The Death of an Advocate of Assisted Suicide
November 4, 2014
W. W. writes:
As a huge admirer of your blog, I write regarding a news event you might have missed.
Netherlands is one of the most ‘advanced’ euthanasia-friendly societies in the world. We had a health minister in the 1990s, Els Borst, whose foremost goal in office was to legalize euthanasia, Europe’s first major law permitting euthanasia. Upon succeeding she exclaimed, “Het is volbracht,” or “It is done,” the last words of Jesus on the cross. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, perhaps a calculated jab at the moral convictions of those Christians who had been apposing her endeavours.
On February the 10th of this year, Ms. Borst was discovered dead in the garage of her villa residence and appeared to have been bludgeoned to death. From The Week:
[She] had spent a happy day out in Amsterdam on Saturday 8 February with her 17-year-old grand-daughter. “She was in good spirits, apparently.”
On her return to Bilthoven, she picked up her car at the station and drove home. She had just driven into the garage and got out of the car when she was hit by someone who had evidently been waiting in the dark. The assailant struck with astonishing violence, caving in her skull with one blow. Her body was not found until Monday evening.
The investigation is still ongoing but she seems to have fallen foul of a burglar. A Protestant minister who subsequently dared to raise the issue of ‘Divine punishment’ was publicly vilified and disowned by his own church.
Meanwhile one gigantic irony, whilst ‘verboden’ to be discussed, is lost only on the most brainwashed of people. This lady who tried her utmost to foist upon others the concept of a ‘dignified and self-chosen end,’ ultimately suffered a fate which was the complete opposite: neither dignified nor self-chosen. A fate, one might add, that was highly unusual, unique even: an elderly former cabinet minister murdered in her own home.
There is an old Dutch saying (probably to many, an unwelcome reminder that we once were a deeply religious nation) which sums it all up: ‘De mens wikt, maar God beschikt.’ Man proposes, God disposes.
