The Euthanasia Debate in Europe – Autonomy or Bureaucracy?
Just Added!

The Euthanasia Debate in Europe – Autonomy or Bureaucracy?

Euthanasia divides Europe: Does it enhance autonomy or risk control? This panel explores the ethical, moral, and cultural complexities.

By MCC Brussels

Date and time

Wednesday, February 5 · 6:30 - 8pm CET

Location

The Hotel Brussels

38 Boulevard de Waterloo 1000 Bruxelles Belgium

About this event

  • Event lasts 1 hour 30 minutes

The Euthanasia Debate in Europe – Autonomy or Bureaucracy?

Euthanasia is a divisive issue across Europe, raising questions about whether its legalization enhances personal autonomy or signals a troubling shift toward bureaucratic control over life and death. This panel explores the ethical, moral, and cultural complexities surrounding the push for its legalization.

Supporters claim euthanasia allows individuals to control their end-of-life decisions, alleviating suffering and preserving dignity. Critics argue it risks normalizing state-sanctioned killing, reducing moral decisions to bureaucratic processes, and devaluing human life.

Countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal have legalized euthanasia, while others, including France and Denmark, continue to debate it. Strategic cases, such as a Hungarian lawyer's attempt to challenge the criminalization of euthanasia in the European Court of Human Rights, have brought the topic into legal discourse. Advocacy groups have pushed to “harmonise” policies across the EU—such as mutual recognition of living wills—but these are met with stiff resistance, particularly from nations like Poland or Romania, where public sentiment remains firmly opposed. This fragmented landscape underscores the complexity of the issue.

A central question is whether euthanasia truly reflects personal choice or if it symbolizes the growing influence of bureaucratic systems over life-and-death decisions. Panelists will examine how the legalization of euthanasia may transform deeply personal and ethical decisions into state-sanctioned processes, potentially eroding the individual’s agency in favor of regulatory oversight.

The discussion will also focus on whether normalizing euthanasia risks diminishing the inherent dignity of all individuals, and if we risk suggesting that life is dispensible in certain circumstances. The panel will also examine the stigma of suicide, questioning whether legalizing euthanasia undermines support systems for vulnerable individuals and what the consequences are of “destigmatising” suicide. Lastly, we will address tensions between EU advocacy for uniform laws and the preservation of national sovereignty and cultural values.

Is the right to end one’s life a new and fundamental freedom – or a symptom of a morally confused society? What is the line that regulates the state’s involvement in life and death? Are these fundamental and complex issues best addressed at the EU level – or left to nations to decide?

Join us for a thoughtful and important discussion.

Speakers:

Dr Ashley Frawley, visiting research fellow, MCC Brussels; sociologist and author of “Against legalised euthanasia in Europe: The bureaucratic control of life and death”, Semiotics of Happiness: Rhetorical Beginnings of a Public Problem (2015) and Significant Emotions: Rhetoric and Social Problems in a Vulnerable Age

Kevin Yuill, emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland; author, Assisted Suicide: The Liberal Humanist Case Against Legalization; CEO, Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (HAASE)

Ole Hartling, author, Euthanasia and the Ethics of a Doctor’s Decisions. An Argument against Assisted Dying; retired medical doctor; former professor; former chairman, Danish Ethical Council

Organized by