A 28-year-old Dutch woman diagnosed with “depression, autism and borderline personality disorder” is poised to die in May by euthanasia, or assisted suicide, after her psychiatrist said her condition will never take a turn for the better.

Notwithstanding the fact that she is physically healthy and fearful of dying, The Free Press reported that Zoraya ter Beek, the woman in question, plans to end her life out of despair.

Notably, Zoraya said that her psychiatrist told her that “there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.” According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) believed to be Zoraya’s, she posted:

“Yes, my psychiatrist has been honest that all treatments are done. Conclusion: It is what it is!”

After her psychiatrist’s purported admission, Zoraya told The Free Press that she decided to end her life.

What is disturbing is that the healthcare regime in their country, namely, the Netherlands, has suggested, namely, assisted suicide at the hands of a doctor, as a means of escape.

“I was always very clear that if it doesn’t get better, I can’t do this anymore,” she said.

Strikingly, Zoraya has a tattoo of a “tree of life” on her upper left arm, but “in reverse.”

“Where the tree of life stands for growth and new beginnings,” she acknowledged, “my tree is the opposite. It is losing its leaves, it is dying. And once the tree died, the bird flew out of it. I don’t see it as my soul leaving, but more as myself being freed from life.”

“I’m a little afraid of dying, because it’s the ultimate unknown. We don’t really know what’s next – or is there nothing? That’s the scary part,” she added.

After her death, a euthanasia review committee will assess Zoraya’s death to ensure the doctor adhered to “due care criteria”, while the Dutch government will announce that her life was lawfully ended.

Unfortunately, Zoraya is not alone in her decision to be euthanized.

Another Dutch woman, Jolanda Fun, opted to die by assisted suicide in the last week of April this year.

During a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Fun conceded that she regularly feels “‘sad, down, gloomy” after getting diagnosed with several mental health problems at 22 and undergoing many therapies. Her mental health severely affected her ability to hold a job. After a counselor suggested that she could be euthanized, Fun thought it was a viable way out of her suffering.

“I want to step out of life”, she admitted.

Undeniably, both Zoraya and Fun have had challenging lives, particularly with debilitating mental health conditions like recurring depression and autism.

It is vital that those experiencing what Zoraya and Fun have do not feel isolated from the rest of the world and uncared for. However, what is disturbing is that the healthcare regime in their country, namely, the Netherlands, has suggested, namely, assisted suicide at the hands of a doctor, as a means of escape. Even worse still, suicide is presented, under  the guise of compassion, as a default governmental service to people with mental illnesses like the aforementioned two women.

The stark reality is that recent times have seen even euthanasia advocates have slowly began to champion assisted suicide on pragmatism grounds.

Writer Matthew Parris argued in favor of euthanasia, stating that the elderly and sick should ask themselves how much their healthcare expenses are “costing relatives and the health service”.

In his viral Times article headlined: “We can’t afford a taboo on assisted dying,” writer Matthew Parris argued in favor of euthanasia, stating that the elderly and sick should ask themselves how much their healthcare expenses are “costing relatives and the health service”. Thus, according to Parris, old and sick people have an “obligation” to consider the notion of euthanasia as a means to ease the burden on relatives and the healthcare system.

The Free Press cited Protestant Theological University healthcare ethics professor Theo Boerin, who served on a euthanasia review board in the Netherlands from 2005 until 2014. During this stint, Boerin said that he noticed Dutch euthanasia “evolve from death being a last resort to death being a default option.”

Similarly, 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.” Adding, Groenewoud said:

“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.”

Based on a Kingston University London study published in June 2023, the Netherlands has widened the scope of people who are “eligible” for euthanasia to include individuals with autism, intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses.

Lead researcher Irene Tuffrey-Wijne, a member of Kingston University's Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education, along with her team of researchers, evaluated documents related to 900 legal euthanasia cases published by the Dutch government’s euthanasia review committees.

The study disclosed that almost 60,000 individuals received approval for euthanasia or assisted suicide at their request from 2012 to 2021. 42 percent of the reviewed cases depicted that intellectual disability, autism or a mix of both conditions were a major contributing factor, while 21 percent singled these mental health issues as the only reasons for their suffering.

Canada, which has some of the world’s most liberal euthanasia laws, now permits the murder of babies and infants under the auspices of its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.

Tuffrey-Wijne also challenged the notion of normalizing euthanasia.

“There’s no doubt in my mind these people were suffering,” she said. “But is society really okay with sending this message, that there’s no other way to help them and it’s just better to be dead?”

 In 2010, only two people in the Netherlands opted for euthanasia on mental health grounds. In 2019, the figure rose to 68. In 2023, 138 chose euthanasia as an option to escape mental health struggles.

The Netherlands is not the only country to legalize euthanasia. Currently, at least eight countries have legalized it. Assisted suicide is also legal in 10 US states and Washington, D.C., as well as in all six states in Australia.

Canada, which has some of the world’s most liberal euthanasia laws, now permits the murder of babies and infants under the auspices of its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.

To add fuel to the fire, not all forms of euthanasia necessarily involve the consent of the person to be euthanized.

In 2014, Belgium became the first country to permit voluntary child euthanasia if children are terminally ill and if they have parental consent. At that time, Brussels Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, decried the law:

“The law says adolescents cannot make important decisions on economic or emotional issues, but suddenly they've become able to decide that someone should make them die.”

Besides, on February 1 this year, a Dutch law enabling the killing of terminally ill children ages one to 12 who are regarded to be “suffering hopelessly and unbearably” went into effect. This move came after Dutch lawmakers passed a contentious expansion of the eligibility guidelines for euthanasia to include children of all ages in 2023.

Sadly, the support that euthanasia advocates give to assisted suicide for the aged and infirm is both an explicit and implicit denial of the truth of the Catholic Faith that teaches that every human live is a “gift of God's love, which they are called upon to preserve and make fruitful”.

Even in the Vatican 2 Constitution, Gaudium et spes, euthanasia was included among  the list of “infamies” that are “opposed to life itself.”

In his encyclical Mater et Magistra, Pope John XXIII highlighted:

 “Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact. From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God.”

In another encyclical Pacem in terris, the same Pope, declared the right of all human beings to live as a right that “involves the duty to preserve one's life.”

Even in the Vatican 2 Constitution, Gaudium et spes, euthanasia was included among  the list of “infamies” that are “opposed to life itself”:

“Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed .”

Likewise, in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II bemoaned that euthanasia, “disguised and surreptitious, or practiced openly and even legally,” was becoming more prevalent

“Euthanasia is sometimes justified by the utilitarian motive of avoiding costs which bring no return and which weigh heavily on society,” the pontiff wrote.

Hence, on utilitarian grounds, “it is proposed to eliminate malformed babies, the severely handicapped, the disabled, the elderly, especially when they are not self-sufficient, and the terminally ill,” the pontiff lamented.

Furthermore, even the contentious Dignitatis Infinita, caution against euthanasia as one serious breach of human dignity.

The document pointed out that “there is a widespread notion that euthanasia or assisted suicide is somehow consistent with respect for the dignity of the human person.”

Nonetheless, the document contended that “it must be strongly reiterated that suffering does not cause the sick to lose their dignity, which is intrinsically and inalienably their own. Instead, suffering can become an opportunity to strengthen the bonds of mutual belonging and gain greater awareness of the precious value of each person to the whole human family.”

Fortunately, groups like Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), America’s Live Action, and even individuals like Angelina Ireland, president of Delta Hospice Society in Delta, British Columbia, have been vocal in combating pro-euthanasia efforts.

Fortunately, groups like Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), America’s Live Action, and even individuals like Angelina Ireland, president of Delta Hospice Society in Delta, British Columbia, have been vocal in combating pro-euthanasia efforts.

For instance, during an interview with the Catholic News Agency, Ireland explained her motives to participate in the making of the film, “The Story of Euthanasia”.

Notably, Delta Hospice recently lost a $1.5 million contract with the government owing to its refusal to participate in Canada’s MAiD regime.

“We refused to participate [in MAiD] because we’re a palliative care organization, and palliative care does nothing to hasten death,” she posited. “We take care of people. Palliative care is from diagnosis to natural end. So we refuse to start killing our patients in the hospice.”

Nonetheless, Ireland admitted that “there’s very little room at all for dissent around this medical regime.”

“MAiD is very predatory. It’s going after sick, vulnerable, aged people. All we can do now is create awareness of what’s happening to us,” she said, adding, “I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I’m sitting on the other side of the aisle as a person who has been particularly vulnerable to this medical regime.”

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