The Danish Council on Ethics has advised Denmark’s parliament against legalising euthanasia.

A report endorsed by 16 of the council’s 17 members concluded that it was “in principle impossible to establish proper regulation of euthanasia”. Other countries such as Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands that have gone down this road have seen numbers availing of it increasing rapidly and the grounds for granting it expand.

In June Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that she might be in favour of legalisation. She said that she had received a letter from a woman who had lost a family member to a painful illness and her dog through euthanasia. The relative’s death was “troubled and chaotic,” she said, whereas the dog’s death was “peaceful and controlled”.

Pro-life critics of this argument respond that putting an animal down does not send a social signal to other animals that assisted suicide is acceptable thereby creating a new social norm with accompanying pressures.

The council’s opinion now makes it less likely that Denmark will follow The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and some states in the US in legalising assisted suicide or euthanasia.