A public debate about extending euthanasia to people who have lived ‘a completed life’ began in the Netherlands in 2016. A bill to extend euthanasia to healthy people who are “tired of living” came before the Dutch parliament for consideration in 2020. It proposed to allow anyone over the age of 75, who feels that they have come to the end of their life and has a persistent wish to die, to ask for euthanasia.

Thankfully, it seems as though this bill has stalled and will not be progressing in the short term.

Henk Reitsema, a Dutch anti-euthanasia campaigner, said “The next step is already very clear in the Netherlands and it’s a euthanasia pill which could be given by the pharmacist around the doctor, to not involve the medicals, to ‘de-medicalize’ euthanasia, so to speak. They are calling this pill the “Tired of Life” suggesting that we should kill people, not only because of medical or psychological conditions, but because of existential suffering like feeling lonely and tired of life. In the Netherlands, we’ve opened the Law so wide that any kind of real suffering is already long taken care of in that sense. We kill people if they claim to be suffering and don’t have hope. But we now need an extra inclusion for people who have nothing that they’re suffering from, except that they are existentially tired of life.”

Opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide is the only way to prevent future extension to those who are tired of life.