29-year-old Dutch woman ends her life legally

[Steve_uk]

Whilst reading the case today I felt desperately sad that no individual could reach this poor young woman, engulfed in an overwhelming sense of her own inadequacy for several years, the medical profession finally acceding to her wish that she be allowed to die, clutching her precious cuddly toy whilst listening to a selection of her favourite songs. I have to wonder whether this is the best the doctors can do, planning the mechanics of her funeral rather than striving to attain the highest of expectations embodied in the Hippocratic Oath, her wish to die just one of the symptoms the doctors should have treated or is this a unique case where all options save assisted suicide have been carefully considered and rejected?  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45117163

[lookout]

Isn't this shocking ? Like most who are in the throes of a depressive mental health issue their one and only " wish " is to die. The truth is that it's a cry for help. How sad that nobody appears qualified to deal with such problems other than to either dish out a chemical cosh or inhumanely practice this route.

 

[Steve_uk]

Isn't this shocking ? Like most who are in the throes of a depressive mental health issue their one and only " wish " is to die. The truth is that it's a cry for help. How sad that nobody appears qualified to deal with such problems other than to either dish out a chemical cosh or inhumanely practice this route.

I can't believe that they are equating mental illness with a physical infirmity such as terminal cancer. The doctors are paid to make people well, not arrange their funeral. It reminds me of the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland where hundreds of people's ashes were dumped unceremoniously into Lake Zurich.

The young woman needed help, not encouragement to die.  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/7641989/300-urns-with-human-ashes-dumped-in-Lake-Zurich-near-Dignitas-clinic.html

[lookout]

Without signing up for any euthanasia programme we do have such a thing as an " agreement " in this country and probably many others which applies to those sufferers of advanced and terminal illnesses.The agreement falls to close relatives of the person suffering to increase painkilling medicine which a GP knows would end the life of a sufferer in preference to seeing someone writhing in pain and agony which a disease such as cancer causes toward the end of life.

To euthanise someone so young as in the clip is nothing short of manslaughter. It's frightening.

A friend of mine has signed up to Dignitas and I've worried about it ever since she told me. I don't agree with it.

[Steve_uk]

No because it's not treating the symptoms of the illness. Look at this case: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-holland-netherlands-dutch-euthanised-alcohol-addiction-alcoholic-netherlands-a7446256.html

How can you possibly be surrounded by "family and friends" if they're going to watch you die?


Can you guess how many people this affects in one year?  https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/dutch-euthanasia-mental-paitients-euthanized/

[Jane]

Without signing up for any euthanasia programme we do have such a thing as an " agreement " in this country and probably many others which applies to those sufferers of advanced and terminal illnesses.The agreement falls to close relatives of the person suffering to increase painkilling medicine which a GP knows would end the life of a sufferer in preference to seeing someone writhing in pain and agony which a disease such as cancer causes toward the end of life.

To euthanise someone so young as in the clip is nothing short of manslaughter. It's frightening.

A friend of mine has signed up to Dignitas and I've worried about it ever since she told me. I don't agree with it.

One of the first things that's drummed into would be Samaritans is that what WE think is right -as in being right for us- isn't necessarily the right thing for someone else. We were also told, emphatically, that no one can put right everyone else's problems.

It a huge tragedy that there appeared to be no more that could be done to make such a young woman's life bearable and enjoyable. I can only imagine how she must have suffered whilst a solution -believed to be right for her- was being looked for. I can only begin to imagine the terrible sense of failure experienced by all who cared for her, both professionals and family when they couldn't. I believe I may JUST begin to imagine her relief when she knew that the end to the awfulness that her life had become was drawing to a close. It may well have been the first time she felt she had some control.

[lookout]

There's no way that I can agree to this at all and the more I read about it the more I'm appalled by the coldness and disbelief of it all. How can anyone grieve under such circumstances ? When you lose a loved one through the processes of illness you " sort of " prepare yourself for the end and accept the decision that no more can be done but this cruel way you'd never know and therefore it would forever be a cloud over their judgement. I couldn't cope with it.

[Steve_uk]

This is very sad and after having a family member commit suicide, I don't think I could live with helping them do this.

No neither could I Caroline. Maybe we don't know enough about the circumstances of this particular case and how the illness was triggered at the age of 12. I can't help thinking though that it should never have come to this and I do question what therapy was given if the only way out for this young woman was to curl up and die at age 29 with the assistance of others.

[Steve_uk]

So the man is an alcoholic: then let him drink himself to death if he must. The woman has had multiple suicide attempts, the classic cry for help. Could she really not finish the job if she wanted to (I won't mention all the ways but you could throw yourself off the top of a block of flats to make sure) but at least you could argue that nobody else was complicit. I wouldn't want her to do that because all these efforts at ending one's life are symptoms of the illness, which should have been treated by the medical profession.

[Jane]

This is very sad and after having a family member commit suicide, I don't think I could live with helping them do this.

There's no way that I can agree to this at all and the more I read about it the more I'm appalled by the coldness and disbelief of it all. How can anyone grieve under such circumstances ? When you lose a loved one through the processes of illness you " sort of " prepare yourself for the end and accept the decision that no more can be done but this cruel way you'd never know and therefore it would forever be a cloud over their judgement. I couldn't cope with it.

Caroline, I can understand that, having been up close and personal to it, helping out/giving permission is too awful to contemplate.

Lookout, this isn't about how those left behind, grieve, although I accept they need to. Would you rather a loved one lived in unending mental/physical agony because it made you feel better, rather than giving them your blessing/acquiescence? No one is saying we have to like doing it. It's just possible that, if someone knows they've been given a choice, they MAY decide to have another go at living. It's neither here nor there, because it's not about me. It's about what someone else feels is right for them. I wonder if I'd feel better, having given -if not my blessing- acquiescence, as opposed to feeling guilt for them living when they'd rather not, and hoping it would all be okay for them somewhere down the line.

[lookout]

I agree Steve.

[Steve_uk]

Caroline, I can understand that, having been up close and personal to it, helping out/giving permission is too awful to contemplate.

Lookout, this isn't about how those left behind, grieve, although I accept they need to. Would you rather a loved one lived in unending mental/physical agony because it made you feel better, rather than giving them your blessing/acquiescence? No one is saying we have to like doing it. It's just possible that, if someone knows they've been given a choice, they MAY decide to have another go at living. It's neither here nor there, because it's not about me. It's about what someone else feels is right for them. I wonder if I'd feel better, having given -if not my blessing- acquiescence, as opposed to feeling guilt for them living when they'd rather not, and hoping it would all be okay for them somewhere down the line.

But the debate should not have arrived at that point Jane because the root causes of the person's death wish should have been addressed years ago.

[lookout]

Caroline, I can understand that, having been up close and personal to it, helping out/giving permission is too awful to contemplate.

Lookout, this isn't about how those left behind, grieve, although I accept they need to. Would you rather a loved one lived in unending mental/physical agony because it made you feel better, rather than giving them your blessing/acquiescence? No one is saying we have to like doing it. It's just possible that, if someone knows they've been given a choice, they MAY decide to have another go at living. It's neither here nor there, because it's not about me. It's about what someone else feels is right for them. I wonder if I'd feel better, having given -if not my blessing- acquiescence, as opposed to feeling guilt for them living when they'd rather not, and hoping it would all be okay for them somewhere down the line.

How on earth could/would I " feel better " about someone living with mental illness ? This is about all I expect from someone like you !! How can you talk like that ?
We as a family are presently living with a child who has some form of mental illness and to read something like euthanasia is highly upsetting in a 29 year old let alone what a 10 year old is going through and whose future is uncertain !

[Jane]

No neither could I Caroline. Maybe we don't know enough about the circumstances of this particular case and how the illness was triggered at the age of 12. I can't help thinking though that it should never have come to this and I do question what therapy was given if the only way out for this young woman was to curl up and die at age 29 with the assistance of others.

Steve, I'm not talking about the past and what could have, might have, should have been done for that person. I'm talking about the immediacy. The here and now. Where NOTHING has worked. Where every POSSIBLE avenue has been explored, and all that's left is the possibility that things MIGHT improve somewhere in the future. If you were such a person's friend or relative, how long to you think you could go one watching their interminable suffering before you found yourself wanting them to be free of it, permanently?

[Steve_uk]

Steve, I'm not talking about the past and what could have, might have, should have been done for that person. I'm talking about the immediacy. The here and now. Where NOTHING has worked. Where every POSSIBLE avenue has been explored, and all that's left is the possibility that things MIGHT improve somewhere in the future. If you were such a person's friend or relative, how long to you think you could go one watching their interminable suffering before you found yourself wanting them to be free of it, permanently?

I've read about all the abortive attempts to cure her (if that's the right word) but one picture summed it up for me: the young woman clutching her pink cuddly toy, suggesting that she still had love to give and was capable of feeling it, even if it were only directed at an inanimate object. The problem lay in her distrust of humans, so much so that she wished to detach herself permanently from them. I have to ask myself if this is the case why that human contact had failed and why better efforts could not be made by them to ameliorate the condition of someone they purport to love.