EXHIBITIONS
Living Wills of the Humanistisch Verbond, submitted by Niels De Nutte
Today, thanks to the laws on euthanasia, palliative care and patients' rights, we have several advance directives. In the past, these documents were called living wills.
Flemish secular humanism will always play a pioneer role in the way it deals with euthanasia and the end of one’s life. As early as 1986, a period in which the political world was not yet awake to the subject, HV began to design its own living wills and maintained a database with the wills of its members. The initiative for this came from the euthanasia working group in Antwerp. It was only three years later that wills were also distributed to non-members. Although this evolution was socially progressive, it was certainly not perfect. When a member no longer paid his membership fee, the will was no longer kept on file.
Abroad, such living wills have existed for much longer. At the end of the 1970s HV already had copies of examples from the United States and the Netherlands.
Today the LevensEindeInformatieForum (LEIF) publishes the LEIF magazine “Levenseinde en wetgeving - een praktische gids” (“End of Life and Legislation – A Practical Guide”). In it, the reader finds the necessary forms for, among other things, an advance directive for euthanasia, an advance directive to reject treatment as well as a funeral directive.