Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D.<\/p>\n As we have seen throughout\u00a0this series<\/a>, \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d ideas and eugenics have historically shaped the modern global movements promoting assisted suicide and euthanasia.<\/p>\n There is little doubt that the pro-death movement has made significant inroads, and has especially affected people with medical issues and other disabilities. We have gone from assisted suicide and euthanasia for very few people, for very few reasons, to \u2014 in some places \u2014 assisted suicide and euthanasia for even the slightest discomfort.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s examine how the slippery slope in law and policy has accelerated to make death more desirable than other less lethal interventions. We\u2019ll look at two exemplars that illustrate how far down the trajectory we are.<\/p>\n In Part 10, we\u2019ll look at the Netherlands. In Part 11, Canada.<\/p>\n As noted in\u00a0Part 8<\/a>, the Netherlands legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2002, allowing for what was called \u201cdue care.\u201d This policy stipulated the conditions under which assisted suicide and euthanasia could happen:<\/p>\n \u2022 The request for death had to be voluntary. As it turned out, these so-called \u201cironclad\u201d guardrails were merely a charade. In short order, the policies expanded. For example, soon the \u201cunbearable suffering\u201d criterion \u2014 initially limited to medical conditions \u2014 expanded to include emotional and psychological conditions. Furthermore, no longer did any patient need to be terminally ill, and patients could specify in their advance directives that they be euthanized if they developed dementia. This chipped away at the specification that medicalized killing could only be carried out on the patient was in a sound state of mind.<\/p>\n And things got even worse. As assisted suicide and euthanasia became more mainstream and socially acceptable, the pro-death activists made it even easier to die: Mobile euthanasia teams have been created to serve patients whose doctors refuse to kill them or if the patient can\u2019t get to a medical facility to die.<\/p>\n These developments profoundly changed how the public perceived medicalized killing. The emphasis on incurable suffering played a central part in the pro-death push. However, \u201cincurable suffering\u201d is defined by the doctors, many of them enthusiastic proponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia.<\/p>\n Again \u2014 as in Nazi Germany \u2014 the all-powerful doctor makes the life-or-death decision, and then deliberately kills the patient.<\/p>\n Significant problems exist in this scenario.<\/p>\n First, defining suffering is a subjective assessment. What is suffering for one patient may not be suffering for another. There is no objective definition.<\/p>\n Second, there are thousands of patients with a terminal illness who survive beyond the usual six-month window, living many more months and even years.<\/p>\n Third, a patient\u2019s autonomy to decide to be killed may be influenced by other very powerful factors; they may feel coerced into the decision or they may be convinced by others that death is the only viable option.<\/p>\n Add to this mix a medical profession largely enthusiastic about dispatching patients, and the result is bleak for society\u2019s most fragile, who should be treated with dignity and respect and who should receive medical interventions and support that doesn\u2019t end their lives.<\/p>\n Assisted suicide and euthanasia now account for nearly 6% of all deaths in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D.<\/a>, is senior researcher for\u00a0Able Americans<\/a>, a project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. This is part 10 of the 11-part series \u201cIs Any Life Unworthy of Living?<\/a>\u201d \u00a0Those wanting to be notified of future installments in the series should\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to the Able Americans email list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"27 May 2026
The Netherlands and the Rapid Descent into the Pro-Death Abyss Part 10 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13404,13403,7851,13394,13395,13401,13402,6588,587,4137,13397,13396,13399,6,13398,7743,802,12301,13400,3293,1625],"class_list":["post-16766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-netherlands","tag-african-american","tag-black-conservative","tag-climate","tag-conservative","tag-constitution","tag-corporate-cronyism","tag-crony-capitalism","tag-global-warming","tag-government","tag-health-care","tag-libertarian","tag-liberty","tag-medicare","tag-netherlands","tag-obamacare","tag-policy","tag-politics","tag-right","tag-social-security","tag-spending","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/ableamericans.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Mark-P.-Mostert_300_420-214x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2022 The patient had to be 12 years or older.
\u2022 The patient had to be experiencing unbearable suffering without likelihood of improving.
\u2022 The patient had to be lucid and in a sound state of mind.
\u2022 The patient had to be informed.
\u2022 There were no possible medical alternatives.
\u2022 A second doctor had to agree to the killing.
\u2022 The condition did not have to be terminal and could be a chronic condition.
\u2022 Advanced directives (e.g., living wills) could be written specify medical killing if the patient suffered from dementia.<\/p>\n