Death of Catholic former Dutch prime minister highlights ‘duo euthanasia’ trend in Netherlands

The Catholic Herald

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At the start of February both Dries van Agt, a Catholic former Dutch prime minister, and his wife chose to die together through euthanasia. Married for 70 years, both Van Agt and his wife, Eugenie, were ill and 93 years old at the time of theirs deaths that are part of a small but growing trend in the Netherlands for “duo euthanasia”, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/10/duo-euthanasia-former-dutch-prime-minister-dies-wife-dries-eugenie-van-agt">reports</a> the Guardian. It notes that while still rare, the collective euthanasia of couples was first highlighted in a 2020 <a href="https://www.euthanasiecommissie.nl/de-toetsingscommissies/uitspraken/jaarverslagen/2020/april/15/jaarverslag-2020">review</a> of all euthanasia cases in the country, when 26 people were "granted euthanasia" – also known as assisted suicide – at the same time as a partner. In 2021 the number was 32 and in 2022 had increased to 58.  Van Agt was prime minister between 1977 and 1982 and the first leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal party. According to Dutch media, Van Agt “may have been a Catholic but always chose his own path”, the Guardian reports. Van Agt had never fully recovered from a 2019 brain haemorrhage and both he and his wife were very ill and “couldn’t go without one another”, Gerard Jonkman, director of The Rights Forum – which Van Agt set up in his “later, more left-leaning years”, the Guardian says - <a href="http://Ah, Sabela, había estado pensando si había una noche de bandas o algo así por la noche a la que pudiéramos ir. ¿En qué estás pensando? ¿Vas a castigarme haciéndome caminar toda la noche hasta que tenga que pedir clemencia?... Leí tu largo mensaje. Entiendo tus puntos. Pero creo que no quieres que comente, y por eso no lo he hecho.">told</a> broadcaster NOS. The Rights Forum "is a high-level network of former ministers and professors of international law who have joined forces to promote a just and durable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict," <a href="https://rightsforum.org/en/about-us/">say</a>s the organisation's website. Elke Swart, spokesperson for the Expertisecentrum Euthanasie, which the Guardian says “grants the euthanasia wish” of about 1,000 people a year in the Netherlands – which critics of euthanasia policy would argue equates to facilitating the suicides of more than 1,000 people each year – told the Guardian that any couple’s requests for assisted death were tested against strict requirements individually rather than together. “Interest in this is growing, but it is still rare,” Swart says. “It is pure chance that two people are suffering unbearably with no prospect of relief at the same time…and that they both wish for euthanasia.” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/14/netherlands-to-broaden-euthanasia-rules-to-cover-children-of-all-ages"></a>Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2006. It is permitted under <a href="https://www.government.nl/topics/euthanasia">six conditions/circumstances,</a> the Guardian reports, including "unbearable suffering, no prospect of relief and a long-held, independent wish for death" that must be verified by "a second specialist". Most cases are carried out by the family doctor at home. Although couples amount to a very small percentage of the deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands – 8,720 cases, or 5.1 per cent of all Dutch assisted deaths in 2022 – Fransien van ter Beek, who chairs the <a href="https://www.nvve.nl/about-nvve">NVVE</a> pro-euthanasia foundation, said that many more people express the wish to die as a couple but “it does not happen very often because it is not an easy path”. In 2023, the Netherlands decided to “widen its euthanasia regulations to include the possibility of doctors assisting in the death of terminally ill children aged between one and 12," the Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/14/netherlands-to-broaden-euthanasia-rules-to-cover-children-of-all-ages">reports</a>. Both the UK and Ireland are experiencing sustained pushes by a mixture of lobbyists, celebrities and politicians for an <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/as-with-sexual-revolution-we-must-heed-slippery-slope-warnings-about-assisted-suicide/">expansion in euthanasia policy</a> by the State. During his 2023 Christmas homily, the Bishop of Shrewsbury <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/euthanasia-and-assisted-suicide-contradict-christmas-bishop-davies-warns-faithful/#:~:text=The%20bishop%20will%20suggest%20that,the%20weakest%20and%20most%20vulnerable.">warned against</a> renewed attempts to change UK law to allow doctors to help their patients to commit suicide. Critics of euthanasia/assisted suicide cite what is happening in Cananda, where numbers of assisted deaths sanctioned by the State, especially among the most vulnerable, are rising rapidly. The country's Catholic bishops are issuing urgent <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/canadian-bishops-warn-that-government-remains-committed-to-expanding-assisted-suicide-to-include-mental-illness/?swcfpc=1">warnings</a> about the determination of the State to expand the country's euthanasia policy to include the mentally ill. Photo: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher talking to her Dutch counterpart Dries van Agt during a meeting at The Hague, 9 February 1981. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.)

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