A physically healthy 29-year-old Dutch woman ended her life through assisted suicide due to crippling depression and other issues.
According to multiple outlets, officials in the Netherlands gave Zoraya ter Beek, 29, final approval to die by assisted suicide on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering. Ter Beek first applied for euthanasia in 2020.
Ter Beek reportedly died last week.
Physically healthy Dutch woman Zoraya ter Beek, 29, dies by assisted suicide https://t.co/fhOvEQ4hBE pic.twitter.com/WVQeWEPFXo
— New York Post (@nypost) June 2, 2024
As Townhall previously reported, Ter Beek previously aspired to be a psychiatrist, but “was never able to muster the will to finish school or start a career,” she explained in an interview with The Free Press. She suffered from depression, as well as autism and borderline personality disorder.
At one point, a mental health professional reportedly told Ter Beek, “There’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.”
At the time, Stef Groenewoud, a healthcare ethicist at Theological University Kampen, in the Netherlands, told The Free Press, “I’m seeing euthanasia as some sort of acceptable option brought to the table by physicians, by psychiatrists, when previously it was the ultimate last resort.”
“I see the phenomenon especially in people with psychiatric diseases, and especially young people with psychiatric disorders, where the healthcare professional seems to give up on them more easily than before,” Groenewoud added.
Theo Boer, a healthcare ethics professor at Protestant Theological University in Groningen, told the outlet that he served on a euthanasia review board in the Netherlands for ten years before resigning.
“I entered the review committee in 2005, and I was there until 2014,” Boer told the outlet. “In those years, I saw the Dutch euthanasia practice evolve from death being a last resort to death being a default option.”