Dutch ex-minister Els Borst found dead

Els Borst, a former health minister who drafted the Dutch law permitting euthanasia, has been found dead in her garage. She was 81.

Police in Utrecht said her body was discovered by friends on Monday evening. Forensic investigators have ruled out a natural cause of death. Police said they expected a postmortem to show whether her death was the result of an accident or crime.

Borst, a medical academic who served as health minister from 1994 to 2002, was seen in good spirits as recently as Saturday, at a function of her centrist D66 political party.

The 2002 euthanasia law, which codified longstanding practice, allows euthanasia when a terminally ill person requests it, is suffering unbearably and has no chance of recovery. Two doctors must agree.

The prime minister, Mark Rutte, praised Borst as "a wise professional, with clear and considered standpoints, who stood her ground". He said: "She won people over with her openness, mildness and honesty."

Borst's viewpoints were often at odds with those of religious groups but had the approval of most Dutch voters.

Last year in an attempt to prevent a measles epidemic in the Dutch Calvinist bible belt, she wrote an opinion piece in the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper asking pastors and churchgoers to get vaccinated. "If everything is God's will, then so is the invention of the vaccine, just like the seatbelt," she said.

In an interview with the NRC newspaper in 2001, she acknowledged she was not opposed in principle to a suicide pill for "very aged people who are finished with life". But she said: "We have to have a thorough societal discussion of this subject."

Borst, one of the first Dutchwomen to reach high political office, held the title of minister of state – one of a handful of former leaders given diplomatic passports who are allowed to represent the country on the international stage. She is survived by three children.

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