Belgium

A discussion between two medical ethicists on the Today programme this morning ended with them agreeing on one point: whether or not it is right to breed pigs so that their organs can be harvested for transplantation into humans (as the University of California is experimenting with), the first thing we should do in order to solve the shortage of donor organs is to move to a system of ‘presumed consent’, where the organs of dying patients are considered fair game for transplantation unless they have signed a form excluding this. To leave the pigs for a moment, what is so ethical about presumed consent for human donors?

Because, it says, of its ‘liberal values and respect for human dignity’, the Economist has put out a film about Emily, a 24-year-old Belgian woman, who wants assisted dying. She is physically healthy, and comes, the film assures us, from a happy family. She has suffered from severe depression since childhood, however. By her own account, her self-made video (two years ago), in which she says ‘I don’t want to live a lie’ and ‘It keeps feeling empty whatever I do’, made her feel empowered. It inspired her to seek death at the hands of doctors. Belgium is one of two countries in the world which permits assisted dying for psychiatric reasons.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thereturnofassisteddying/media.mp3" title="Lord Falconer and Douglas Murray debate 'assisted dying'" startat=42] Listen [/audioplayer]A couple of years ago I contacted Holland’s top pro-euthanasia organisation. Our House of Lords looks likely to approve a bill legalising euthanasia here, I told them. ‘Very exciting!’ came the reply. Next month Parliament will again be discussing ‘assisted dying’, and although the tone of the British debate is not yet quite like the Dutch one, a shift in tone has undoubtedly occurred. In the past few years euthanasia has been renamed ‘assisted dying’ and become part of the ‘progressive’ cause.

As MPs prepare to consider a private member's bill to license what is being euphemistically called 'assisted dying', in Belgium a young woman with mental health problems has been cleared for euthanasia some time this summer. The Belgium-based outlet DeMorgen outlined the situation of the 24-year-old, identified only as ‘Laura’. Aside from depression and the feeling that 'she wanted to die ever since childhood', ‘Laura’ is physically healthy, enjoys coffee, friends and going to the theatre. According to the New Yorker, 13 percent of Belgians who died by euthanasia last year didn’t have a terminal illness — and 3 percent suffered from mental disorders. Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002.  Since then the numbers have soared.

Napoleon didn’t think much of Antwerp. ‘Scarcely a European city at all,’ he scoffed. If only he could see it today. Ten years ago, Antwerp felt provincial. Now it feels like the capital of an (almost) independent state. ‘Jardin Zoologique’ it says outside the zoo, but that’s the only French signage you’ll see in this resolutely Flemish city. When they built the zoo, in 1843, Belgium was only 13 years old, and French was the official language throughout this mongrel nation. Now it only survives on a few old war memorials. ‘You’re in Flanders now,’ locals tell you, if you try to speak to them in French. Each time I come here, Antwerp seems more estranged from Belgium.

From The Spectator, 17 October 1914: NEVER did a people and their Sovereign and his Consort deserve greater honour than the Belgians and their King and Queen. They have drunk the cup of misery and horror to the very dregs. "Their heads are bloody though unbowed." The invaders have used against them the strength of a giant and the baseness of a giant, but all attempts to terrorize them into submission have been in vain. They have disputed every inch of ground that they could dispute with heroism, yet not with the madness of despair or with mere blind courage, though there has been plenty of that.

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 15 August 1914: The war continues to be as amazing as ever. We have now had actual firing for over ten days and yet there has been no serious invasion of French soil. What one was always told would happen in the great war, and what undoubtedly the German meant should happen, was a steady and rapid advance of the stupendous tide of German soldiers into France. Wave was to succeed wave of men on the frontier and all of them were to have their faces turned to France and Paris. The sea, no doubt, was to break in through Belgium, but Belgium, it was confidently predicted, would make no serious opposition. It would flow over Belgium just as an incoming tide flows over and covers as isolated rock.

In a one-horse town called Hestrud, on the Franco-Belgian border, there’s a monument which encapsulates Europe’s enduring fascination with Napoleon. The story carved upon this plinth is more like poetry than reportage. As Napoleon passed through here, on his way to Waterloo, he struck up a conversation with a bold little boy called Cyprien Joseph Charlet. ‘You think victory will always follow you, but it always disappears,’ this audacious lad told him, apparently. ‘If I were you, I’d stay at home. Tomorrow your star will surely dim.’ Well, that’s the story, anyway. Fact or fiction, or a bit of both? In a way, it hardly matters.