Dutch assisted deaths rising significantly, committee to hear

Dutch professor will tell Oireachtas committee the legalising of assisted dying in the Netherlands has 'turned the whole landscape of dying, including our view of illness, suffering, ageing, and care-dependence upside down'. File picture: Lynne Cameron/PA Wire

The number of people availing of assisted dying in the Netherlands is rising “significantly” year after year, an Oireachtas committee on assisted dying will hear on Tuesday.

Professor of healthcare ethics Theo Boer will tell the Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying that the numbers have quadrupled in the past 20 years, with assisted deaths accounting for up to 20% of all deaths in some neighbourhoods. However, the national average remains at 5.2%.

Mr Boer was a member of a Dutch euthanasia review committee from 2005 to 2014 and reviewed 4,000 cases on behalf of the Dutch government.

He will tell the committee he has switched from being moderately supportive of the Dutch euthanasia law to being increasingly critical.

“We see an expansion of the pathologies underlying a request to die from patients who dread to spend their last days or weeks in pain and agony — the category of patients that once was the most important reason for assisted dying advocacy, and I think it still is in Ireland — we see a shift to patients who fear years or decades of loneliness, limitations, and care dependency,” he will say.

Mr Boer will tell the committee the legalising of assisted dying in the Netherlands has “turned the whole landscape of dying, including our view of illness, suffering, ageing, and care-dependence upside down".

“Your present considerations and upcoming decisions are among the most consequential a parliament can ever make,” he will tell committee members.

Dignitas

On the other hand, the committee will hear 80 Irish people are now members of Dignitas, a Swiss non-profit organisation that provides physician-assisted suicide to members with terminal illness or severe physical or mental illness.

To access the service of an accompanied suicide, someone has to be a member of Dignitas and be of sound judgement.

Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli will tell the committee that in 2020, one Irish member travelled to “choose legal, professionally conducted physician-supported accompanied suicide”, while the first Irish person did so in 2003.

“These realities are undesirable. They happen shadowed by taboo and fear of conflict with current Irish law and with negative consequences for everyone touched somehow, especially loved ones. This should be changed.

“Voluntary assisted dying should be legalised as a choice for the Irish alongside other options to soothe suffering and improving quality of life, may it be palliative care, hospice work, suicide attempt prevention, good care in old age, and more,” he will tell committee members.