Physically Healthy 24-year-old granted right to die in Belgium

[Didymus 34,380]

That is really depressing.

So she tried to kill herself before?  Why was she not successful?  I don't think they should kill her now.  Maybe something is wrong and she could get better.  Why have they not tried more things?   

I don't like it.

So instead of trying to persuade her to live or find her a hobby they say "go ahead" ?

Like someone already said here: don't underestimate the road this girl had to go through before she got permission. Even if you're terminally ill, it's never easy.

[Illuminati 15,964]

I understand it and I am pro euthanasia. 

People never asked to be born and if they find life to difficult they should have the right to chose to quit aside from terminal illnesses.

mte

[Curunir 7,510]

if i was her i'd donate my organs first, but i don't judge. it's her life, she should have the right to choose whether she wants it to continue or not

--

stop dismissing depression like it's not an indirectly deadly illness 

[Morphine Prince 109,645]

I feel this is wrong. 

[Computer 10,980]

 

Like someone already said here: don't underestimate the road this girl had to go through before she got permission. Even if you're terminally ill, it's never easy.

Absolutely agree.  And I have been close to a suicide before, the reaction from other people that bothers me the most is when they say it's selfish.  This was my co-worker when I told him about my neighbor, a husband and father of two who killed himself last fall.  It's horrific and so disruptive but don't call it selfish.  It's just obvious then that you can't begin to imagine the reality that was their life living in their mind.

He was a healthy man with the appearance of a good life who found a way and killed himself.  But I don't like this, because, this girl is not stuck in a chair with locked-in syndrome swearing up and down that she would kill herself if she was physically able.  She tried before but ultimately didnt... that describes a whole lot of people.  I thought the position of the medical community was to continue helping physically healthy but suicidal people.  Very complex issue but I'm not for this.  Unless I missed something.  No judgement though... I really just wanted to post that I do agree no one can ever understand the inner life of another and what a tragedy it is every time this is happening.

[SKANK 14,288]

"The person in whom its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a bruning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t’ and ‘Hang On!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." - David Foster Wallace

[Didymus 34,380]

Absolutely agree.  And I have been close to a suicide before, the reaction from other people that bothers me the most is when they say it's selfish.  This was my co-worker when I told him about my neighbor, a husband and father of two who killed himself last fall.  It's horrific and so disruptive but don't call it selfish.  It's just obvious then that you can't begin to imagine the reality that was their life living in their mind.

He was a healthy man with the appearance of a good life who found a way and killed himself.  But I don't like this, because, this girl is not stuck in a chair with locked-in syndrome swearing up and down that she would kill herself if she was physically able.  She tried before but ultimately didnt... that describes a whole lot of people.  I thought the position of the medical community was to continue helping physically healthy but suicidal people.  Very complex issue but I'm not for this.  Unless I missed something.  No judgement though... I really just wanted to post that I do agree no one can ever understand the inner life of another and what a tragedy it is every time this is happening.

Well, the consensus in Belgium is that medical professions need to thoroughly establish that there is zero hope for the patient, whether physically or now also psychologically. Without a doubt more than one doctor/psychiatrist/psychologist established that whatever other solution is offered, this girl will kill herself. Proponents of euthanasia (incl. those doctors probably) argue that if a person sees no way out, and that can be established professionally, and asks for a "humane death" there is just no reason to refuse. And I think that's entirely logical.

And remember that she was already in a psychiatric hospital where a suicide attempt could easily have been prevented by others instead of a situation where she changed her mind last minute.

[Azor Ahai 18,861]

a hobby? You really think a hobby will help someone with chronic depression?

If that was the case why do we have thousands of people still suffering from this taboo illness that makes people kill themselves?

So the solution is to let her kill herself? 

[MonsterMum 2,532]

So the solution is to let her kill herself? 

I hope you read my post about what it needed to be granted euthanasia. Someone like that is questioned, reviewed and questioned again several times in the whole process.

If life becomes a burden for whatever reason isn't it up to the person to say when they had enough? Rather they do it this way and are able to plan it the way they want it then jumping from a bridge or in front of a train and ending in a horrible death and possibly traumatising others.

[Goosey 3,017]

Doctors in Belgium are granting a 24-year-old woman who is suffering from depression but is otherwise healthy the right to die, even though she does not have a terminal or life-threatening illness.

The 24-year-old woman, known simply as Laura, has been given the go-ahead by health professionals in Belgium to receive a lethal injection, she told local Belgian media.

Laura says she has previously tried to kill herself on several occasions. She told journalists: "Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful." The date of Laura's death is yet to be decided.

Carine Brochier, a project manager with the Brussels-based European Institute of Bioethics, tells Newsweek that she believes too many people are dying as a result of Belgium's euthanasia laws.

She argues that many people who experience psychological suffering and treatable mental illnesses may be wrongly given the go ahead for euthanasia because "there is absolutely no way for healthcare professionals to measure another person's mental suffering to decide if they should receive euthanasia."

http://europe.newsweek.com/healthy-24-year-old-granted-right-die-belgium-329504

 

This seems fake to me, but if it's true... what kind of asinine laws does this Belgium country have? 

[Torsoface 3,262]

a

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[TimisaMonster 31,073]

That's assisted suicide...

 

[Mariann 301]

This is crazy. You can't even think straight when you are severely depressed. There is no way she should be allowed to make that decision. 

[squeala 875]

Don't describe someone with depression as healthy

But yeah legalising euthanasia is a slippery slope

[Goosey 3,017]

This decision is moronic from all sides - patient, doctors and government! Belgium is truly a world apart.