Holland: 17 year-old girl with depression 'legally euthanised' + UPDATE
Screenshot
Source: Care Not Killing
Noa Pothoven, a 17 year-old girl who suffered from mental health problems, died last Sunday after being granted the right to euthanasia in The Hague, several media outlets around the world reported on Tuesday. Noa had written an award-winning book about living with depression, anorexia and self-harm after being raped as a child.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing, commented: "This is shocking, yet shows what happens when universal protections that vulnerable people are removed. Tightly defined legislation that is only supposed to apply to mentally competent terminally ill adults gets systematically extended. This happens, because once you accept that some lives are not worthy of protection and should be ended, it is only a question of which lives and what conditions should qualify for assisted suicide, or euthanasia.
"In Holland, where this latest tragic case has taken place,there has been a steady increase in the number of euthanasia deaths, which in 2017 accounted for more than four per cent of all deaths. At the same time we have seen a dramatic escalation in the range of conditions, which meet the medical and legal threshold.
"Of the 6,585 cases reported in 2017, 169 were for people with dementia; 83 were for people with a psychiatric disorder; and 293 were for people with an accumulation of geriatric pathologies, what we usually call old age.
"Disturbingly it has become acceptable in Holland for profoundly disabled babies to be given lethal injections under the Groningen Protocol.
"Current laws in the UK protect vulnerable people from feeling pressured into ending their lives. This is why Members of Parliament have rejected changing the law more than a dozen times since 2004. Most notably the rejection of the Marris Bill, which was comprehensively rejected by the House of Commons in 2015, by 330 to 118.
"It also explains why not a single major doctors group supports legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Association for Palliative Medicine and the British Geriatric Society."
Care Not Killing is a UK-based alliance bringing together organisations spanning disability rights, healthcare and faith groups, and thousands of concerned individuals. For more information see: www.carenotkilling.org.uk
Pope Francis tweeted on 5 June 2019: 'Euthanasia and assisted suicide are a defeat for all. We are called never to abandon those who are suffering, never giving up hope but caring and loving to restore hope.
UPDATE
We published this story sent to us by Care Not Killing yesterday in good faith, but a number of further reports clearly indicate that Noa was not technically euthanised. A euthanasia clinic refused to take her because of her age. Noa wrote that she wanted to die. At her request, doctors withdrew feeding tubes from her. She was given a hospital bed and palliative care at home, where she died.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Print
Email
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Pinterest