Euthanasia Spike – Oversight Loop Exposed

hospital room with child in bed and adult sitting nearby — Photo: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock

Belgium’s euthanasia system approved more than 1,100 deaths in 2025 for people who were not expected to die anytime soon, and the number keeps climbing year after year.

Story Snapshot

Belgium’s Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia reported 1,117 euthanasia cases in 2025 where death was not expected in the short term, up from 932 in 2024.
Total euthanasia cases hit 4,486 in 2025, a 12.4% jump from the year before, now accounting for 4% of all deaths in Belgium.
Psychiatric conditions made up 1.6% of cases, while “polypathologies,” meaning multiple chronic illnesses together, made up the largest share at 29.6%.
Belgian law requires two independent doctors, including a psychiatrist, and a one-month wait before approving euthanasia for psychological suffering.
The government agency that approves the deaths is also the body that reviews them afterward, raising questions about independent oversight.

What The New Numbers Show

Belgium’s Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia released its 2025 figures in March, showing 4,486 total euthanasia cases. That’s a 12.4% increase over 2024 and represents 4% of all deaths recorded in the country last year. Within that total, 1,117 cases involved patients whose death was not expected in the short term, a category that grew from 932 cases the year before.

This growing non-terminal category sits at the center of the debate. It does not mean all 1,117 people had psychiatric illness. Official figures separately list psychiatric conditions at just 1.6% of all cases and “polypathologies,” or multiple chronic health problems combined, as the single largest category at 29.6%. The numbers show overlapping, not identical, categories.

Psychological Suffering Versus Psychiatric Diagnosis

The data draw a careful line between two different things. Belgian officials reported that 86% of patients experienced both physical and psychological suffering together, while 1.9% experienced psychological suffering alone. Belgian news agency Belga stressed that this smaller group “should not be confused with a psychiatric disorder”, a distinction that matters for anyone trying to understand what the 1,117 figure actually represents.

That distinction cuts both ways. It means critics who describe the full 1,117 cases as psychiatric euthanasia are stretching the numbers beyond what the data actually say. But it also means the government’s own framing, which calls psychiatric euthanasia “rare,” sidesteps the much larger and faster-growing group of non-terminal cases driven mostly by chronic illness, not mental illness alone.

What The Law Requires Before Approval

Belgium’s 2002 euthanasia law was never limited to terminal illness. It allows a legally competent adult to request death if they face constant, unbearable suffering from a serious and incurable condition, whether physical or mental. For cases involving psychiatric suffering, the law adds extra steps: two independent physicians, including a psychiatrist, must review the request, and at least one month must pass between the request and the procedure. Supporters describe this as a careful balance between respecting a patient’s right to choose and protecting their right to life. Belgian bioethics guidance from 2017 specifically addressed non-terminal patients with psychological suffering, showing the safeguard framework has been debated publicly for years, rather than quietly expanded without scrutiny.

Belgian euthanasia deaths
📈2003: 259
📈2023: 3,423
📈2025: 4,487 (↑31% in just two years)
📉Only 2020 (Covid) saw a year-on-year fall

2025
🇧🇪2 U18s
🇧🇪15 by “advance request” (no longer competent)
🇧🇪129 with mental illnesses (only 9 of those euthanised by psychiatrists)
🇧🇪63.5%…

— Care Not Killing (@CNKAlliance) October 13, 2026

Why The Trend Still Raises Questions

The published statistics show totals and percentages, not individual case files. There is no public record showing whether consultation requirements, waiting periods, or capacity assessments were followed correctly in each of the 1,117 non-terminal cases. The same commission that approves cases also reviews them afterward, which critics on both sides of the political spectrum say limits independent outside scrutiny, even without proof that any law was broken.

Academic researchers have flagged similar concerns for years, pointing to gaps in how Belgium monitors euthanasia practice after approval. A European rights court case, Mortier v. Belgium, found Belgium violated human rights protections by failing to properly examine troubling circumstances around one euthanasia death, underscoring that oversight questions are not new. Whether the rising case count reflects genuine policy drift or simply better reporting and wider acceptance remains unresolved by the data alone.