The Dutch government is intending to legalise assisted suicide for people who are not terminally ill but who simply feel that their life is “complete” and wish to end it. The Netherlands was the first country to legalise euthanasia, in 2002, but the law only applied to terminally ill patients who were judged to be suffering unbearable pain. The practice has had widespread backing in Dutch society, and the number of assisted suicides has risen sharply each year: in 2015, they accounted for 5,516 deaths, 3.9% of the national total. The new law will permit assisted suicide for “elderly” people (the age threshold has not yet been specified) who “have a well-considered opinion that their life is complete” and who wish to die in a manner that is “dignified for them”. Opponents say the proposal would lead the country down a perilous ethical path, and it faces several legislative hurdles before it can become law.

I myself sometimes fantasize that at an appropriate moment I will end my life, along with my wife.  I cannot leave her behind.  We will leave impeccable Wills, along with instructions about what happens afterwards, and even a written form of funeral service so that no one has to ask what hymns we liked. I will simply specify that the audience has to sit through all the recorded music, piano, vocal and chamber, of the Hanrotts.  At least we will be original. Thus we will have lived, having bothered nobody, and in death never parted.  I bet the law will not permit it; religion will intervene. But I state it because it is how it should be.