deaths because of an able-ist bias against intellectual disability and autism?...
Euthanasia in Quebec: seamless service at a friendly funeral parlour
In Quebec, the number of cases of euthanasia has risen from 63 in 2015-2016 to 3663 in 2021-2022. Nowadays many...