17-Year-Old Netherlands Girl Legally Euthanized, Says Being Molested as a Child Made Her Life ‘Insufferable’ *UPDATED*

Update: The Dutch teenager was not euthanized; she died after refusing all fluids and food at home, according to Politico. eu:

It was a story too horrible to be true: A 17-year-old victim of sexual assault had been euthanized in the Netherlands.

And indeed, it wasn’t true. Noa Pothoven, a sufferer of anorexia and other mental illnesses, had previously sought euthanasia at a clinic without telling her parents — but she had been refused.

The teenager died at the weekend, several days after she began to refuse all fluids and foods. Her parents and doctors agreed not to force feed her or compel her into treatment against her will.

A depressed seventeen year old Netherlands girl was legally euthanized last Sunday with the help of an end of life clinic.

The girl, Noa Pothoven, had battled with depression after being molested as a young child.

The day before the Dutch teenager from Arnhem was euthanized she posted to Instagram saying that she “is still breathing, but no longer alive.”

“I get straight to the point: within a maximum of 10 days I will die. After years of fighting and fighting it is finished. I have now stopped eating and drinking for a while, and after many conversations and reviews it has been decided that I will be released because my suffering is unbearable. It’s finished. I have not really been alive for so long, I survive, and not even that,” Pothoven wrote.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByFCWXGolSv/?utm_source=ig_embed

She asked that her friends and followers “not convince me that this is not good, this is my decision and it is final,” and said that “love is letting go.”

Prior to her death, Pothoven had authored a memoir titled Winning or Learning, in which she discussed battling anorexia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder over the rape and molestation she endured as a child.

In the Netherlands, children as young as twelve can opt for euthanasia if a doctor determines that their pain is “unbearable,” News.co.au reports.

Euthanasia is also legal in parts of the US, including California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Jersey (beginning August 1), Washington, Hawaii and Washington, DC.

A 2017 Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans are in favor of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

 

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