Girl aged 17 who was raped as a child ends life at clinic
Dutch doctors agree she had ‘unbearable’ mental anguish
A TEENAGER who said she could no longer face living has been helped to die under Dutch euthanasia laws.
Noa Pothoven, 17, is the youngest named individual to have been killed under the country’s controversial assisted dying regime.
The Dutch youngster, who was physically fit and well, was given a lethal injection in her living room 24 hours after announcing her own death on social media.
She had suffered from depression and mental illness after being sexual abused and raped at a young age.
In her online post, she said: ‘I will get straight to the point: within a maximum of ten days I will die. After years of battling and fighting, I am drained. I have quit eating and drinking for a while now, and after many discussions and evaluations, it was decided to let me go because my suffering is unbearable.’
She added: ‘I breathe, but I no longer live.’ The Netherlands’ euthanasia laws, which date from 2002, allow doctors to kill someone who is suffering unbearably with no hope of recovery. More than 6,000 a year have died under the law, with an increasing number suffering mental anguish rather than terminal illness or chronic disability.
In 2016 and 2017, there were 77 people who underwent euthanasia on grounds of unbearable mental illness. They included a 41-year-old alcoholic who said death was the only way to escape his addiction, and a
‘I breathe, but I no longer live’
woman in her 20s who said she could not bear the mental anguish caused by sex abuse when she was a child.
Miss Pothoven, from Arnhem, was a well-known figure who wrote an autobiography, Winning or Learning, about her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anorexia. In it, she said she wanted to help young people with similar difficulties, criticising her country for a lack of specialised clinics.
She said in her last social media post: ‘I deliberated for quite a while whether or not I should share this, but decided to do it anyway. Maybe this comes as a surprise to some, given my posts about hospitalisation, but my plan has been there for a long time and is not impulsive.’ She died on Sunday. Dutch law allows patients for whom euthanasia is prescribed to be killed by lethal injection. The doctor who decides that euthanasia should happen must get a second opinion from another doctor. The most recent figures say 6,585 people died under the law in 2017.
Children as young as 12 can be helped to die, but those under the age of 16 must have the approval of their parents. In 2017, the Board of Procurators General, the Dutch equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, began an inquiry after a 74-year-old woman with dementia struggled against her lethal injection and was held down by members of her family as it was administered.
Lord Carlile, who heads antieuthanasia pressure group Living and Dying Well, said: ‘This is one of the most deeply shocking examples I have ever seen of the misuse of euthanasia in the Netherlands. Anyone who has contact with serious depressive illness knows it is a serious illness indeed but many people do recover.’
Belgium and Luxembourg also allow assisted dying or euthanasia. The Dignitas clinic in Zurich, used by hundreds of Britons, operates under a Swiss law that allows those who help others to commit suicide to escape prosecution if they have no vested interests in the death.