They were regarded as the major stumbling block of the formation in 2017: the medical-ethical issues, including the completed life law. The discussions between VVD, CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie almost came to an end. Now that the same four parties are renegotiating, the current question is whether the temperature can rise that high again this time. Medical ethics now appears to be a less urgent political issue than climate, housing or social inequality. Nevertheless, the forming parties will have to make agreements on the subject.
Another four years of standstill, as agreed in the Rutte III coalition agreement, is very unattractive, especially for D66. D66 leader Sigrid Kaag blocked conversations with the ChristenUnie for months. “Medical-ethical everything has come to a standstill while this is a key issue for D66,” she said in June. After a visit to the informants on Wednesday, ChristenUnie leader Gert-Jan Segers said about medical ethics: “You know that the roads can diverge there, so you have to discuss that quickly.” What are the most pressing issues? And can they be solved?
The Completed Life Law
People aged 75 and older who are not seriously ill but who are ‘done’ with life should be able to end their life in a dignified way. That is the core of the proposal that former D66 MP Pia Dijkstra made in 2016. It was unacceptable for the CDA and especially for the ChristenUnie, a principled opponent of euthanasia. Rutte III made the agreement that D66 could submit the bill. Dijkstra only did this last year, so that the law would not be dealt with during the same term of office. The ChristenUnie had always said: we cannot sit in a cabinet that has to implement this law.
What now, in the coming years? Now that D66 has submitted the law, the party will not want to postpone its consideration for another cabinet term. If it is up to D66, the proposal will be discussed in parliament as a free issue. This means that no agreements are made about this in the coalition agreement, but that MPs – including those from the government parties – are free to make their own assessment. This is common in medical-ethical legislation and does not have to be detrimental to the Christian parties.
Criticism of the completed life law has grown in recent years. The KNMG doctors’ federation is against it and researcher Els van Wijngaarden, commissioned by Rutte III, established that the group of elderly people who have a completed life wish is small and that they are often people with underlying problems that can possibly be solved. It is therefore highly questionable whether the law will win a majority in the House of Representatives.
That’s why it sounds like within CDA and ChristenUnie: we can win the debate on content and block the completed life law in parliament. But not everyone within those parties wants to wait and see. The CDA recently sharpened its position by adopting a resolution at the party congress that calls on the parliamentary group not to leave these kinds of issues of life and death in the formation “via a free issue to a raw form of majority politics”.
Also read: Formation made even more difficult by CDA resolution on completed life
Suppose the law does pass, and the Senate also agrees, is a cabinet crisis inevitable? Gert-Jan Segers said last week in the AD that he would find it “very, very difficult” if under a government with the Christian Union “the first injection goes into a perfectly healthy body.” A potential, and at the same time unusual, solution is that the government has not yet signed the law and therefore leaves its entry into force to a subsequent government. In this way D66 can already claim any success, but the ChristenUnie does not have to experience the introduction.
Expansion of the Embryo Act
Scientists and reproductive physicians have been arguing for more options in embryo research and embryo selection for years, but this has also been difficult under Rutte III in recent years. The current Embryo Act allows relatively little: now only surplus embryos left over from an IVF process may be used for research and embryo selection may only take place for the prevention of a very limited number of serious hereditary diseases.
At the top of science’s wish list is the cultivation of human embryos specifically for research. In this way, the first days in the development of the embryo can also be studied, while a surplus embryo is only available to science after a few days. Scientists hope to improve the safety and quality of reproductive techniques through embryo culture. D66 and VVD are in favor of liberalization in this area, especially if they can help to prevent unnecessary suffering from serious hereditary diseases.
Opponents, such as the ChristenUnie, see a human embryo as the beginning of life and therefore think it is fundamentally wrong that embryos are created and destroyed for research purposes only. “Culturing embryos for research is not in keeping with human dignity,” reads the latest election manifesto. An interesting shift in thinking is visible within the CDA. This year, the scientific institute spoke out for the first time in favor of culturing embryos, under strict conditions. “The objective must then really be mercy,” says researcher André Poortman. “Not scientific curiosity, but real research to prevent or alleviate suffering in the future.”
With the shift within the CDA, the Embryo Act could be a dossier on which some movement is taking place. Rutte III has taken a step in recent years by allowing sex selection in embryo selection for a number of diseases, including the eye disease LHON and hereditary breast cancer. Should a compromise on embryo culture be a step too far, the list of diseases for embryo selection could possibly be expanded further.
More modern abortion law
Left-wing and liberal parties find the Abortion Act introduced in 1984 no longer up to date. Rob Jetten (D66) submitted a proposal before the summer to delete the mandatory statutory cooling-off period of five days. This term was introduced in the 1980s so that women could not rush into such a drastic decision. D66 considers that reasoning outdated and calls the reflection period “superfluous and unnecessarily patronizing”. A recent evaluation of the Abortion Act shows that most women make a careful choice in any case and are happy to determine the length of any reflection period themselves in consultation with their doctor.
Because it concerns a relatively simple amendment to the law, Jetten’s proposal can already be discussed in the House this autumn. That could sharpen the formation with the ChristenUnie, so D66 may be prepared not to discuss the law yet during the negotiations. But even once a cabinet is in place, the question remains how that cabinet should deal with private-initiative laws on abortion that seem to win a majority in Parliament.
For the ChristenUnie, any extension of the Abortion Act is a step backwards. The election manifesto states that the party strives for “an abortion-free society”. Because this seems like a utopia, the party is committed to lowering the abortion limit for the time being. One point where all parties, including D66 and ChristenUnie, can find each other is the importance of good help to unintentionally pregnant women and teenage mothers. A generous financial investment in this could bring the parties closer together.