Sex abuse victim in 20s chooses to die by lethal jab

A VICTIM of child sex abuse has ended her life under Dutch euthanasia laws because she could not live with her mental suffering.

The woman, in her twenties, was given a lethal injection after doctors and psychiatrists decided that her post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions were incurable.

It went ahead despite improvements in the woman’s psychological condition after ‘intensive therapy’ two years ago, and even though doctors in the Netherlands accept that a demand for death from a psychiatric patient may be no more than a cry for help.

The woman, who has not been named, began to suffer from mental disorders 15 years ago following sexual abuse, according to the papers released by the Dutch Euthanasia Commission. This means she was abused between the ages of five and 15.

News of her death angered anti-euthanasia MPs and disability campaigners in Britain. One Labour MP said it meant sex abuse victims were now being punished with death.

It comes at a time of continued controversy over assisted dying in Britain. A steady flow of people from this country travel to die legally at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, and judges and the courts appear to be leaning in favour of making it legal to help someone to die.

Papers released in the Dutch case said that the woman, who was killed last year, had posttraumatic stress disorder that was resistant to treatment. Her condition included severe anorexia, chronic depression and sui- cidal mood swings, tendencies to self-harm, hallucinations, obsessions and compulsions.

She also had physical difficulties and was almost entirely bedridden. She was said to find her suffering ‘unbearable’.

However, the papers also disclosed that two years before her death she had an intensive course of trauma therapy which was ‘temporarily partially successful’.

But it was abandoned last year after independent consultants said the case was hopeless.

The consultants also said that despite her ‘intolerable’ physical and mental suffering, she was competent to make the decision to take her own life. She was killed by an injection of lethal drugs, the report said.

In Britain yesterday Labour MP Robert Flello said: ‘It almost sends the message that if you are the victim of abuse, and as a result you get a mental illness, you are punished by being killed.’

Nikki Kenward, of disability rights group Distant Voices, said: ‘ It is horrifying that mental health professionals could regard euthanasia as an answer to the complex and deep wounds that result from sexual abuse.’

‘Suffering was unbearable’