Edward Brongersma - Death

Death

Brongersma died in 1998 by means of voluntary euthanasia. His health failed and he grew lonely as his best friends died one by one. The social changes that had started in the 1980s, in response to the sexual revolution of the 1970s, caused him to become dispirited. Initially his pleas to liberalise legislation on public morals and the rights of paedophiles had been positively received by some, both in the Netherlands and internationally. But gradually the social climate became less receptive to these ideas, even turning harsh and hostile. Following his death, discussion flared up in the Netherlands as to whether people who were weary of life should be allowed to end their lives with the aid of a physician. Flip Sutorius, the doctor from Overveen who helped Brongersma in his chosen death, was prosecuted but not punished. The verdict was finally maintained in 2002 by the Hoge Raad (Dutch Supreme Court).

A great deal of commotion ensued following his death when some of the visual material in his collections was seized. The images were deemed to be child pornography. Legislation passed in 1996 made it an offence to have such pictures "on hand".

After his death, his entire social-sexuological collections as well as his private archives were placed in the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam (www.iisg.nl), this without the visual material which had been seized by the authorities. The executive board of the foundation continued its activities, changing its name in 2003 into "Fund for Scientific Research of Sexuality.