Suicide legal in Netherlands The Layman Volume 35, Number 1 Posted February 8, 2002 The Netherlands has become the first country in the world to give terminally ill patients the right to end their lives – a procedure some call euthanasia and others suicide. The law, which was approved by the upper house of the Dutch parliament in April 2000, became effective Jan. 1. Euthanasia has been tolerated in the Netherlands for years. In 1997, the Presbyterian Church (USA) produced a document titled Euthanasia Study Materials, with many of its conclusions drawn from an assessment of what was happening in the Netherlands. Euthanasia Study Materials included speculation that Jesus might have committed suicide and that there might not be any great difference between putting down a pet and a terminally ill person. The 1998 General Assembly rejected the document and its major proposed consideration, whether the denomination should support “self-determination in death.”

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