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Fertility and Pregnancy
Perinatal bereavement – Belgium: towards the possibility of burial for all stillborn foetuses, regardless of gestational age?
In its Opinion No. 90 published at the end of 2025, the Belgian Bioethics Advisory Committee examined the ‘Funeral destination of foetuses that are stillborn at an early gestational age’. Among its recommendations is the possibility for all parents to organise a funeral or arrange for the burial of the remains of a...
Organ Donation
Donating one’s face after euthanasia: when death on demand turns the body into a resource
In autumn 2025, the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona performed a face transplant on a patient suffering from a bacterial infection. In twenty years, around fifty transplants of this type have been performed worldwide...
Medically Assisted Reproduction
From embryo screening to eugenics: how private companies circumvent national legislation
Even as assisted reproductive technology (ART) becomes increasingly widespread (+19.7% between 2015 and 2022...
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Bioethics in 2026: what developments can we expect at Belgian and European level?
The coming year promises to bring important new debates in several European countries and at European Union level, particularly on artificial reproduction, surrogacy, euthanasia and abortion, but also on new issues...
Medically Assisted Reproduction
European IVF scandal: at least 197 children conceived using a donor carrying a cancer-causing gene (including 53 in Belgium)
On 7 January, the Belgian Federal Parliament's Health and Equal Opportunities Committee heard from Public Health Minister Franck Vandenbroucke about the gamete scandal. MPs are seeking to find out how such an overrun was possible, given that the 2007 Belgian law limits the number of women who can receive gametes from...
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Belgium: Bioethics Advisory Committee in favour of extending advance euthanasia declarations to persons who have become incapable of deciding for themselves
In an opinion issued on 10 November 2025, Belgium's Bioethics Advisory Committee unanimously recommended amending the law on euthanasia to extend the scope of advance euthanasia declarations. The Committee proposed that...
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
What suicide prevention policy should be adopted in a country that allows euthanasia for depression?
The recent death by euthanasia of Siska, a 26-year-old woman suffering from depression, has reignited the debate on mental health care in Belgium, but also on the consistency between access to euthanasia for mental...
Abortion
ECHR condemns Poland: delayed publication of a ruling restricting access to abortion undermined legal certainty
In a judgment handed down on 13 November 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Poland for violating the right of respect for private and family life of the applicant, a Polish national who travelled...
In the spotlight
All the news
Bereavement leave in the event of euthanasia: will it be possible to change one’s mind?
Belgium – Proposed liberalisation of abortion laws: 12, 14 or 18 weeks – a scientific question or an ethical choice?
Belgium: care for people with disabilities under scrutiny from the UN
Alberta (Canada): a setback for the expansion of euthanasia?
Surrogacy: between freedom-restricting contracts and eugenic abortions
Euthanasia in cases of advanced dementia: a further extension of Belgian law?
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