Former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt has died by legal euthanasia, “hand in hand” with his wife Eugenie. The couple, who were both 93, died earlier this month in his hometown Nijmegen, The Rights Forum, a human rights organisation Mr Agt founded, announced. As per the press note, both Mr Agt and his wife had been suffering from deteriorating health for some time before they chose to die. Notably, Mr Agt was the prime minister of the Netherlands between 1977 and 1982 and the first leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal party.
“In consultation with the immediate family, we announce that our founder and honorary chairman Dries van Agt passed away on Monday, February 5, in his hometown of Nijmegen,” the press note read.
“He died together and hand in hand with his beloved wife Eugenie van Agt-Krekelberg, the support and support with whom he was together for more than seventy years, and whom he always continued to refer to as ‘my girl’,” it added.
As per the press release, Mr Agt suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2019 and never fully recovered. He and his wife were “very ill”, but “couldn’t live without each other,” the nonprofit’s director Gerad Jonkman said about the choice of euthanasia, as per The Guardian.
Their deaths are now being seen as part of a growing trend in the Netherlands for “duo euthanasia”, or two people receiving a fatal injection simultaneously. According to the outlet, 29 couples opted for assisted suicide in 2022, which is up from 16 who chose it in 2021 and 13 pairs the year before.
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Elke Swart, spokesperson for the Expertisecentrum Euthanasie, which grants the euthanasia wish of about 1,000 people a year in the Netherlands, said any couple’s requests for assisted death were tested against strict requirements individually rather than together. “Interest in this is growing, but it is still rare,” she said, as per The Guardian. “It is pure chance that two people are suffering unbearably with no prospect of relief at the same time … and that they both wish for euthanasia,” she added.
Notably, euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002 for six conditions, including unbearable suffering, no prospect of relief and a long-held, independent wish for death.
