To be deeply saddened by a teenager being euthanised **Upsetting content - warning added by MNHQ** ***MNHQ further note that the details of this story are disputed***

[TheHorseOnSeventhAvenue]

I am greatly aware of our rights and understand autonomy but as far as I can see this young Dutch girl, Noa, did not end her own life but was assisted.

My heart goes out to her and her family but this is my absolute reason why euthanasia should not be supported.

Unless you have been in the shoes of that person you cannot say what should and should not be there right.

Some people Should be allowed to get euthanized if they wish.

Whether due to pain or sadness it doesn't matter they should get the choice, i know plenty of people who would choose to go through with it, people who don't get to live there own life and have to live everyday in pain getting fed and bathed by random people and never being able to have a conversation.

I do think it is sad but it is none of my business.

Littletabbyocelot I've been suicidal. I wasn't rational. Suicidal feelings due to MH issues precludes rationality imo. They might be explained by the MH issues, it might be clear why the person feels as they do. Often it is crystal clear to the person concerned - of course it is; that's why they feel that way. But these thoughts are inherently irrational.

Her FB post printed. I didn't search on FB.
There must have been intervention if she said after many discussions and evaluations, I assume by a psychologist and psychiatrist team.
She had her mind made up unfortunately.

Don't think so, she starved during the process, probably to force the decision. Her FB looks like she got her decision but not the date.

I read that to mean that nobody intervened in her decision to stop eating and drinking. The photograph of her with a tube in her nose is from an earlier hospital admission due to her organs nearly failing as a result of her anorexia, I believe.

I read a thread on mumsnet a few weeks ago, where many posters claimed that they'd insist on their teenage daughter getting an abortion if she became pregnant.

Yet here is a thread about a physically healthy teenage girl choosing to die, and that's apparently OK.

Not saying that the posters who agree with one view will necessarily agree with the other, of course, but interesting to see.

This girl was undoubtedly very ill, and has been let down by the lack of mental health support in her area. But she was 17. I had friends who were raped, abused, beaten, anorexic, self harming and suicidal at 17 and by and large they're all doing OK now, though it's not an easy road and there's no happily ever afters. But their lives are very different from 17.

Mental health has the potential to change, for better or worse, in a way that physical health issues, such as terminal cancer, cannot. I'm really uncomfortable at this being ok

And it worries me that a 17yo is deemed mature enough to make these decisions too.

At 17 I would have taken euthanasia if it was offered to me. But 13 years later I've had therapy and medication and help and my life is worth living. I'm so glad I never succeeded in ending my life back then. But at 17, I'd never have believed I'd be this happy.

She was going to go one way or the other, without the decision, she'd have died from starvation. The story isn't very clear.

This is disgraceful. A young woman is allowed to essentially kill herself rather than make every possible effort to help her.

This is one of the reasons why I have very strong reservations about euthanasia. It's one thing to decide to kill yourself if you have a disease that will make you lose your quality of life in horribe ways and then kill you (i.e. Alzheimer's, ALD). But mental health problems? No.

Shame on the Dutch authorities.

But I don't understand (I haven't read the article). Why was she not given suitable psychological/psychiatric help first, before she came to this drastic decision?

Sounds like if they hadn't she was going to starve herself to death

It's such a shame that she reached that point

Its absolutely heartbreaking but I can understand why she did it (I was abused). I feel terribly sad that she wasn’t able to escape the demons forced upon her by the sick individual who did this to her.
I really hope that the person who did this to her is now charged with manslaughter for this (although I doubt it)

So it was euthanasia as much as they didnt force her to drink and eat?

Or did someone actually pass her a fatal dose of something. They are 2 very dofferent things.

I am not sure forcing her to drink and eat would have helped her in the long run, it probably would have caused her more trauma.

Especially if there isnt any MH support.

Also are we saying there is no MH support, clinics or otherwise, there. Or no clinics for euthanasia.

I find it all a bit vague.

@MerdedeBrexit they don’t have MH facilities there sadly

"I read a thread on mumsnet a few weeks ago, where many posters claimed that they'd insist on their teenage daughter getting an abortion if she became pregnant.

Yet here is a thread about a physically healthy teenage girl choosing to die, and that's apparently OK.

Not saying that the posters who agree with one view will necessarily agree with the other, of course, but interesting to see. "

I don't find it interesting all, it's exactly what I'd expect with the two situations being chasms apart.

She wasn't euthanised. She killed herself.

I think it may be a little better that she got to talk about this with her family and died "peacefully" rather than her suddenly committing suicide. Her family must be in the worst pain imaginable but at least Noa is free of her pain. 😢

Some people don't "recover" from Mental illness and trauma and this decision was undoubtedly painful and thoroughly considered.

Utterly heartbreaking.

That poor girl.

It’s heartbreaking as a mum to read a young girl wanted to end her life so much that it was followed through rather than help and intervention given to her so she could enjoy the rest of her life

If someone is that determined to commit suicide, they will do so
Unless they are kept in a strait jacket or doped up (chemical strait jacket) 24/7

Should she have been kept in a strait jacket a few more months until she reached 18 ?

If ever I find certain conditions e.g. dementia starting, or if I had terminal cancer, then I would immediately organise a flight to a Swiss clinic to end the misery

I'm nearly 63 - am I old enough to decide ?

That poor girl imagine being in so much pain.

I can see the argument behind euthanasia for people too sick to have the ability for suicide, I struggle with whether I agree with it or not but completely understand the reasoning - why should disability mean you can't do all the same things as anyone else.

This is so different though, euthanasia or not trying to save someone because of MH seems such a horrific slippery slope. Surely the obvious next thing is suicide at any age becomes completely normal and acceptable and then we stop trying to stop it? It becomes just another choice, if you're unhappy why not go for euthanasia, so why provide good MH services? I really worry where the line would be drawn, why not let anyone who's ever suicidal have euthanasia, don't try and save them. know she was an unusual case and had been through horrendous things but she deserved MH care.

She didn't want to 'enjoy the rest of her life' she wanted to die. And sometimes all the help and intervention in the world is ineffective.

Also, I know of a young girl who was also starving herself because of mental health issues, to the point that her family and the people treating her took it for granted that she was going to die or kill herself sooner or later.

A new therapist (who I know) came on, and the therapist who had been in charge until then told her basically not to bother, and to work with the mother, to prepare her for her child's impending death.

The new therapist said that the girl was her patient and that was who she was going to work with. She refused to abandon her.

The girl got better, after a lot of work and effort for a long time. And during the work done with her it became apparent that her starving herself and wanting to die had been a way to confirm that someone cared for her, that someone would love her. She wanted someone to contradict her expressed wish to die, because they cared about her. She wanted someone to want her not to die. Until then, everyone - including her family - had been essentially telling her that it was OK with them if she killed herself.

People often unconsciously say things as a way to test other people, to see how other people feel about them. And what this poor Dutch girl got in response was that nobody was going to fight for her life. It's heart-breaking

There's some very slippery slope thinking going on on this thread...

The assumption that someone who has mental health issues is always lacking in capacity to make major decisions about treatment or not is not one that stands in law - not in Dutch law, not in UK law either. Someone who has been sectioned is not automatically deemed incapable of giving informed consent. A lot of people do not seem to know this.

The bar for sectioning someone is set as high in Holland as it is here in the UK, and rightly so. This girl was deemed capable of making the decision she made, and would have been most thoroughly assessed by experts. Saying 'oh well, she was mentally ill, she couldn't have decided' is facile and doing her a massive injustice.

What has happened is immensely sad, but if we use this case to rail against euthanasia laws in other countries, we are on a dangerous road.

And children of 12 can only make the decision to end their lives if they are suffering from things like terminal cancer, and are in the end stages. Many 12 year olds in the UK would be considered Fraser competent at least for some procedures.

This is not a simple matter and we should all reserve judgement - we do not have all the facts, only Noa did.