Teenage Dutch Rape Victim Euthanised (triggering)

[StillNumb]

I am sat here crying my eyes out after reading about 17 year old Noa Pothoven, who chose to be euthanised. Noa was a victim of rape as a child and has suffered so much in her short life, and now found it unbearable to carry on. I feel so sad for her and her family.

I have posted on here a number of times about the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of my father. He died last year, and it has been a difficult year for me as I thought I had put it all in the past but it has reared it's horrible head and I feel like I am going through it all again. I keep seeing the young me in my 'mind's eye', crying and saying no...

Can't write much more, feel too sad.

RIP Noa

I feel the same. It's one of the saddest things I've ever read in the news. That poor girl and her poor family.

I'm so sorry you suffered sexual abuse. I think we often think we've got past things but they are there, ready to resurface. I hope you're able to get some help.

Thank you [HollowTalk] I have been lucky and was able to get some support from Rape Crisis after being offered advice here, which was helpful. Reading about Noa has made me think about the many, many people who just quietly take their own life after suffering trauma. Very, very sad.

I'm sorry that it was triggering for you. However, I have seen much false information on the internet about the possibility of euthanasia in NL so I'd like to put it straight that she wasn't euthanised. She stopped eating and drinking of her own accord, so basically it is a suicide. She did join the Levenseindekliniek that tries to help with euthanasia, but that doesn't mean that you get it, and she didn't.

I do hope she has found her peace now though.

I just saw the article bless this poor girl. May she find the peace she needed. Such a shame she could only find it in death.

Beautiful girl fly free now xx

I did wonder about that, @cranstonmanor. But in any case she's led a very traumatic and unhappy life and wanted her life to end - it's incredibly sad.

cranstonmanor thanks for your reply. Nothing beyind the headlines suggest euthanasia. The details all suggest she voluntarily stopped eating and drinking and refused medical aid beyond being kept comfortable. That isn't euthanasia.

The headlines and the "It's legal for 12 year olds kids to be euthanised" make me feel sad for her and angry that journalists cannot be more accurate, careful and considerate when reporting on such a tragically short and sad life.

It is very sad. It must be so hard for her family.

The details all suggest she voluntarily stopped eating and drinking and refused medical aid beyond being kept comfortable. That isn't euthanasia.

The euthanasia bit is surely not sectioning her and force feeding her with tubes. I think that may be what would happen here, but I don’t know.

The euthanasia bit is surely not sectioning her and force feeding her with tubes. I think that may be what would happen here, but I don’t know.

If someone has the capacity to refuse treatment then not forcibly giving it to them isn’t euthanasia! Otherwise we’d claim every doctor who allows their late stage cancer patient to pass away without intervention or an elderly person to be able to die without further treatment is carrying out euthanasia. Euthanasia is the act of ending someone’s life. This child was absolutely not euthanised.

That's assisted suicide, not euthanasia.

It's really important to get the two properly separated. Nobody stepped in and did anything to end her life. She was not legally killed. She was given permission not have medical intervention forced upon her.

Had the headlines read "Teenage Rape Victim dies in Assisted Suicide" there would be no issue with the reporting. And it would still be very sad.

We’re taking at cross purposes - I’m not defending the use of the word euthanasia by the DM - simply saying that it’s the non-treatment in this case assisted suicide.

Here I would think, particularly with a minor, she would have been sectioned and fed in hospital. That’s the standard treatment for anorexics whose BMI is so low that it threatens life.

This is mental illness in a minor not cancer in an adult, so it’s not the same.

I'm not sure we are talking at cross purposes. Maybe we are!

She wasn't anorexic. She chose, after long deliberation to starve herself to death.

Yes, she was depressed, had PTSD and various other mental health issues. She knew that. Every one around her knew that. She was not in any doubt about her mental health. Her book is very candid (though I haven't read all of it, it is not a comfortable read in any way shape or form) In Holland her predicament is enough to be able to make such a choice. Many here would agree, many would not.

But the headline remains misleading.

She was anorexic, though. It says here: Noa wrote an autobiography called Winning or Learning, which details her battles with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anorexia after being molested and raped as a young child.

It sounds as though she deliberately starved herself to death, but she was already anorexic.

No. She had been anorexic. At the time she chose to kill herself she used starvation as her method. Anorexia is a control method gone wrong [I know, oversimpification], Deliberate self starvation is something else entirely.

Anorexia did not kill her. She did that, with great forethought. It was not an accident. Nobody did it to her. She set out to do it and, in Holland, she passed their criteria to do so.

And please read my post... I said I had read part of her book. It is really not a pleasant read. Though I can see why it was an important one for her to write and that many people may take a lot from it.

I didn’t say she had anorexia, I gave it as an example of a mental illness + life threateningly low BMI, and the consequent treatment. Depressed patients can starve themselves too.

My point being that I think in the U.K. she would have been sectioned and fed.

Definitely cross purposes then.

But you make it sound as though she had no interventions, medical, psychological, before ending her life. She did. A lot of it.

I don't think anyone would deny that she would have had a completely different end of life experience here. I don't think it would necessarily have been better for her...

Ah ha! Tatiana you didn't say she was, Hollowtalk did. I should have @ the poster I was replying to! Sorry.

She didn’t have active intervention to stop her from starving herself to death, which arguably here she would. She seems to have had a lot of treatment in the past.

Tatiana we need to back up.. we both seem to have missed that I was responding to A N Other poster half way through our exchange!

If this is what she wanted then I'm in support of her, I've struggled with anorexia and severe MH problems from a young age so I understand where she's coming from.

However I do feel it should be adults 21+ only as my life has improved from when I was 14 to now at 20 and I no longer want to end my life.

Surely it was far worse that she was allowed to starve herself to death.
Organs shutting down, going blind etc. possibly weeks before you die.
That must have been absolutely awful for her and her parents to go through.
Such a sad story :( My heart breaks for her family

No idea, user but if she was aided by the clinic, and it seems she was, then I can only assume that the hospital bed she was in, in her own home, was equipped with painkillers etc. That's what the clinic does. And she had 'permission' to do so, not sure that's the right term. Or she would have been sectioned, or the Dutch equivalent.

However it works, she made a choice, it was sanctioned, she was loved.

They would have assessed her capacity to make this decision, thoroughly. Had she not been deemed to have capacity, she would indeed have been sectioned and tube fed against her will - the law isn't that different in Holland. The bar for such a deprivation of liberty and choice is set high, as it is here in the UK, and as it should be.

It's a horribly sad story, but some things cannot be mended no matter how hard everyone tries. I have no doubt that Noa would have tried everything before coming to this decision, and I'm just glad she had the option.