Wherever euthanasia is debated, the clincher argument is that it will spare a patient agonising pain in a terminal illness. But as these cases from Belgium suggest, euthanasia deaths are being used as an escape route from the aftermath of crime by both victims and criminals. And women may be particularly susceptible.
Sixteen years to the day when five of her children died, on February 28, 56-year-old Genevieve Lhermitte, was euthanised. Euthanasia for unbearable psychological suffering has become normalised in Belgium, but this case was different.