Healthy 24-year-old granted right to die in Belgium

[jimmy olsen]

Fucked up

http://europe.newsweek.com/healthy-24-year-old-granted-right-die-belgium-329504

Healthy 24-year-old granted right to die in Belgium

By Eilish O'Gara  6/29/15 at 7:17 PM

Filed Under: Health   



Doctors in Belgium are granting a 24-year-old woman who is suffering from depression but is otherwise healthy the right to die as she qualifies for euthanasia under the Belgian law, even though she does not have a terminal or life-threatening illness.

The 24-year-old woman, known simply as Laura, has been given the go-ahead by health professionals in Belgium to receive a lethal injection after spending both her childhood and adult life suffering from "suicidal thoughts", she told local Belgian media.

Laura has been a patient of a psychiatric institution since the age of 21 and says she has previously tried to kill herself on several occasions. She told journalists: "Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful." The date of Laura's death is yet to be decided.

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Belgium passed a law to legalise euthanasia in 2002, the second country in the world to do so after the Netherlands. The law states that Belgian doctors can "help patients" to end their lives if they freely express a wish to die because they are suffering from intractable and unbearable pain.

Dr Marc Van Hoey, a general practitioner and president of the Right to Die Association in northern Belgium, is a vocal supporter of the legislation. Van Hoey told the Independent newspaper that he believes that sometimes euthanasia is the kindest option. "I've seen quite a lot of persons dying in - how do you say in proper English - agony?" Van Hoey said. "I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for."

Over the past few years there has been a sharp increase in the number of euthanasia cases in Belgium. In 2013, there were 1,807 deaths recorded compared with 1,432 in 2012. More than half of last year's cases were patients aged 70 and over but there are increasing numbers of young people requesting to die legally, with the majority citing depression as their "intractable and unbearable pain."

However, not everyone is in favour of the law. Carine Brochier, a project manager with the Brussels-based European Institute of Bioethics, tells Newsweek that she believes too many people are dying as a result of Belgium's liberalised euthanasia laws.

She argues that many people who experience psychological suffering and treatable mental illnesses may be wrongly given the go ahead for euthanasia because "there is absolutely no way for healthcare professionals to measure another person's mental suffering to decide if they should receive euthanasia."

"Euthanasia is not the answer to all human suffering," Brochier continues. "We need to develop better palliative care for people," something she believes Belgium is not currently doing.

Earlier this year in February, the parliament in Belgium passed a bill also allowing euthanasia for terminally ill children without any age limit, by 86 votes to 44. The vote makes it the first country in the world to have legalised euthanasia without an age limit.

In the Netherlands, the first country to legalize euthanasia, sick children are allowed to request it, but only if they are 12 years or older.

As of June 2015, euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia and Luxembourg.

[Ideologue]

Why?  This is good news for that freedom you claim you love.  Meanwhile, it pleases me, for it cuts down on suffering, minimizes the chance that the genetic component of her woes might be propagated, and of course reduces the human population by one.  A journey of a thousand miles, etc.

[DGuller]

I didn't realize that euthanasia is so common in Belgium.  Do they run ads on TV that end with "Ask your doctor if euthanasia is right for you"?

[Razgovory]

Mark my words, one day we will have someone sue the police when they prevent a person from jumping off a bridge.

[Maximus]

Um, she wasn't healthy.

[Berkut]

I support the idea of a human right to rationally choose the circumstances of their own death when terminally ill or in great pain.

But I don't see how that choice can be predicated on something other than a rational, informed, and taken with a fundamentally sound mind.

That would seem to absolutely preclude anyone from choosing euthenasia while being physically healthy. Mental illness, almost by definition, precludes a sound mind in general, and a desire to destroy yourself is almost (to me) definitionally indicative of a significant impairment in an ability to think reasonably and rationally.

[DGuller]

Well, maybe the doctors are choosing the lesser of two evils.  If she really wants to kill herself, they may as well make sure it gets done right.  DIY suicides in countries without widespread firearm ownership are notoriously unreliable.

[Monoriu]

Well, maybe the doctors are choosing the lesser of two evils.  If she really wants to kill herself, they may as well make sure it gets done right.  DIY suicides in countries without widespread firearm ownership are notoriously unreliable.

Why?  Just burn charcoal in a room.  Make sure the windows are closed. 

[Razgovory]

Most people who attempt suicide don't actually want to kill themselves.

[Syt]

Don't studies show that the vast majority of people with failed suicide attempts don't make another attempt?

[Martinus]

There is no answer that fits my views perfectly but the last one is closest (I would qualify it with two psychiatric opinions if the patient is conscious and not terminally ill).

I am pleased that Languish overwhelmingly voted for personal liberty.

[Martinus]

That would seem to absolutely preclude anyone from choosing euthenasia while being physically healthy. Mental illness, almost by definition, precludes a sound mind in general, and a desire to destroy yourself is almost (to me) definitionally indicative of a significant impairment in an ability to think reasonably and rationally.

I disagree with your assessment that someone who wants to kill themselves but is physically healthy must be mentally ill.

[The Brain]

I support the idea of a human right to rationally choose the circumstances of their own death when terminally ill or in great pain.

But I don't see how that choice can be predicated on something other than a rational, informed, and taken with a fundamentally sound mind.

That would seem to absolutely preclude anyone from choosing euthenasia while being physically healthy. Mental illness, almost by definition, precludes a sound mind in general, and a desire to destroy yourself is almost (to me) definitionally indicative of a significant impairment in an ability to think reasonably and rationally.

Really?

[Martinus]

I support the idea of a human right to rationally choose the circumstances of their own death when terminally ill or in great pain.

But I don't see how that choice can be predicated on something other than a rational, informed, and taken with a fundamentally sound mind.

That would seem to absolutely preclude anyone from choosing euthenasia while being physically healthy. Mental illness, almost by definition, precludes a sound mind in general, and a desire to destroy yourself is almost (to me) definitionally indicative of a significant impairment in an ability to think reasonably and rationally.

Really?

I gotta say I was surprised as well.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, I find the reasoning which differentiates between physical pain and psychological pain to be quite outdated. The key questions should be whether the pain is preventable, what the downsides of the therapy are and whether the patient is willing to go through with it. Living in severe incurable physical pain is really no different from living in severe incurable mental anguish.