Professor Penney Lewis:

I do not have information about the age. The way the Belgian law works in relation to adolescents is that, again, there is a capacity assessment and the child must have what the Belgian law calls the capacity of discernment. The Belgian law is interesting because unlike for the rest of the cases eligible in Belgium, children can only access euthanasia if they are terminally ill. The Belgian law is modelled on the Dutch law which means the main criterion in regard to the patient's condition is that they be suffering unbearably. It is more restrictive in regard to children. They must be suffering unbearably from a terminal illness. Looking at the data, we know that somewhere between 60% and 80% of all cases of euthanasia or assisted suicide in permissive regimes are a patient suffering from advanced cancer. The most likely scenario would be an adolescent with the capacity to make decisions who is terminally ill from advanced cancer. There must be an assessment by the physician providing euthanasia as well as a consulting physician. For children, there is an additional third assessment by a child psychiatrist or child psychologist, the parents have to consent. If all that is satisfied, and all the procedural requirements such as the number of conversations with doctors, and the request, then euthanasia can be provided. As I say, there has only been one case since it was legalised in 2014.