Healthy Woman Will Die By Doctor-Assisted Euthanasia Over Suicidal Thoughts

Known only as Laura, a 24-year-old woman is planning on dying this summer via euthanasia. Unlike many cases before, Laura is not sick with cancer or dying. She simply has had suicidal thoughts since childhood and claims, “Life, that’s not for me.”

In a related report by the Inquisitr, a different woman named Christy O’Donnell believes she should have the right to die via euthanasia, but currently California law does not support assisted suicide. Stephen Hawking also famously stated that he is considering assisted suicide.

Laura lives in Belguim and when a writer from De Morgen visited her she appeared as a “calm, deliberate, confident young woman.” This apparently made the interview quite surreal, since she was planning her own death. She claims that her “inner trouble never stops” and she has been having suicidal thoughts since kindergarten.

“When I was six, I was once in a room full of friends where guns were located. I remember I was able to hold one and was given directions. ‘It allows me to meet my end,’ I thought. ‘So it may be easy.’ I thought then the guns were not loaded, but later I learned that it was. If I had known this at that time, I might have pulled the trigger. I can easily imagine.”

The young woman says her parents’ pregnancy was unplanned. Her father apparently “drank too much,” and eventually her mother moved away since the situation at home was dangerous. From then on her grandparents became her parental figures who provided “security, peace, and structure.” She had other issues during her childhood, but she claims she has been fantasizing about suicide for years.

“Even though my childhood certainly contributed to my suffering, I am convinced that I had had this death wish even though I grew up with a quiet, stable family,” Laura says. “I just never wanted to live. It is not for me.”

Due to these issues, she began seeking treatment in a psychiatric institution over the last three years. Laura says she first began considering euthanasia when she became friends with another woman named Sarah, who also ended her life about a year and a half ago. Now, Laura is also a candidate for euthanasia for psychological reasons, which is when a patient is in mental pain and wants to die.

According to io9, “Belgian law requires at least two doctors to be consulted before euthanasia is granted,” and when it comes to psychological cases “three doctors must consult. There is also a long waiting period when the patient is under medical supervision before the suicide is allowed to proceed.” Laura recalls hows she had to “justify” her suffering to the three different doctors, but she says talking about euthanasia came to her easily.

Although doctors apparently gave Laura the green light, she believes she never really had a choice.

“Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful. I played all my life with these thoughts of suicide, I have also done a few attempts. But then there is someone who needs me, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. That has always stopped me.”

Laura admits she hates how her grandparents will lose their grandchild, and she believes her mother will take her death the worst. She says she knows how crazy it sounds, but she also thinks it has been “fun” to plan her own death and burial. But in those final moments before the doctor-assisted suicide happens, she is not sure what she wants yet.

“What I’m going to say on that last moment, I do not know yet. I have extensively written ideas in letters to my friends. I think everything has already been appointed. Maybe I will finally figure it out with these words, ‘Those who are about to die salute you.”

Do you think it is right to allow euthanasia for a woman who suffers from suicidal thoughts? What do you think about physician-assisted suicide?

[Image via Medical News Today]

The name of Laura is fictitious in order to protect the woman’s identity. The original interview was translated by Google Translate and the Inquisitr.