Belgian woman euthanized because of severe depression

A 24-year-old woman in Belgium has been approved for euthanasia due to severe depression.

According to Nieuwsblad, Elien Vervaet said her fear of never being successful in theatre led to her depression; six years ago, she went to take a drama course, for which the entrance exam was too difficult. “A year later I played in a play by Theater Antigone. That’s where I felt how much I would like to do that,” she said. “But the realization that I could never do it as a job made me very unhappy. And that feeling has remained.”

Three years into her depression, she applied for euthanasia. It was approved this year by two psychiatrists and a doctor from Vonkel. “Since then I’ve been saying goodbye,” she said. “For many people that is strange: I will never see them again. That remains a strange thought, but it doesn’t scare me off.”

Vervaet was euthanized in July.

Her story is far from rare; another young woman was euthanized last year, after suffering PTSD following an ISIS terrorist attack. She also had been sexually assaulted, and had made two prior suicide attempts. “This is a deeply tragic case of a young woman who has suffered so much, and it is beyond belief that she was given a lethal injection to deal with this trauma rather than the further psychological support that she clearly needed,” Right To Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson said.

Since euthanasia was legalized in 2002, over 27,000 people have been killed in Belgium. And the number continues to rise; in 2022, euthanasia deaths rose by nearly 10%, and accounted for 2.5% of all deaths in Belgium.

Robinson previously said that cases like these send a grim message. “That death is the only way out,” she said. “This is a deeply tragic view of life and suffering and it actively encourages this sort of thinking in people who are suffering the most.”