Details of these specific cases were sourced from available government reports and peer-reviewed journals around the world. The findings were published in the esteemed journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Out of the confirmed cases relating in some way to eating disorders, 19 included specific details about the patients, all women, and included case information used to justify their state-assisted deaths; 32% were aged under 30, while 37% were aged between 30 and 50, and 61% were said to have anorexia, while the rest had other confirmed eating disorders.
Mental illness was also widely reported among the descriptive cases, including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and some patients had some form of autism or personality disorder.
In nations where assisted suicide requires a terminal diagnosis, such as in certain U.S. states, the definition of “terminal” appears to have been redefined to include eating disorders and not just irreversible illnesses that will inevitably kill the patient.
The study concluded that its findings “underscore considerable gaps in the reporting of assisted death in patients with psychiatric conditions, posing substantial concerns about oversight and public safety”.
It also warned that: “[Assisted suicide] risks diverting attention and resources away from what patients with EDs need the most: consistent, responsive, and effective treatment to help them recover and lead meaningful lives.”
Psychiatrist and bioethicist Scott Kim previously warned that “eligibility criteria in psychiatric euthanasia depends much more on doctors’ opinions’”, and terminal anorexia is “not a scientific criteria”.
Young Victims Abandoned By The State
Daniel Frampton, SPUC’s Editorial Officer, said: “Esther Beukema was aged just 33 when, struggling with anorexia, she was euthanised by a nurse in the Netherlands where assisted suicide and euthanasia are also legal in psychiatric cases.
“This timely study shows that this tragic case is far from isolated and is likely to become more of a trend as the cold ethic of assisted suicide embeds itself as a ‘solution’ to ‘problem’ conditions like Esther’s anorexia.
“The underreporting of such cases, not least the unwillingness of state apparatus to record the reality of assisted suicide, is profoundly worrying and even sinister. There are already suggestions that such laws are championed assisted suicide because he believes it saves taxpayer money rather than policies motivated by compassion.
“At a time when the UK is “profound threat”, the public must be made aware of the mortal threat inherent in such laws that can only kill and not save or improve vulnerable lives. In the end, assisted suicide and euthanasia are not medicine or a loving response to people who need help and effective treatment.”
