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.
Read more about this topic: Edward Brongersma
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions
To keep mine honor from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I mourn the safe and motherly old middle-class queen, who held the nation warm under the fold of her big, hideous Scotch-plaid shawl and whose duration had been so extraordinarily convenient and beneficent. I felt her death much more than I should have expected; she was a sustaining symbol—and the wild waters are upon us now.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)