International concern is growing over the case of a 20 year-old woman who was given a lethal injection in the Netherlands after battling severe psychiatric problems related to sexual abuse she suffered during her childhood.
The Catholic Herald is reporting on the case of the young woman who suffered for 15 years from “treatment-resistant” post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia, flashbacks, hallucinations, chronic depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and mood swings.
In addition, the woman was self-harming and suicidal and afflicted with a range of physical illnesses related to her mental state.
Doctor said nothing could be done to improve the woman’s condition, concluding that she was suffering “unbearably” and “hopelessly.”
The case was included among 17 anonymous studies published by the Dutch government with its latest euthanasia figures to demonstrate the “due diligence” of the majority of doctors involved in assisted suicide. In 2015, 5,561 people died by euthanasia with “irregularities” found in only four cases.
The sex abuse victim was not one of them.
Instead, regulators found that the doctors behaved properly in authorizing her death.
“There was no prospect or hope for her,” the study said. “She had constantly felt that she was dying, but did not die.”
All therapies had been exhausted and the woman was so weak that she was bedridden and totally depending on others for her care.
“The patient experienced her suffering as unbearable,” the report continued. “The doctor was convinced that the patient’s suffering was unbearable … there were no acceptable options for the patient to relieve the suffering.”
Somehow, doctors determined that even though she was suffering such extreme mental duress, she was mentally competent to request euthanasia, which is one of the requirements needed before the procedure can take place. The only other precaution taken was to seek the opinion of a second psychiatrist and doctor.
Fiona Bruce, a Conservative UK lawmaker, condemned the killing.
“This tragic situation shows why euthanasia should never be legalised in this country,” said Mrs. Bruce. “What this woman needed, at a desperate point in her young life, was help and support to overcome her problems, not the option of euthanasia.”
Nikki Kenward of the disability rights group Distant Voices called the death a failure for psychiatric medicine.
“It is both horrifying and worrying that mental health professionals could regard euthanasia in any form as an answer to the complex and deep wounds that result from sexual abuse,” she said.
“That people who are anorexic could be also offered such an escape points to terrible failings on the part of those in whose care broken and weary people find themselves.”
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