Netherlands sees record number of euthanasia deaths with no explanation

The number of people who died from euthanasia in the Netherlands has risen again, in higher percentages than in years past.

According to Dutchnews.nl, 8,720 people died from euthanasia in 2022, an increase of 14% from 2021. In years prior, deaths from euthanasia had been increasing at a rate of about 10% per year, making the one-year increase even more substantial.

The number of deaths from euthanasia have also made up a higher percentage of the total deaths in the Netherlands, rising from 4.5% to 5.1% of all deaths. A larger number of people — 288 — were euthanized with dementia, which was an increase of 34% from 2021. Fifty-eight couples chose to die together, and 115 people whose only diagnosis was a psychiatric illness were euthanized.

These figures were recently released by the regional monitoring committees, or RTE; they said there is, so far, no specific reason they can discern as to why euthanasia deaths have been increasing. But they still saw it as something to celebrate.

“We can draw the cautious conclusion that the legislation and the RTE have achieved what was intended: the caring and transparent practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands,” RTE chairman Jeroen Recourt said.

Euthanasia is largely unrestricted in the Netherlands, and it was the first country in the world to legalize it. Yet despite the largely lax laws there, advocates have still pushed to expand assisted suicide and euthanasia even further. Groups have lobbed to allow non-physicians to commit euthanasia, albeit unsuccessfully, and there has been work to allow children to be euthanized as well.

Meanwhile, research from the Anscombe Bioethics Centre found that countries with legalized assisted suicide have higher rates of “self-initiated” and “non-assisted” suicide than those without it.

“If we encourage assisted suicide, then we will encourage suicide,” Professor David Albert Jones, director of the Centre, said. “If we legalize what is euphemistically called ‘assisted dying,’ then more people will kill themselves, and not only people with chronic or terminal illnesses. The evidence is out there, the threat is real. Belgium, which legalized euthanasia in 2002, currently has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe. In the Netherlands, which has more euthanasia than any country in the world, suicide is also rising. In America, suicide is rising more in states that have legalized physician-assisted suicide than it is in states that have resisted calls to change the law.”

Jones concluded, “I am really concerned that the legalization of euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) can have a negative impact on a people who are struggling to find their lives valuable and meaningful. There have been four peer-review studies on EAS and suicide rates in 2022 and they all point in the same direction. I would advise anyone to look at the evidence for themselves. It is very troubling.”

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