The Netherlands has released an annual report on euthanasia deaths but a pro-life advocate says the numbers deserve scrutiny.

There were more than 6,500 deaths in 2017, an increase of eight percent over 2016, but Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says a previous study suggests that 23 percent of patients killed by a doctor are not reported.

One reason for the increase, he observes, might be expanding the allowances for euthanasia, including mental patients who don't have a terminal condition.

"Often they have actually no medical condition causing their death," says Schadenberg, "but they have psychiatric distress and most of those deaths are caused by the euthanasia clinic."

The numbers are likely to rise even more if euthanasia of disabled children is legalized but Schadenberg says even that allowance is not the sole reason if future data shows more dead people.

"So you have this constant increase because what was once considered an exceptional case, or out of the ordinary, has become the ordinary," he says. "And the more the culture moves in that direction, the more euthanasia deaths you're going to have."