Allowing elderly people to die by lethal injection will save the Belgian Government money, the boss of an insurance firm has suggested.
Luc Van Gorp, President of CM health fund, claimed that extending the country’s euthanasia laws to include elderly people “tired of life” would avert a social funding crisis.
In Belgium, reported euthanasia cases have more than doubled in ten years, from 1,432 in 2012 to 2,966 in 2022.
an Gorp told the Flemish newspaper Nieuwsblad: “We have to remove the stigma between life and death.”
The political debate, he claimed, needed to shift from “quantity of life” to “quality of life”, especially in light of a growing elderly population.
He asked: “How are we going to prepare for that? Not by building mass residential care centres if they won’t contribute to quality of life. If we are not going to be able to sustain the mass of people who need care, how are we going to engage in a talk with them?”
But he argued: “Even if there is no unbearable suffering or poor quality of life, people who are tired of life should have the freedom to end their lives.”
The truth, of course, is that the only reason a growing elderly population is a 'problem' is that almost the whole world has a drastically reduced young population. Abortion doesn't only spell death for babies.....