Why are more females than males euthanised?

There was a terrible case in Belgium where a trans man was euthenised following a very unhappy childhood (being an unwanted child) and surgery which didn't go well.

The mother's comments are so chilling... "When I saw 'Nancy' for the first time, my dream was shattered. She was so ugly. I had a phantom birth. Her death does not bother me"

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/10349159/Mother-of-sex-change-Belgian-I-dont-care-about-his-euthanasia-death.html

It's well worth listening to the Radio 4 programme on Aurelia Brouwers here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bdb9qk

I caught most of it on Thursday morning and it was both moving and interesting. I think if I'd been her friend I'd have supported her decision.

I wish euthanasia could be introduced here. It's so wrong that people are left to suffer needlessly.
I think people have an issue with the euthanasia for mental health issues because often they cannot imagine what it would be like to go through such mental turmoil that death seems the only option. However, mental illness can be as debilitating as physical illness and for some, it never improves and there is no hope of it improving. If they are able to make that choice, I think people should be allowed to use it. I think it's kinder and more compassionate to the family too. It's difficult for them of course, but I think it's better than the shock of finding your loved one dead and having no idea about it. At least there is a period of getting used to it and being able to talk to the person about it.
And yes, I agree that women don't use violent methods because women are not as violent as men and because they don't want others to find the body in a gruesome state. I would have thought the numbers for this were very small though, so it's hard to make a meaningful comparison.

Overdoses are probs tricky as it takes a hell of a lot to kill an adult human - see all the problems in USA with death penalty - and so the average person having read the dire warnings about taking more than 8 in a day or whatever it is - and not being a trained pharmacologist - simply underestimates.

Why? I’m not sure - a cynic might say women don’t want to have anyone else clear up the mess :(
I suspect it’s down to deeply entrenched gender roles. Women are expected to be quiet and not inconvenience anyone, even in death. Men generally engage in riskier and more violent behaviour so there could be a desensitisation effect.

There was a thread recently where an interesting poster seemed to be suggesting that women couldn't even get suicide right anyway it touched on that.

Women are generall much less violent than men (nature / nurture) and this refelcts through to the suicide / attempt methods.

There is also the point that women are often in caring roles and don't' want to do anything too messy out of concern for those who would find them / have to ID them etc.

There's so many possibilities

Women live longer
Men commit suicide themselves much more

Then there is stuff like lots of women living with conditions that are not diagnosed or treated properly -
We are undertreated for pain
We are misdiagnosed with mental health issues when we have a physical problem
We are fobbed off and encouraged to "get on with it" when we have a physical problem
Lots of things that go on with us are under studied / not well understood due to focus on men for so long

There was a story a while ago from the netherlands (not sure if this is the same person) where a young woman was enthanised - she had terrible mental health problems. She had been horribly sexually abused as a child which is where her issues stemmed from. However she was very ill, felt there was no way forward and opted out. That sort of thing it feels to me like - what happened to the man or men who abused her? A lot of mental health problems are reactive - they are due to genuinely awful / difficult / intolerable situations now or in the past. Is there any focus on prevention? To changing and improving society? This feels like an easy out for society. Victims of abuse are difficult - they have stories that are uncomfortable to hear. They ask for people to be held to account that maybe society doesn't want to hold to account. They make groups feel collective guilt. If they are dead, their voices stop.

Men on average choose more physical and violent methods - shooting, jumping, hanging, walking in front of trains etc. Women on average choose methods like paracetamol overdoses and poisoning. These are more likely to be caught in time.

Perhaps it is because men who attempt suicide are more likely to be ‘successful’.
That poor young woman who was on the BBC website had attempted suicide many times but had failed.

Yeah. Being totally anti-euthanasia, I'm not even slightly surprised by this.
I'm always boggled by the inconsistencies. We section people in this country for persistent suicidal ideation. And here we are discussing legally assisting them to commit suicide.

It is Pandora's box, and there is, quite simply, no way of getting all the bad stuff back in the box. The only thing that will happen is a shift in definition so that the bad stuff is no longer called bad stuff.

It will happen in this thread.

It’s a very small amount of people too, not enough to make the sample statistically recognisable as an issue. Plus previously mentioned higher occurance and recognition of MH issues in women

I think for me it’s not so much that the option is there. No one should be forced to die in pain and with no dignity.

What I worry about is the framework around it. How do we make sure that it’s not abused? How do we make sure it’s the patients consented wish? These are difficult questions ethically.

I am dutch and one of my friends has ptsd and depression and a physical disorder that givers her a lot of pain (she needs high doses of morfine to cope). She is a woman in her forties. She has been begging for euthanasia for three years. The doctors still think that they can help her and make her life better so they won't sign it. One of the rules is that there has to be suffering without a future of getting better (like terminal cancer).

It's not that easy to get euthanasia. I also think that everyone owns their own life and that if they refuse to die suffering then they should get that peaceful death.

I still find it concerning princessmargaret - I know the criteria are ‘unbearable suffering’.

What worries me is who defines unbearable and what the checks and balances are in relation to it. For context, we are seeing minors in the USA able to access puberty blockers and cross sex hormones which will render them permanently sterile and with serious long term side effects simply with self declaration from places like planned parenthood - the prescribers are not even required to be qualified physicians.

In that light - even if we agree that children should be able to control their lives and their endings which in some cases I think they should - we need to be very, very careful about the frameworks which surround such mechanisms.

I would imagine that the tradition of women being care givers and not having care givers accounts for some of it.

Children with terminal illnesses can ask for euthanasia in Belgium under very strict conditions. Don't go there with the "bloody hell".

depression is almost always reported to be twice as
common in women compared with men across diverse societies and social contexts

www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/242.pdf

Of course, that's reported depression. But it seems unlikely it can all be explained by under-reporting.

Beligium has laws which allow minors to end their lives, and they have been used on children as young as 9

fucking hell

every day's a school day on MN

Probably women are more open about how they're feeling and admitting they have issues, going to doctors etc.

I agree with this being an option. People with mental health issues kill themselves all the time, this takes away the option of having to choose a painful method.

I find this very disturbing. I’m somehow more comfortable with people with terminal physical illnessness ending their lives and I’m finding it hard to express exactly why. I need to think about this. That’s a big skew in the sex ratio.

Beligium has laws which allow minors to end their lives, and they have been used on children as young as 9. That I find wrong.