A 17-year-old Dutch girl died on June 2, 2019, through legal euthanasia in her home in the Netherlands.
Noa Pothoven, as a young child, was raped and said she no longer wanted to live. Pothoven died in her living room in a hospital bed with the assistance of an end-of-life clinic.
Pothoven was granted permission for euthanasia. The teenager said she no longer wanted to live after she was raped on three occasions starting when she was 11 years old.
Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands under the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act.
Under the Act, Euthanasia needs to be approved by a medical professional, and an expert must conclude that the suffering of the patient is unbearable, and there is no hope of improvement. Children as young as 12 can be granted euthanasia if they desire.
The day before she died, Pothaven wrote on her Instagram about her decision to end her life. She said:
I have deliberated for a long time whether I should tell you this, and have decided I should.
It may come to a surprise to some people, but I have planned to do this for a very long time, and I am not doing this on impulse.
Pothoven said that she would not beat around the bush adding:
In about ten days, I will kill myself. After many years of fighting and battling, I am now drained. I have stopped drinking and eating for a while, and after several evaluations and discussions, it has been agreed that I can do this because of my suffering is now unbearable.
Continuing she said that even though she was alive, she only felt as if she was surviving. Furthermore, she wrote that she breathes, but no longer has the desire to live.
Pothoven ended by saying people should not convince her not to do this, and she and finally made her decision. She told everybody that in this case, love is letting her go.
Pothoven wrote an autobiography about her life entitled “Winning or Learning,” discussing her mental illness and battles with anorexia after being raped as a child.
Written by Barbara Sobel
Sources:
Daily Mail: Dutch girl, 17, who was sexually abused at 11 and raped as a 14-year-old is legally euthanised at her home by ‘end-of-life’ clinic because she felt her life was unbearable due to depression
Inside Edition: Noa Pothoven 17, Chooses to End Her Life Through Assisted Suicide: ‘Love Is Letting Go’
Highly Cited: Noa Pothoven of Arnhem in the Netherlands is legally euthanised
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Instagram – Creative Commons License
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4 Responses
If you’ve never had to live through this type of abuse then no one has the right to question her decision. I know it was done to me as a child and I was sold to men. I only remember bits of things and fortunately for me I have no memory of the worse things or from before I was in 6th grade. I’ve blocked everything to protect myself from a probable mental collapse. Even with prompting, I cannot remember even non harmful events during that time. Family members have told me how they would pick up me and my brothers from numerous states where we were left with strange men and my mother was no where to be found.
I do remember my mother hitting me when I tried to break up a fight between my brothers when I was about 12 and that brought back some memories of her beating me and she then admitted to doing it a lot but wouldn’t confirm other things I’d remembered.
Basically don’t judge anyone in this situation. You don’t understand how this type of abuse destroys your life even if you don’t remember everything or know why you have issues with intimacy, trust, hugging people, people touching you, etc.
I hope she finds the peace and happiness she so desperately desired here where she is now ❤️
Sexual abuse of children ruins lives. Not all recover. While it is very sad that she felt she couldn’t go on, don’t judge this girl.
How awful, I wonder whether she got the right sort of help in the first place. So now, will her rapist be charged with murder?
Although I do understand that her life was difficult, she was too young and could have overcome. I think someday she would have found real love and let her past go. This was a sad loss of life.