Former sex victim allowed to end her life by euthanasia

She suffered from severe anorexia, chronic depression and suicidal mood swings

Doctors in the Netherlands allowed a former victim of child sex abuse to end her life because she could not live with her mental suffering.

The woman, who was in her twenties, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder that was resistant to treatment after being sexually abused for more than 10 years, as Daily Mail reports.

According to the papers released by the Dutch Euthanasia Commission, she was abused between the ages of five and 15 and the woman was given a lethal injection after doctors decided that her post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions were incurable.

The papers said that the woman suffered from severe anorexia, chronic depression and suicidal mood swings, tendencies to self-harm, hallucinations, obsessions and compulsions.

She also had physical difficulties and was almost entirely bedridden. Her psychiatrist said ‘there was no prospect or hope for her. The patient experienced her suffering as unbearable’.

However, the consultants said that despite her ‘intolerable’ physical and mental suffering, chronic depression and mood swings, she was entirely competent to make the decision to take her own life.

The patient, they said, was ‘totally competent’ and there was ‘no major depression or other mood disorder which affected her thinking’. A final GP’s report approved the ‘termination of life’ order and the woman was killed by an injection of lethal drugs, the report said.

Nikki Kenward, member of the disability rights group Distant Voices, said: ‘It is both horrifying and worrying that mental health professionals could regard euthanasia in any form as an answer to the complex and deep wounds that result from sexual abuse.’