Brussels: Doctors in Belgium have given the green signal to a medically depressed woman to end her own life. The otherwise healthy woman has qualified for euthanasia under Belgian law, even though she is not terminally ill.
Known as the name of Laura, she qualifies to receive a lethal injection which will end her life. She said she was convinced that she had to die since her childhood claiming ‘life, that’s not for me’.
She has been the patient of a psychiatric institution since the age of 21, and has already tried to take her life on several occasions.
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”, she was quoted as saying to a newspaper.
Belgium’s euthanasia laws were passed in 2002 which allow people to take their life with the help of a physician if they suffer from intractable and unbearable pain. There were 1,807 recorded deaths by euthanasia in the country in 2013, with over half of the patients aged 70 or higher.
