Once euthanasia is legal, the expansion of the act is inevitable.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Politico published a pro-euthanasia article by Claudia Chiappa and Lucia Mackenzie on December 29, 2024. Chiappa and Mackenzie are suggesting that the legalization of euthanasia is inevitable but when they interview Theo Boer, a former member of a Netherlands euthanasia review committee he actually tells them that the expansion of euthanasia, once legal is inevitable. Boer states:

"I have seen no jurisdiction in which the practice has not expanded, not one single jurisdiction,"

"By imposing really strict criteria we can slow down the expansion … but they will not prevent the expansion."

Chiappa and Mackenzie publish some of the Netherlands euthanasia statistics:

In several of the countries that have legalized assisted dying, the number of people using it to end their lives is increasing. In 2023, 9,068 people died from assisted dying in the Netherlands — 5.4 percent of deaths that year. This is up 4 percent compared with 2022 and up 87 percent from 2013.

Professor Theo Boer

Boer comments on why euthanasia continues to increase in the Netherlands:

"What I saw was not only the increase in the numbers — which for me was a sign that it was no longer the last exception, the last resort — but it became more and more a default way to die," said Boer. "In addition to the numbers, we saw an expansion of the pathologies underlying euthanasia requests."

Boer had initially supported the Dutch euthanasia law and was a member of the Dutch euthanasia review committee. But he has since become an outspoken critic of this law and has warned other governments debating similar bills of the possible "side effects."

We have seen the same outcome in Canada, even though Canada has had a shorter experience with euthanasia than the Netherlands. It is not only the number of deaths but also the number of conditions that are approved for being killed that expands once euthanasia is legal.

I do not believe that legalizing euthanasia is inevitable but experience confirms that once killing people by euthanasia is legal that the expansion of the killing is inevitable.