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The healthy 29-year-old Dutch woman gets permission to end her life in a few weeks
2024-05-16 20:34:35 / BOTA
A Dutch woman who was given permission to end her life by euthanasia despite being a physically healthy 29-year-old has dismissed public backlash and said she will die within weeks.
Zoraya ter Beek, who suffers from depression and borderline personality disorder, received approval for assisted dying last week and expects to soon be 'freed' from her ordeal. But this week she hit back at critics, declaring their protest 'offensive'. "People think that when you're mentally ill, you can't think straight, which is insulting," she told the Guardian.
"I understand the fear that some disabled people have about assisted dying... but in the Netherlands we have had this law for more than 20 years. There are really strict rules and it's really safe.'
Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002 for those experiencing 'unbearable suffering without any prospect of improvement'. Ter Beek decided she wanted to die after a psychiatrist told her 'there is nothing more we can do for you' and that 'it will never get better'.
It is understood that a doctor will give her a sedative before administering a drug that will stop her heart. She previously said she would euthanize herself on the sofa at her home with her boyfriend by her side.
Ter Beek said her crippling depression and anxiety drove her to self-harm and feel suicidal for years, claiming no amount of mental health treatment, which to date has included talk therapy, various medications and even electroconvulsive therapy has not worked to reduce suffering. She has thought about killing herself on many occasions, but resisted after seeing the devastating impact of a schoolmate's violent suicide on her family.
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