This Dutch woman is physically healthy — and choosing euthanasia at 33
Jolanda Fun says death on April 25 is the only way to end her mental pain. But legal assisted dying for psychiatric problems in the Netherlands is troubling some medics
This Dutch woman is physically healthy — and choosing euthanasia at 33
Jolanda Fun says death on April 25 is the only way to end her mental pain. But legal assisted dying for psychiatric problems in the Netherlands is troubling some medics
I really really don’t understand this.
If one is so deyermined, then do it oneself. Don’t rely on other people, because it is the most personal thing one can do.
You might as well live.
if she’s that eager, why not just go to Canada?
I hear their MAID program is quite keen on offing people.
Nominative determinism failure?
She could just try morphine. I’m told it’s quite effective until you come out from under the dose.
THIS is what’s ‘troubling medics’? Presumably not the ones totally untroubled by recommending castration and medical mutilation for other people with mental health issues….
Remember when we used to think doctors were dedicated professionals with high standards of ethics and respect for the sanctity of life? Nowadays I’m beginning to think estate agents are more honourable than doctors. At least estate agents don’t get paid by the government to kill you, or jab you full of dangerous drugs.
But mutilating healthy sex organs – particularly of young children and teens – by pharmacological and surgical interventions doesn’t trouble some medics.
Funny old world.
There are millions of British people, from all ages and walks of life, being treated for serious mental health illnesses including suicidal thoughts.
Imagine encouraging them to kill themselves.
I mean in addition to the vaccinations they already tried to kill us with.
“There are millions of British people, from all ages and walks of life, being treated for serious mental health illnesses including suicidal thoughts.
Imagine encouraging them to kill themselves.”
I imagine that’s what some politicians are doing, imagining the improvement in waiting times for the health service and the associated cost savings
I believe Canada is getting to the 50 people a day mark these days
BniC – I feel very strongly that people who want us dead are our mortal enemies, and we should probably kill them first.
Suicide is so unbelievably wrong a thing to promote it can be staggering to even contemplate the thought processes behind supposed human beings encouraging other humans to die. We’re not in the realm of political debates anymore, it’s just a naked skull grinning at us, and daring us to do something about its leering evil.
I’ve read that almost every single person who has ever jumped regretted it in less than a second. We learned this from the lucky ones, the survivors whose angel was waiting for them on that bridge. The dead can’t tell us how much they regret throwing away their lives. But their wives, children and friends can tell you how the pain, the guilt and the loss never goes away. How one man’s life left a hole in theirs that can never be filled.
Because people matter. They’re not disposable. Every Bloke matters. Every Blokess matters. You are all valuable and we need you. Fuck these “doctors” – anybody who does not agree that human life is precious is not fit to live in human society.
Steve says
anybody who does not agree that human life is precious is not fit to live in human society.
bit of a thought pretzel there
As for Ms Fun, I suppose it’s a woman’s right to choose. But asking the Dutch NHS to pay for her demise seems a bit selfish. Aren’t there any canals in Holland?
It surely seems that ‘primum non nocere’, or whatever is the equivalent these days, is well and truly out the door and down the street on the garbage truck.
Steve’s first comment reminded me of the latest song from the heavy metal band “Liliac”. Its called “Madness”. Been wondering what prompted the remarkable lyrics in folk so young.
A few years ago I saw on BBC a mini-series about that dolls house set in 17thC Amsterdam. The heroine’s husband was executed for sodomy by being chucked into the harbour with a millstone around his neck.
That sounds very effective solution for Ms Fun
I’ve read that almost every single person who has ever jumped regretted it in less than a second. We learned this from the lucky ones, the survivors whose angel was waiting for them on that bridge. The dead can’t tell us how much they regret throwing away their lives.
Typical god botherer bollocks.
But their wives, children and friends can tell you how the pain, the guilt and the loss never goes away. How one man’s life left a hole in theirs that can never be filled.
And the selfishness of the typical god botherer. For as always, it is all about ME!.
As for other comments: if there’s there’s evidence that people are being talked into suicide, lets hear it. But there doesn’t seem to be any. Just people exercising their free will & choice over their own destiny.
Philip – bit of a thought pretzel there
How so?
Should we include cannibals, stabby midgets who live in the canals of Venice or the French in our society?
What’s the point of society, if not to live like men instead of beasts? Men help each other out.
You just call on me, brother
When you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on.
Dr K.A. Rodgers – it frightens me to see so many of our young people struggling with mental health.
No, they’re not snowflakes. They’re in pain.
I have never had anything but compassion and kindness from NHS mental health professionals. These people are often scorchingly left wing, but they’re good people. They care.
When I told them about the times I was thinking about killing myself, they didn’t try to talk me into doing it. They helped me understand what a fucking idiot I am, but in a nice way.
Mental health is no joke. If you, dear reader, have always felt that your mind was a friend to you, you are luckier than you know. Your skull can be an iron prison of torment. People who suffer mental illness suffer. It’s worse than being stabbed.
They – I – you – deserve kindness and consideration. We are all human beings, we all suffer, and we all deserve to be loved and held in our moments of doubt and pain. Deserve, because we all matter to our friends, our colleagues, and our loved ones. Encouragement, a kind word, can mean the world to someone. You never know what kind of day the other fellow has just had.
Killing yourself is a permanent “solution” to a temporary emotion. If you love someone, you want them to live. Why don’t we love one another enough, that when we see that foolish chap with the thousand yard stare in his eyes hanging around the side of a road bridge, that we’d ask him to stop? Offer him an arm around his shoulder, and a nice hot English cup of tea? I think we do. I think these creepy death laws are promoted by the baddies from a CS Lewis novel.
Because normalising euthanasia is the opposite of all that, isn’t it? It’s saying, heh, maybe you really are a worthless piece of shit who should kill yourself. Go on, top yourself. Fuck me, is that what we think?
No. We’re better than that.
No no Steve you misunderstand me, at least.
My attitude is : if you want to kill yourself then get on with it. Don’t demand that the State, health service, parents whoever help you. Have the courage to do it yoyrself and don’t make other people party to your personal tragedy.
And to this end I believe that euthanasia is wrong and wicked.
After my missus died, I fell into a massive, black depression that took me a long time to crawl out of and exhausted me so much that my health eventually collapsed soon after.
Never once did I think about ending it. Cowardice ? Rising to a challenge ? Don’t know, don’t care. Didn’t do it because I didn’t want to. And if Ms Fun is making such a fuss, she obviously doesn’t really want to either.
Appreciate you sharing that Steve, while we roll our eyes at some of the modern wokeness the opening up of conversation about mental health is one of the definite improvements in recent times.
Men especially don’t talk about it enough (and are the vast majority of suicides) and better men’s mental health is increasingly being overlooked these days.
I’ve had my low moments and dangerous thoughts, what you don’t need is someone telling you it’s an option, I’ve also helped others who came close to making that decision, taken someone to hospital who instantly regretted the decision (and survived) and lost people. Ending your life is not the answer.
A friends husband who had terminal stomach cancer took this option and that I can understand having had relatives go through cancer, but mental health issues should be off the table. The problem is the rights activists and the slippery slope, once you allow for one group then everyone has the right, if that means we have to withdraw the right for cases we can understand then sadly that’s a price I’d support paying.
“if there’s there’s evidence that people are being talked into suicide, lets hear it.”
Google is your friend, there’s one particularly chilling one about a disabled Canadian veteran who complained about needing a ramp repaired and that she was depressed at having limited access and was asked if she had considered MAID, this was someone who after becoming disabled went on to be a medal winning Paralympian so not exactly a quitter.
I’m not saying people are being actively talked into it that don’t want it, but if you are in the wrong frame of mind even having someone tell you it’s an option is too far, it’s as good as talking someone into it.
@Steve – “Your skull can be an iron prison of torment. People who suffer mental illness suffer. It’s worse than being stabbed”
Yes, but if there is nothing we can do to bring them relief, and it continues to be so severe, why should we do things like locking them up to prevent them killing themselves and finding a way out of it? Is that not great cruelty? It’s fine to make someone pause and consider if that’s what they really want, and give them a chance to see if it gets better (and, of course, try to make it better through appropriate interventions), but in the end the decision is one that each individual must make for themselves.
– “that we’d ask him to stop?”
That would be a bit presumptious, to assume that my opinion was important enough that he should take it into account. I’d be more inclined to ask him what he has planned, how he expects it to work out, and why he feels this is the best course of action. I don’t normally go around with tea-making facilities, but I’m led to believe that pizza companies can be persuaded to deliver to arbitrary locations (because you have already paid, so they’re not afraid of being cheated)
– “Because normalising euthanasia is the opposite of all that, isn’t it?”
That depends on the form it takes. Certainly not in the case of assisted suicide, which is based on the position that a person should determine their own course of action. And as for considering someone to be worthless, that’s a dangerous line. The person worth most to me could be the person I am most ruthlessly exploiting, The only worth that should be counted is that which is valued by the person themselves.
BiS- if being on the side of “don’t kill yourself” is Typical god botherer bollocks I am proud to be an irritant to the Increate, although I fear you have a false picture of me.
I am no thaumaturge, never mind an epopt. I am a humble fool for Christ. If I talk to you about religion, it’s usually because you’ve brought up religion. Therefore I assume you want to talk about religion. My own thoughts on the matter are heterodox and no doubt fall far short of anything you can glean from Umberto Eco’s The Rose.
I know you have a staunchly anti-Xtian viewpoint, but you yourself must be, at some level, still a good Anglican boy? You can take the boy out of the cub scouts, but he’ll always be a cub scout.
No, I’m afraid that you, Bloke in Spain, have been claimed by Christ. It happened when you were baptised. That mark is indelible. One of us! Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!
BniC – thank you for sharing your experiences, and God bless you for being there. I agree. It’s better to talk about this stuff.
I’ve heard good things about Andy’s Man Clubs but I’ve just never (yet) found the time to go to one. (I am also an unpaid taxi driver for children). Even though I am not an Andy, I am a man, so I’m cool with talking frankly about mental health with other blokes. Talking helps. You can be honest with strangers, sometimes, in ways it’s harder to be with your own family.
And, Tim’s small platoons. Little groups of us, dotted all over the place, can make a big difference.
Charles – Yes, but if there is nothing we can do to bring them relief, and it continues to be so severe, why should we do things like locking them up to prevent them killing themselves and finding a way out of it?
Mental health can always be treated with drugs. Often it’s a case of trial and error of finding the right combination and dosage, but modern pharmaceuticals are a miracle for treating mental distress.
And it’s distress, shock, a type of injury to the psyche. Not a valid lifestyle choice. Being suicidal is a symptom. Treat the symptom. Stabilise the patient, so they can make better decisions about their mental health.
That would be a bit presumptious, to assume that my opinion was important enough that he should take it into account. I’d be more inclined to ask him what he has planned, how he expects it to work out, and why he feels this is the best course of action. I don’t normally go around with tea-making facilities
This is suspiciously un-English of you.
Not only do I have a tartan Thermos of tea in the glovebox, I also have Alan Partridge driving gloves and fancy myself Patrick McGoohan from The Prisoner when I’m rakishly doing 80 on the motorway.
And I’d always look to help out another chap in distress. It’s the English way. Just as I’d never skip a queue, or have red wine with fish. And yes, I played rugby at school.
The only worth that should be counted is that which is valued by the person themselves.
While philosophically interesting, this is a completely unhelpful thing to say to someone who’s temporarily unhinged enough to jump off the top of a multistorey car park and turn himself into a meat splatter on the pavement.
We are not Randian beep-boop Objectivist caricatures motivated by rationality and occasional rape of the authoress stand-in. We are frail human beans who sometimes suffer mental injuries that need to be treated as injuries, just the same way as you wouldn’t try to rationalise whether a guy with a broken leg with bone sticking through the skin really needs an ambulance or not. (He SAID ’tis but a flesh wound’…)
Otto – this may sound strange coming from Some Internet Guy, but I am genuinely grateful that you didn’t succumb to the Swamp of Sadness and that you are here.
You are a strong man to have suffered as you did, and came through the other side. And your grief for her does your love credit. Grief is love’s mirror.
That’s sort of my point, I spose.
I’d give you all man hugs if I could. Life is precious. I’m glad you pendants are around to share it. Glad I’m here too.
But it sort of feels like in t’modern world our lords and mistresses would rather subject us to conditions that are inimical to life. A leonine problem, to be sure.
Thanks for the thoughtful insights.
By some quirk of the news agenda this also featured on Jerry Coyne’s blog with a similar spectrum of opinions and thoughts, which may be of interest to readers here (plus he’s a good read generally)
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/04/14/is-assisted-dying-moral-for-patients-with-severe-deblilitating-and-incurable-mental-illness/
Ms Fun’s claimed personality disorder is irrelevant. What is relevant is her asking another party to kill her… State, or Dr.
Cowardice, pure and simple.
Some write about specialness or sanctity of human life. Myth. A lie.
This idea was blown out of the water thousands of years ago.
Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Chechnya,
Balkans, Australia and US treatment of first nations people.
Japan in China. Nazis.
Neonazis.
The list goes on.
There is no sanctity of ANY life.
Fun can go jump. Plenty of water in NL.
Thank you Steve! Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Naomi Wolf made a point that resonated: that when society excludes the covenant with God, a space is created for evil to enter, violence(Baal), destruction of children(Moloch), sex confined from love and reproduction(Ishtar) ie the Babylonian gods. In exchange for commitment to a simple set of rules is protection(Do not fear!)
Plenty of water in NL…..
Yup… And we very much like to not find random bodies in it. Makes a mess and upsets the birds.
Or have people splatter where they might well hit someone else.
Or…
Peeps may not like it, but it’s possible here, there’s protocols in place to prevent abuse, and it makes far less of a mess.
And with 17 million people about, you can bet on one of them making use of the option while getting her “5 minutes”.
Equally predicatble is a foreign newspaper jumping on the opportunity to oooohh-aaah and proselytise.
The local dutch rags don’t touch these stories. They’ve Learned…
The only thing that I can see lacking in all of these comments is ‘egoism’ and trying to be opinionated, not even a single compassionate comment about the mental pain of this poor woman and why/how she endded up being here. That is what I call societal tyranny.
Just to comment on some of the remarks already posted.
Eligibility for MAID in Canada for persons suffering solely from a mental illness has been delayed until March 17, 2027.
Some people have tried and failed to attempt suicide on their own. Living through a suicide attempt is way more horrible than the attempt itself. Some people just want to die in peace and with no pain and just fade off. They also do not want to further traumatize their family and friends finding them. They want to die with a little bit of dignity and possibly control. Things they probably haven’t had all their lives. They have had enough pain in their lives and due to mental illness are tired of feeling like they are causing others pain too.
Witnessing loved ones dying by medically induced means, is easier to accept mentally then knowing they died a painful, horrible death. Finding them from a traumatic event will never leave your memory and will traumatize you the rest of your life.
At least when it is medically induced, you can say what you need to and the grieving can be easier.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html
A simple guy – not even a single compassionate comment about the mental pain of this poor woman and why/how she endded up being here
Apart from all the people saying please don’t kill yourself, you matter, mental health can and should be treated, etc. But she didn’t get a personalised card tbf. I doubt she’s a regular reader of Tim’s blog in any event.
From Canada – At least when it is medically induced, you can say what you need to and the grieving can be easier.
Why the long face, Billy? At least a trained doctor killed your Dad.
Ljh – At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the next Health Secretary is Moloch.
Ljh – At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the next Health Secretary is Moloch.
It’s very likely to be Wes Streeting, which is a close second.
How’s the Netherlands doing in the spare part business, noting that young adult is prime cut.
https://x.com/ClareCraigPath/status/1670759096042110978
A look at organ transplant and state administered death in Canada
To the “just kill yourself” crowd. Where and how? If you just kill yourself you’ll always be a burden on the poor people who have to find and clean up after you.
When I choose all I want is access to a pill at a time and place where it’s understood by all involved that it’s my choice and if I go in, I wont be coming out alive. I don’t mind paying a sensible fee for that. I dont mind if the floor falls away into the crematorium. I want to get my affairs in order and go. Having seen people I care about die extended deaths in pain, fear and misery, having seen long term depression and the toxic affect it has on everyone around them, I understand and I want access to it. Personally I think 50 should be the cutoff age for eligibility but clearly some people are just done before that.
After several “cries for help” attempts, my older brother killed himself at 40. He had a high IQ which made him very effective at engaging and then hurting every single person who cared or tried to help him. His relatively new partner, who had no idea how bad things were, woke up next to a shit covered corpse.
These stories keep popping up in the news and the suiciders are always the unemployed. I feel like this preparing everyone for the eventual headline “AI taken your job? The right step is your immediate death! Please contact your local government today.” LOL
Tim, with all due respect (which is none at all), you are a sick person. Lacking of empathy, and kindness. Go f uself.
Fuck off with your judgement
Some of the contributions have been very good. However, for others to so readily dismiss the pain and suffering of those with mental health anguish, is very saddening.
To suggest that if someone wants to die, that they should throw themselves in a canal and not incur extra National Health Service expense, is quite inhumane.
Jolanda Fun, appears let down by her country’s mental health system, and perhaps with better help she could have overcome her difficulties enough to lead a happier more fulfilling life. However, this is the healthcare system that she has access to, and that seemingly inadequate provision is not going to change anytime soon. So should she be left in a mental state that is causing her immense pain, and probably won’t get rectified?
Having had to euthanise a few pets, I was struck by how different vets’ attitudes are to pain and suffering.
When I was studying psychology, I came across a quote by one of the early psychoanalysts. He had treated a woman for years without curing her. He went to her funeral and was struck by the fact that she looked more peaceful in death, than she had ever done in life. It’s a sad thing for that woman and every other person for whom this is true, but sometimes the kindest thing is to allow someone to die if they cannot be cured. And for those of you who think it’s better that these people top themselves without bothering the taxpayer, have some compassion and let’s hope you personally never have to experience what they have gone through.
Tim you are a small callous dick.