The Final Act: An Ethical Analysis of Pia Dijkstra’s Euthanasia for a Completed Life

Abstract

Amongst other countries, the Netherlands currently allows euthanasia, provided the physician performing the procedure adheres to a strict set of requirements. In 2016, Second Chamber member Pia Dijkstra submitted a law proposal which would also allow euthanasia without the reason necessarily having any medical foundation; euthanasia on the basis of a completed life. The debate on this topic has been ongoing for over two decades, but this law proposal has made the discussion much more immediate and concrete. This paper considers the moral permissibility of Pia Dijkstra’s law proposal, focusing on the ethics of the implementation Dijkstra describes in her proposal. I argue that, at present, Dijkstra’s law proposal is unsuitable for implementation, due to a number of as of yet unaddressed problems, including the possible development of an ageist stigma and undue pressure on the profession of end-of-life coordinator. Perhaps adequate responses can be conceived to address these issues. However, the existence of a radically different, yet currently equally unacceptable position regarding the implementation of euthanasia for a completed life as proposed by fellow party member Paul Schnabel suggests it may be difficult to formulate an ethically acceptable implementation for this, in principle, ethically acceptable concept.

Older Adults Who Experience Their Lives to Be Completed and No Longer Worth Living: A Systematic Mini-Review Into Used Terminology, Definitions, and Interpretations

“…These differences can be understood in the light of the criteria that have to be met to be eligible for EAS in the Netherlands and in Belgium, which specify that an individual's suffering must be grounded in a medical condition (De Jong and van Dijk, 2017). There is debate about whether older adults who do not suffer from a severe somatic or psychiatric disease but experience their lives to be completed and wish for death should have the option to request EAS (van Wijngaarden et al, 2017;Holzman, 2021). The definition of ToL inside the EAS debate is thus tailored towards this very specific group and is inherently inconsistent with a strictly psychopathological framing.…”

Bearable and unbearable suffering in later life

“…Although support for the right to an assisted death for those who judge their life 'complete' remains less than that for those who are terminally ill, it is growing, and old age now serves for many people as a permissive script to enable voluntary dying-whether as a rational suicide or as assisted dying (Holzman, 2021).…”

The Shifts in Human Consciousness

“…In this issue's Recent Developments column, Michaela Estelle Okninski (2021) reports on a Canadian case, Truchon and Gladu v Attorney General (Canada) and Attorney General (Quebec), in which the subjective condition of prognosis is challenged. Holzman (2021) reports from the Netherlands on a move by Dutch parliamentarian Pia Dijkstra to allow euthanasia for people who feel that their lives are completed, for whom the prognostic criteria and qualifying medical condition(s) are not met. It is very likely that such moves would have strong support in many countries, but the ethics and law surrounding such claims are contested and divisive and may be impossible to safely enact.…”