Healthy people over 75 could request euthanasia in Netherlands under proposed law

It comes as MPs in the UK are set to discuss and vote on a bill to allow assisted dying for over-18s who are terminally ill

Euthanasia laws in the Netherlands could be relaxed to allow healthy old people to choose to die if they undergo six months of counselling.
The Dutch parliament is expected to soon debate making euthanasia available to the over 75’s even if they are not ill, after a survey last week found it had overwhelming public support.
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia in 2002. It is currently only legal for people suffering from terminal illness or unbearable physical or mental suffering with no prospect of improvement.
MPs in the UK will discuss and vote on legalising assisted dying in England and Wales on November 29. Assisted dying involves giving patients the means to kill themselves, usually lethal drugs, while euthanasia is carried out by a doctor, usually by lethal injection.
In the Netherlands, both euthanasia and assisted dying, which is carried out under a doctor’s supervision, is legal with safeguards including consulting a second physician, which are meant to ensure the decision is voluntary and considered.
In a survey of 20,000 Dutch people, 86 per cent supported legalising euthanasia for healthy over-75-year-olds, provided they had consultations with medical professionals first.
“I find it very strange. As humans, we did not choose to be born and we cannot choose to die either,” said Bertil, who responded to the survey and whose healthy 91-year-old mother wants to die.
The Dutch parliament will soon debate a “completed life” bill, which was proposed by D66, an opposition liberal party.
Under its proposals, people over 75 could apply for euthanasia, which would trigger a minimum of six months counselling with an “end of life counsellor”. That period is meant to ensure the decision to die is voluntary and serious.
People lacking the mental fitness to choose euthanasia, such as those with dementia, would not be allowed to apply.
While public opinion is in favour, lawmakers are divided over the proposal, with some wanting the minimum age reduced and others opposing the idea outright.
Coalition parties such as Geert Wilders’ PVV and the BBB farmers’ party have made the issue a free vote among MPs, which makes it hard to predict if the bill will pass.
The Dutch Medical Association has warned that some elderly people wanting to die could be suffering from depression or loneliness, which are problems that could be addressed without euthanasia.
“It seems more likely that it concerns people who need help with living than with dying,” the doctors said of the bill.
The survey by the RTL broadcaster found that 53 per cent of respondents could imagine choosing euthanasia if they considered their life to be complete; while 44 per cent of them said there should be no age limit at all, 39 per cent backed a much younger minimum age of 18 or 25 years old.
More than 9,000 people died by euthanasia or assisted dying in the Netherlands in 2023, which was a 4 per cent increase from 2022 and 5 per cent of all deaths in a country of about 17.8 million people, while 66 of those killed were couples who had chosen to die together.
About 90 per cent of them suffered from cancer, heart or lung disease, nervous system problems or a combination of illnesses. In recent years, five people younger than 30 with autism were euthanised in the Netherlands.
In April last year, the Dutch government announced it would widen its “right to die” laws to include terminally ill children between one and 12 years old.
Rising numbers of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands, and other countries such as Canada and Belgium, have raised concerns that legalising assisted dying in the UK could be a “slippery slope”.
“When it comes to euthanasia, the slippery slope is not hypothetical,” said Robert Clarke, who was lead counsel on the landmark Mortier case against Belgium’s euthanasia laws at the European Court of Human Rights, which ended with a ruling that they violated the right to life.
“We see two things happen in every jurisdiction that has gone down this road. The numbers go up almost every single year. And there is pressure to expand the qualifying conditions,” the director at legal advocacy organisation ADF International said earlier this year.
In England and Wales, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would make it legal for over-18s who are terminally ill to be given assistance to end their own life. A similar bill is being debated in Scotland.
Under the bill, a doctor must prepare the lethal substance but the person must take it.
The person must be expected to die within six months and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled, informed and independent wish to die. Two independent doctors must be satisfied the person is eligible.
A High Court judge must hear from one of the doctors and can question the dying person under the bill.
Almost half (46 per cent) of the UK public support the legalisation of assisted dying for non-terminal diseases, compared with just one in five (20 per cent) who oppose, according to new research from Savanta for LBC published on Wednesday.
The survey found 50 per cent of people supported assisted dying for patients with degenerative diseases with a longer life expectancy than the currently proposed six-month period. 61 per cent of people said they were concerned terminally ill patients might be pressured to end their life prematurely, if the legislation was passed.