A devoted couple who spent their lives together after meeting as young children have died side by side in what is only the latest case of double euthanasia in the Netherlands.
Jan Faber and Els van Leeningen, aged 70 and 71, were married for almost five decades before ending their lives by lethal injection at the same time in early June.
In the moments before their deaths, the couple were surrounded by friends and family, including their son, who found it difficult to accept his parents’ decision to end their lives.
“You don’t want to let your parents die,” Jan said of her reaction. “So there were tears – our son said, ‘Better times will come, better times,’ but not for me.” Els agreed and before dying he said: “There is no other solution.”
Jan, who worked as a cargo ship operator, had been suffering from severe back pain for more than 20 years, while his wife was diagnosed with dementia in 2022, a condition that has since worsened.
Jan Faber and Els van Leeningen were married for almost five decades before ending their lives at the same time in early June. The couple is pictured just days before their deaths.
“I’ve lived my life, I don’t want to feel pain anymore,” Jan said. bbc. ‘The life we’ve lived, we’re getting old (because of it). We think we have to stop it.’
The couple enjoyed a lifelong relationship; she met for the first time in kindergarten. Jan played hockey for the Netherlands youth team before training as a sports coach, while Els became a primary school teacher.
They shared a passion for the sea and spent much of their lives living on boats.
This shared interest turned into a career: the couple bought a cargo ship and started a freight shipping company.
They had a son, who went to boarding school during the week while they lived on the water, and whom they took on boating holidays.
After more than a decade of heavy, manual labor, Jans’ back pain worsened and the couple returned to land in a camper van.
Surgery in 2003 did little to relieve his pain and he was forced to stop working.
While Els was still working as a teacher, Jans’ physical limitations and the lower quality of life they caused encouraged the couple to start thinking about assisted dying and they joined NVVE, the Dutch “right to die” organisation.
Els retired in 2018 and was beginning to show early signs of dementia, a disease his father had suffered from and died from.
She was officially diagnosed in November 2022 and progressively worsened to the point where she had difficulty constructing sentences.
The couple’s GP, like many doctors in the Netherlands, was uncomfortable accepting their case for euthanasia due to Els’s dementia, which may create uncertainty around the patient’s ability to give consent.
The couple went to the Euthanasia Expert Center, which offers advice on assisted dying and has a mobile clinic that performs procedures in patients’ homes.
The couple went to the Euthanasia Specialisation Centre, which offers advice on assisted death and has a mobile clinic that performs procedures in patients’ homes.
Before their appointment, Els and Jan spent the day with their son and grandchildren.
They played, they chatted and Els went for a walk on the beach with his son.
“I remember we were having dinner at night and I got tears in my eyes just watching us eat dinner together,” she said.
On the day of their death, Els and Jan spent two last hours with their loved ones.
They took the time to share their memories and listened to music: Idlewild by Travis for Els, Now and Then by the Beatles for Jan.
After that, his son said, doctors arrived and “everything happened quickly,” the doctors followed their procedures and then it happened in “just a matter of minutes.”
The couple received lethal injections simultaneously from two doctors and died together on June 3.
In 2023, 9,068 people died from euthanasia in the Netherlands, 348 more than in 2022.
Of the 8,720 people who died by euthanasia in the Netherlands in 2022, 29 were couples. In 2021, 16 couples died this way. In 2018, there were nine.
Elke Swart, spokesperson for the Expertisecentrum Euthanasie, told The Guardian that any request for joint euthanasia by a couple is still tested against strict individual requirements, rather than jointly.
In a case similar to that of Jan and Els, which was reported earlier this year, a couple who had been together for 50 years decided they wanted to die at the same time.
Monique Wessels, 74, suffered from dementia, while her partner Loes Wasmoeth, 88, from a muscle disease.
The ‘duo euthanasia’ came into focus in February, when it emerged that former Prime Minister Dries Van Agt had died in this way along with his wife of 70 years, Eugenie.
Former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt (left) died by euthanasia, “hand in hand” with his beloved wife Eugenie (right). They were both 93 years old.
Both had been in poor health for some time after van Agt suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2019, and felt it was best for them to die together given their advanced age and deteriorating physical condition.
“The way the Van Agts died is a great example of dying with dignity while maintaining control,” the pro-euthanasia group NVVE said at the time.
The Netherlands and Belgium were the first European countries to legalise euthanasia (voluntary physician-assisted dying) in 2002.
The procedure is strictly regulated in the Netherlands. A doctor and an independent expert have to judge that a patient is enduring unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement.
It also requires that the decision to die be carefully considered, that it be of the patient’s own free will and that there be no other “realistic option”.
In the event that a couple opts for euthanasia, these conditions must be met for both patients, evaluated by two different doctors. Therefore, it is extremely rare.
For confidential assistance, call Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritanos.org for details
