You all know that we stand for a dignified death when cure is no longer an issue and cure has become care. It is important te accept that palliative care is not a panacea for a dignified death. Palliative care is very important for a patient to realize that her or his life is at an en d. It must be accepted that a human being can decide to end life by euthanasia. Unfortunately, they need still a compassionate physician.

I do hope the time will be given a prospect to self-determined fellow men and woman with proper medication provided to end life a t her or his own decided moment within their family. Birth is not a personal choice and hopefully after a good life a good life will end in dignity on personal decided moment.

That is my personal view on life and a dignified death, I have worked on that my whole professional life as a physician. See attachment Barcelona

Thank you for your support, we needed it for a long time!

We will try to give an overview of RtDE that started in 1993 May 15 as a branch of WFRtDS (WF) in Bergen aan Zee. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of member societies without notice, why?

May 15, 1993 see attachments: uitnodiging and Founding.

In 1998 we NVvE and ED(WFRtDS) sent a letter to Mrs Gattener about our view on end of life in Europe.

At our periodic conference in Frankfurt in 2007, Aycke was elected to the board and became president and since that time we developed activities.

Past president Elke Baezner was disappointed and wrote a clear letter see attachment.

After 10 years RtDE got our INGO (International Non-Governmental Organization) at the Council of Europe (CoE) in Strasburg , our first participation was in 2013 after our RtDE conference in Rome. We met a Humanist delegate from England, he told us that will take another 10 years to understand how INGO and CoE is functioning. Not very clear to newcomers so be alert and find your way around.

Two times a year we take part in the conference and are knows as the persons with a controversial mission. The participants we meet are in favour for a dignified death but as a group they are against, mostly religious indoctrinated. Notwithstanding our mission I was asked twice to stand for vice chair of the Human Rights Committee. It failed as the chairman told me that individual the idea is supported but as a group not. The same was our experience. With the Gender working group, we have a good relation as well, they understand our aim.

The other target was Euro Parliament and even there we could present out ideas on a dignified death four times we could with help of Members of European Parliament (MEP) of ALDE and Podemos in Euro Parliament. A plea for our aim to MEP’s to understand the need of their voters for self-determination in their own countries. Some were not aware that in their country euthanasia societies existed and that the majority of European citizens are in favour of a dignified death. In a poll in France for instance 96% in favour for a legalisation. See attachment

It’s a pity that we are informed by the international press what is going on in the different countries in the field of end-of-life issues and not been informed by our member societies, regrettable.

This regrettable status quo is the reason that our website is not up to date unfortunately. In our optimistic thought our site could be a reference of all activities in Europe concerning end-of-life issues.

What will be the future of RtDE?

At first regular delegates meeting according to the constitution that is planned in the first weekend of November 2020 in Bergen aan Zee if Covd-19 is not the spoilsport and otherwise in May around the 15th 2021 our founding date 28 years before.

Please overload us with your suggestions about issues to be discussed and a suggestion of four or more (new) board members as well.