In Belgium, death is not a penalty -- but it can be therapy

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

45% : Or did doctors think it bolstered the case for euthanasia, because her depression remained intractable even after several years of hospitalization?
42% : Euthanasia has a tendency to begin with terminal diseases, then expand to undeniably painful but non-terminal ones or -- as in Belgium and the Netherlands -- mental conditions, always in the name of patient autonomy and alleviating unnecessary suffering.
41% : Did her unfree status weigh against euthanasia, by raising doubt that her request to die was "well-considered" and "voluntary," as the law requires?
40% : Analogous concerns about the mistakes physicians sometimes make did not prevail when Belgium legalized euthanasia.
39% : Listing reasons to oppose capital punishment, the Belgian government website notes, correctly, the "chance that a court sentences an innocent person to be executed can never be excluded."
35% : The answer: Lhermitte was not given capital punishment but euthanasia, legal in Belgium since 2002.

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