Netherlands, twenty-five years later: euthanasia has exploded even though the law has not changed

"At first, we were much stricter." The confession of a former Dutch inspector paints the exact mirror of what awaits France, just days before the promulgation of its law.

The fact

We had already reported, in Issue 2 (Europe section), the expansive dynamic of European euthanasia laws. La Croix published on July 16, 2026, a field investigation in the Netherlands, the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia in 2001. The finding is clear: the law has "evolved very little" in twenty-five years, but the practice has become widespread, the reasons have multiplied (isolated psychic suffering, dementia, multi-pathologies related to age), and a former professional of the control system acknowledges that "at the beginning, we were much stricter in the application of the criteria". On July 15, the French National Assembly definitively adopted the "right to end-of-life assistance". Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu must refer the matter to the Constitutional Council.

Our reading

The Dutch testimony confirms the mechanism feared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the declaration Iura et bona (May 5, 1980): "nothing and no one can authorize the giving of death to an innocent human being". The European experience shows that no restrictive law remains so. Belgium extended its framework to minors in 2014; Canada, to non-terminal suffering in 2021; the Netherlands now admit euthanasia for psychic suffering and for elderly couples "in tandem". What the law does not explicitly say, case law, medical protocols, and control commissions gradually welcome. The referral to the Constitutional Council by the Prime Minister suspends the entry into force, without changing the fundamental logic.

To ponder

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the letter Samaritanus bonus (July 14, 2020), reminds us that the accompaniment of the dying is a matter of charity, not suppression. The faithful will demand of their local parliamentarians that they read the Dutch experience before drafting the implementing decrees, and that they guarantee the conscience clause to doctors, pharmacists, and denominational institutions, which constitutes the only French dike against the drift.