By Karren Brady
Noa Pothoven, a 17-year-old girl so overwhelmed by despair and depression, chose to end her life by refusing food and drinkCredit: Central European News
But perhaps the most shocking part of the story is that, in fact, she died at her parents’ home after they agreed to not force her to eat.
But really, whether she died in a clinic by euthanasia, assisted suicide, or at home by her own hand, what’s the difference? This young woman was so full of despair she decided there was nothing left to live for.
And her parents agreed. She had been trying to die for a long time. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal in the Netherlands.
Noa asked the Levenseinde end-of-life clinic in The Hague two years ago if she could be considered for euthanasia or assisted suicide but they — rightly — refused.
She told De Gelderlander newspaper in December: “They consider that I am too young to die. They think I should finish my trauma treatment and that my brain must first be fully grown.
That lasts until your 21st birthday. It’s broken me, because I can’t wait that long.” No one, surely, could read those words without agreeing that yes, she was too young to die. Right?
Most of us have enough life experience to know that, no matter how bad things are, or seem to be, dark clouds can hang around — but they do shift.
Things change. Hopelessness gives way to hope. And dark often eventually becomes light. But Noa didn’t believe it.
There is no doubt at all that her young life had been incredibly difficult. She’d had extensive treatment for depression and anorexia, and had tried to kill herself several times.
She had been sexually assaulted at the age of 11 and raped at 14. She was so traumatised she didn’t want to live any more and, after repeated hospital stays, decided to stop treatment earlier this year.
In what she referred to as a “sorrowful last post” on Instagram, Noa said she had “stopped eating and drinking for a while now, and after many discussions and evaluations, it has been decided to let me go, because my suffering is unbearable”.
A hospital bed was set up in her parents’ home and last week she refused all food and fluids after her parents and doctors reportedly agreed not to force-feed her.
It is pretty much impossible for most of us to understand quite how desperate, resigned, despairing this woman’s parents must have been to have facilitated their daughter’s voluntary death.
They must all have felt sure that there was no alternative. But it’s also hard to resist the urge to challenge that notion.
There are so many examples of people — from Maya Angelou to Malala Yousafzai to JK Rowling — who have overcome adversity to make a huge success of their lives.
Without diminishing Noa’s suffering, I do know there were things that felt to me like a crisis at 17 that I barely now recall
I know many people who have overcome very difficult, challenging and dark times as teenagers who have gone on to create fulfilling and happy relationships and live rewarding and successful lives.
I think it’s fair to say that, as a teenager, it’s impossible to imagine the future. It’s all too easy to be so mired in the difficulties of the present that you feel you will be stuck there for ever.
Without in any way diminishing Noa’s suffering, I do know there were things that felt to me like a crisis at 17 that I barely now recall.
I would take the view that it’s possible to get over even the most difficult challenges — even if it involves temporary defeat, sometimes total failure, it is how you react that sets your path.
The big question that this story raises is, should we be allowed to choose to die? Ultimately, I think the answer to that is yes, we should. But does anyone know enough about living at the age of 17 to choose to die? I don’t think so.
by Karren Brady
