Cases of euthanasia for dementia triple in the Netherlands

Euthanasia for people with dementia in the Netherlands has risen nearly threefold, snowballing from 170 cases in 2020 to 499 in 2025.

Key Takeaways:

• The Regional Euthanasia Review Committees (RTE) reported the latest euthanasia statistics, exposing the disturbing increase in euthanasia for dementia.

• While most people with dementia do not undergo euthanasia, the increase highlights the trend of seeing elderly, ill, or disabled lives as too troublesome to be worth living.

The Details:

While euthanasia for dementia cases still accounts for a tiny proportion of the approximately 300,000 individuals in the Netherlands presently living with the condition, this escalating trend highlights a growing normalization of terminating lives deemed as disabled or troublesome. 

These developments raise grave ethical concerns for vulnerable elderly populations in the Netherlands, rejuvenating moral and legal worries about the country’s permissive end-of-life regime. 

According to IFN News:

The rise appears to be driven in large part by patients seeking euthanasia before they lose the legal ability to consent. Dutch law makes it far more difficult to proceed once a patient is no longer mentally competent, because doctors must still be able to establish that the suffering is both unbearable and clearly experienced by the patient. Last year, only seven euthanasia cases involved patients who had already lost mental competence, a number that has remained broadly stable for several years.

“Once in that situation, suffering must be visible and felt as unbearable. For example, by daily hours of crying or aggression that cannot be treated with medication," said geriatric care and euthanasia expert Marcel Gigengack, according to the NL Times. "If you are calmly watching television all day, euthanasia is not an option, despite your advance directive."

Yet Gigengack also discouraged presuming worst-case outcomes. 

“People always have a certain expectation of the future: 'If this or that happens to me, it will be terrible.’ But you only know how bad it really is when you get there. There are certainly people with advanced dementia who experience unbearable suffering. But most enjoy the present, the attention of the care staff. A nursing home may seem terrible, but the social environment and routine can also work out well,” he added. 

Zoom In:

A prominent recent illustration features Jaap Breugem, who sought euthanasia following his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Jaap’s example showcases how individuals may attempt to obtain euthanasia to end their lives before losing legal capacity. Before he was euthanized on November 15 last year, Jaap said, “I will have to give up some things. But I would rather die in one go than lose a little bit of myself every day. I want to die as myself, not as a shadow of myself.” 

The Netherlands led global legislation by implementing the world's first statute to formally authorize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide through the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act in 2002.

Data published in 2025 by the RTE indicated a spike in euthanasia fatalities from 9,068 in 2023 to 9,958 in 2024. Although 86% of recipients suffered from severe physical conditions like cancer, psychiatric-motivated deaths reached 219, up from 138 the year before, versus just two in 2010. Dementia poses unique challenges, as implementation often occurs when patients lose mental competence, igniting doubts over genuine voluntariness to euthanasia. 

The Bottom Line:

The increase in euthanasia erodes the dignity of human life, as lives with dementia are treated as disposable liabilities. The Catholic Church reinforces life's sanctity from conception to natural death and rebuffs euthanasia as a false mercy that jeopardizes true compassion, as epitomized in  Pope John Paul II's "Evangelium Vitae." 

The ominous specter of euthanasia is a blight on the Netherlands' overwise good health care system. Rather than promote or even permit euthanasia in any circumstance, Dutch policymakers must boost caregiver respite, dementia research, and ethical training, and oppose the culture of death.