Dutch ethicist urges France to learn from the Dutch experience and reject euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

While a law on "assisted dying" will be debated in the French National Assembly starting May 12, a Dutch academic expresses his doubts about the continued expansion of the scope of its application in the Netherlands.

Professor Theo Boer

Theo Boer is a professor of health ethics at the University of Groningen, and a former member of a Netherlands government euthanasia oversight committee. Boer wrote a profound article that was published by Le Monde on April 8, 2025 urging France to learn from the Dutch by not legalizing euthanasia. (The text was google translated).

Boer begins by outlining the current situation in the Netherlands:

For more than twenty years, the Netherlands has been experimenting with euthanasia within a framework presented as strict, regulated, and ethical. However, the figures published in the latest report of the review committee, dated March 24, tell a different story of constant expansion, gradual trivialization, and a silent cultural shift. In 2024, the number of euthanasia cases increased by another 10%. One might have thought that the phenomenon would reach a plateau, especially after modest growth of 4% in 2023. This is not the case. The trend is picking up again, and the committee's chairman, Jeroen Recourt, predicts that the curve will continue to rise in the years to come. This is no longer a fluctuation: it is a structural trend.

Boer outlines the trends in the law:

It might be argued that this increase follows the aging of the population. But even as a proportion of overall deaths, the phenomenon continues to grow: from 5.4% of deaths in 2023 to 5.8% in 2024. In 2017, in some regions, this percentage had already reached 15%, and it is expected to have increased since then. Euthanasia is no longer exceptional: in many cases, it is becoming just another end-of-life option. But beyond the raw statistics, other developments are causing deep concern. The emergence of "euthanasia for two," which allows couples or siblings to die together, is one such trend. In one year, the number of these planned deaths in tandem has jumped by 64%, reaching 108 deaths in 2024. Above all, euthanasia for psychiatric disorders has increased by 59%, affecting people who are sometimes very young. Patients who are physically healthy, but plunged into mental suffering that medicine struggles to alleviate, are now asking to die – and are succeeding. The number of cases related to dementia is also increasing rapidly. Here, a request for euthanasia is often based on fears of dependency, a loss of dignity, or on a living will signed well before the first symptoms. We are entering a field where the patient's current wishes are sometimes unclear, and the medical procedure is based on interpretations. In my conversations with many Dutch doctors, one constant theme emerges: the pressure is increasing. It's no longer just an individual demand, but a social expectation. With increasing "normality," healthcare workers are asking themselves: "How far will we go? At what point will this stop being an act of compassion and become an automatic response to patients who refuse to accept a refusal?" For good reason, the government has now launched an investigation into the reasons for this increase.

Boer explains that the government continues to debate further expansions of euthanasia.

And yet, in the face of these doubts, the legislative movement continues. The Dutch Parliament will soon consider a bill to grant assisted suicide to anyone over the age of 74, even in the absence of serious illness. The sole criterion would be age. A major symbolic shift: we no longer die because we suffer, but because we feel we have lived enough. It's a radically new vision of old age and the value we place on our society.

As a former member of a euthanasia review committee, I believed, at the time, that a rigorous framework could prevent abuses: I'm no longer so sure. What I see is that each opening of the euthanasia field creates new expectations, new demands and a new normal. The internal logic of the system always pushes for expansion. Suffering deemed "unbearable" today is sometimes less so than that of yesterday, but the outcome remains the same.

Boer ends the article by urging France to reject euthanasia:

In France, some insist that "France is not Holland," and that these developments will not occur there. This is a risky bet because, in all countries where euthanasia or assisted suicide have been legalized, we observe a continuous growth in the number of cases. This is not a Dutch exception. This is a dynamic at work everywhere medically induced death becomes an option. I am not a fierce opponent of euthanasia. In certain extreme cases, it can be a last resort. But I am convinced that its legalization does not calm society: it worries it, transforms it, and weakens it. It changes our relationship to vulnerability, to old age, to dependency. It introduces the idea that certain lives, under certain conditions, are no longer worth living—or even worth caring for. I address the French here, not to lecture, but to share my country's experience. Look at what's happening in our country. Listen to the voices, however quiet, of those who doubt. Before opening that door, ask yourself a simple but fundamental question: are we ready for killing to become a medical option among others, even in the presence of cutting-edge palliative care, and even in the absence of illness? Are we ready to burden caregivers with the burden of such a choice? Learn from our experience. There is still time.

Previous articles by Professor Theo Boer:

• British must learn from the Netherlands experience with assisted dying (Link). 
• British proposed assisted death criteria are similar to how Canada's law began (Link). 
• Euthanasia: Impossible to police once legal (Link). 
• Let's not romanticize the Dutch euthanasia experiment (Link). 
• Be careful what you wish for when you legalize active killing (Link).