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Merged Euthanasia

Tolls said:
wrt "terminal illness", it sounds to me like her anorexia was doing its damndest to kill her.
And with the best will in the world, that's not always treatable.
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I've always found anorexia to be difficult to understand.

Do anorexics not feel hunger like most people do?
 
I'm not sure how this happened exactly.

But I get the impression that she caused her own death through a prolonged hunger strike and arranged that doctors were not legally required to keep her alive through forced feeding.

Apparently, she spent an unspecified amount of time in a hospital bed in the living room. And had contacted the authority that oversees euthanasia requests.

Doctors don't need a hospital bed in the living room of a private home to inject a patient with opiates.

This indicates she was physically unable to move around for a prolonged time before this happened. This may have been more of a passive 'let her go' kind of thing.

https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/noa-is...en-omdat-mijn-lijden-ondraaglijk-is~a7a2cc47/
 
Tolls said:
wrt "terminal illness", it sounds to me like her anorexia was doing its damndest to kill her.
And with the best will in the world, that's not always treatable.
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And yet there are countless people who have recovered from anorexia. Not so many with pancreatic cancer and lung cancer. I think you need to re-think what “terminal” means.
 
Eddie Dane said:
I'm not sure how this happened exactly.

But I get the impression that she caused her own death through a prolonged hunger strike and arranged that doctors were not legally required to keep her alive through forced feeding.

Apparently, she spent an unspecified amount of time in a hospital bed in the living room. And had contacted the authority that oversees euthanasia requests.

Doctors don't need a hospital bed in the living room of a private home to inject a patient with opiates.

This indicates she was physically unable to move around for a prolonged time before this happened. This may have been more of a passive 'let her go' kind of thing.

https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/noa-is...en-omdat-mijn-lijden-ondraaglijk-is~a7a2cc47/
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All this was in the OP, but the significant term used was “before she was euthanised”. If you have evidence that this didn’t happen and it was natural causes, this would change the nature of this debate. But as it stands, it’s reasonable to conclude that her death was assisted under euthanasia laws.
 
Puppycow said:
I get the sense that you think that other people should want those things, but not everyone wants children or a spouse. Or in this case, even life itself.
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Most people want those things in the long run. It not unreasonable to assume that it would be a nice outcome in someone's life. He even said 'maybe'.

Do we really need to cover all possible life preferences for her/him/xer? including the possibility that she/he/xer wanted to live with nice woman or transsexual and maybe not have biological children or adopt?
 
Eddie Dane said:
Most people want those things in the long run. It not unreasonable to assume that it would be a nice outcome in someone's life. He even said 'maybe'.

Do we really need to cover all possible life preferences for her/him/xer? including the possibility that she/he/xer wanted to live with nice woman or transsexual and maybe not have biological children or adopt?
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Slightly off topic here but you missed "xem, hir, ver, per, em and (f)aer" from your list there.

We wouldn't want to exclude anyone
 
lionking said:
All this was in the OP, but the significant term used was “before she was euthanised”. If you have evidence that this didn’t happen and it was natural causes, this would change the nature of this debate. But as it stands, it’s reasonable to conclude that her death was assisted under euthanasia laws.
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https://twitter.com/NaomiOhReally/status/1136189899672084480

Politico Correspondent Naiomi O'Leary said:
A 17-year-old rape victim was NOT euthanised in the Netherlands.

...

It took me about 10 mins to check with the reporter who wrote the original Dutch story.
Noa Pothoven asked for euthanasia and was refused

After electroshock therapy was refused, Pothoven insisted she wanted no further treatment and a hospital bed was set up at home in the care of her parents. At the start of June she began refusing all fluids and food, and her parents and doctors agreed not to force feed her.

A decision to move to palliative care and not to force feed at the request of the patient is not euthanasia.

Dutch media did not report Noa Pothoven's death as a case of euthanasia. This idea only appeared in English language pickups of Dutch reporting.
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lionking said:
Okay thanks. I’m not sure a twitter post in necessarily definitive, but if this turns out to be correct, I will withdraw my comments in this thread.

I remain opposed to a law which would allow euthanasia in cases like this though.
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...she's just added the following: (she is typing very slowly)

How has this happened? @newscomauHQ and @laubchad have questions to answer, as authors of early English-language articles that made a leap to conclude euthanasia from the report that Pothoven once asked for it, and an Instagram post in which she wrote that she was going to die.

I had immediate questions reading the Dutch articles about whether this was a case of euthanasia or not. It would have been an enormous deal in the Netherlands if a 17-year-old really had euthanasia. It's really easy to check. Like I say, took me about 10 minutes. Infuriating.
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Eddie Dane said:
This whole story is unrelated to Dutch laws pertaining to euthanasia laws.

Patients have the right to refuse treatment. She refused food and fluids.

Her requests for euthanasia were refused.
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...I think I just said exactly that.
 
banquetbear said:
...I think I just said exactly that.
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You did.

I was looking for the information, found it on Reddit on my phone, tried to find the same post on Reddit on my PC so I could link it, saw that you beat me to it and decided to simply jump on your bandwagon by agreeing with you. :p
 
Found it.

All English-language media are completely misreporting this story.

TL;DR: She wasn't euthanized.

In the Netherlands, the law recognizes two types of physician-assisted death/euthanasia:

Actual euthanasia, where the physician performs the procedure.

Physician-assisted suicide, where the physician provides the patient with the means to end their own life.

Late last year, this girl approached the End of Life clinic in The Hague with a question of whether she qualified for either of those. She was refused.

In her own words:

,,Ze vinden me te jong om dood te gaan. Ze vinden dat ik de traumabehandeling moet afronden en dat mijn hersenen eerst volgroeid moeten zijn. Dat duurt tot je 21ste. Ik ben er kapot van, want zo lang kan ik niet meer wachten.’’

Translated:

"They think I'm too young to die. They believe I should complete my therapy first, and that my brain needs to be fully grown. That takes until you're 21. I'm devastated, because I can't wait that long."

So, instead, she chose to stop eating and drinking.

In American medical literature, this is something that's commonly referred to as VSED: voluntary stopping eating and drinking.

VSED is a common alternative to euthanasia in places where euthanasia is illegal, because it "exploits" a simple but fundamental principle: consent. Patients have the right to refuse treatment, after all.

It's used as an alternative to euthanasia in the Netherlands as well. And as the Dutch Medical Association's guidelines note:

Under the Medical Treatment Contracts Act, a patient has the right to receive clear information from the physician about his medical condition, the prognosis and treatment options. Based on the information provided, the patient can either choose to grant or not grant care providers consent to provide treatment, nursing or care. A patient always has the right to decide against treatment, nursing and care, or against specific aspects thereof. Should the patient not grant consent, the care providers may not provide treatment, nursing or care.

Obviously, there's a way to get around that in case of mental illness: by getting a court order for involuntary treatment.

In fact, this girl had already undergone involuntary treatment on several occasions after several failed suicide attempts:

Noa werd in de afgelopen jaren heel vaak opgenomen, in ziekenhuizen, instellingen en specialistische centra. Met afgrijzen denkt ze terug aan dwangopnames in instellingen voor jeugdzorg. Ze droeg er alleen een scheurjurk, een jurk zo sterk dat die niet verscheurd kan worden. Een noodmaatregel om haar er van te weerhouden dat ze zichzelf van het leven berooft. De opnames hebben een traumatisch effect. ,,Nooit, nooit ga ik meer in de isoleer. Het is mensonterend.’’

Dwangmaatregelen zijn vernederend, zegt Noa. Ze zal nooit vergeten hoe ze naar de Arnhemse rechtbank werd gebracht, waar rechters besloten over gedwongen opname in een behandelcentrum. De aanblik van de ‘mensen in toga’s’ maakt een diepe indruk op haar. ‘Ik voel me haast een crimineel, terwijl ik mijn hele leven nog niet eens een snoepje heb gestolen uit een winkel’, schrijft ze in haar autobiografie.

Translated:

Noa has been admitted very often in recent years, to hospitals, institutions and specialist centers. Horrified, she recalls involuntary admissions to youth care institutions. She could only wear a tear-proof dress - an emergency measure to keep her from committing suicide. Being institutionalized had a traumatizing effect on her. "Never, never will I go into isolation again. It's degrading."

Coercive measures are humiliating, says Noa. She will never forget how she was taken to the Arnhem court, where judges decided on involuntary admission to a treatment center. The sight of the "people in gowns" stayed with her. "I almost feel like a criminal, even though I haven't so much as stolen a piece of candy in my life," she writes in her autobiography.

And last year:

Nog niet zo lang geleden werd ze in kritieke toestand, met ernstig ondergewicht en de dreiging dat vitale organen zouden uitvallen, opgenomen in ziekenhuis Rijnstate in Arnhem. Ze is zelfs in coma gebracht om haar met een sonde kunstmatig te kunnen voeden.

Not too long ago she was admitted in critical condition to a hospital in Arnhem, severely underweight and at risk of having vital organs cease functioning. She was even put into an induced coma so she could be fed through a feeding tube.

Now, back to last week.

She was refusing to eat and drink, which left her care providers with three choices:

Force-feed the patient, saving her life for the moment at the cost of further infringing upon her bodily autonomy, with the near-certainty that it won't be the last time. Even assuming that she will eventually recover, you're looking at years of involuntary treatment and confinement of the kind that would traumatize even a person without mental health issues.

Do nothing and let her die in pain.

Provide her with pain relief.

In the end, this time, they decided to take the third option.

You could argue that they should have picked the first option, and given her age, I might even be inclined to agree with that.

But this wasn't euthanasia - it was a choice not to force a patient to undergo involuntary treatment.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Dutch euthanasia laws, which do not cover a situation like this.
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Link
 
Eddie Dane said:
You did.

I was looking for the information, found it on Reddit on my phone, tried to find the same post on Reddit on my PC so I could link it, saw that you beat me to it and decided to simply jump on your bandwagon by agreeing with you. :p
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...bandwagon jumping approved :D
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Where Are They Now?: The Fate of Suicide Attempt SurvivorsJumping off the Golden Gate suggests these were serious suicidal attempts.
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Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge certainly would be, 'trying' sounds more like a final desperate cry for help. A public place, famous for suicides where you're certain to be noticed. Compared to people who lock themselves in their home and take pills, hang themselves, shoot themselves etc I'd say this is a group that is actually hoping someone will intervene.
 
lionking said:
And yet there are countless people who have recovered from anorexia. Not so many with pancreatic cancer and lung cancer. I think you need to re-think what “terminal” means.
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And in this case it wasn't recoverable.
As I said, it's not always treatable, as the causes are wide ranging.
 
Well that has to be up there for winner of the global media jumping on a story without verification award of the year.
 
abaddon said:
And her parents agreed? WTF?
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As I understand it, no they didn't. Children under 17 need their parents' permission to undergo euthanasia in the Netherlands and she didn't have that. So she waited until she was 17.
 
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