Euthanasia law proposed for healthy over-75s who feel their lives are complete

Dutch News 19 July 2020
Family First Comment: This is so disturbing. Apparently euthanasia is now a response to depression and mental illness…
“Govt research revealed that around 10,000 people over 55 have a serious death wish.”
#slipperyslope
Protect.org.nz

A Dutch MP has submitted a long-awaited bill to offer healthy Dutch over-75s the right to ask for euthanasia.

Pia Dijkstra, medical ethics lead for D66, promised to go forward with the controversial bill at the end of January, after government research revealed that around 10,000 people over 55 have a serious death wish.

But the bill proposal, handed in on Friday, is likely to stoke conflict in the government because the two Christian parties in the coalition are radically opposed to it.

Free vote
Although the right to choose death is supported in theory by Mark Rutte’s VVD, and a previous attempt at legislation in 2016 also had the support of the PvdA labour party and GroenLinks, it is unclear whether Dijkstra’s bill would win over the majority of MPs – which it would need, as it would be a free vote.

Her proposed law would mean healthy over-75s with a strong death wish for at least two months could have the assistance of an ‘end-of-life supervisor’ to die. But opponents of the law – including the KNMG Royal Dutch Medical Association – believe it could undermine the strict due care conditions of the existing euthanasia law, arguing that lonely and impoverished older people should have help, not the choice of an early death.

Benjamin Meijer, a spokesman for D66, told DutchNews.nl that his party had agreed with the coalition to wait for the publication of research into the group of older people who want help to die, and was then busy with the joint effort against the coronavirus.
READ MORE: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/07/euthanasia-law-proposed-for-healthy-over-75s-who-feel-their-lives-are-complete/