While euthanasia is debated in the world, a doctor and two psychiatrists have just given their authorization for a 50-year-old woman, Nathalie Huygens, to be euthanized in Belgium. She is said to be suffering from unbearable psychological suffering after being the victim of a rape in 2016.
Even if in France euthanasia is still not authorized, some countries in Europe have made it legal. This has been the case with Spain since 2021 or even Belgium and the Netherlands for more than twenty years. Even if the end of life debate is still topical in our country, it is in Belgium than a 50-year-old woman, Nathalie Huygens just got thepermission to be euthanized. However, she is not suffering from a fatal disease as some might think, but is suffering from a psychological pain that would prevent him from living his life.
It’s after a rape in 2016 that her psychological sufferings start, she explains in the belgian magazine 7out7 : “The first days after the facts, i really thought i was going to get over this. I remember saying at the hospital that in a few days I could go back to work at the school where I was doing secretarial work. I am a go-getter. Fighting, that’s what I’ve always done.“But unfortunately this is not what awaits this mother:”Everything changed. The fact that I would never again be who I had been became clear. (…) I felt like an intruder, alone and lonely. Nothing was going well. (…) A part of me seemed to be dead.»
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Months of a fight against extreme psychological suffering
It is from there that it starts descent into hell, panic attacks, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and admissions to psychiatry follow one another. She is exhausted both physically and psychologically, she explains: “Four months after the fact, I was admitted to psychiatry. The beginning of a long series of admissions over the years, forced or not on the advice of my psychiatrist. I’m so, so tired. Exhausted. During these more than six years, apart from sleeping, not half an hour ago I didn’t think about what happened to me. »
A situation that one doctor and two psychiatrists found it unbearableso they granted this mother of two the right to euthanasia. As a reminder, it is legal to be euthanized in Belgium as long as the patient makes his request consciously and voluntarily and that he is in a physical or psychological medical situation with no way out. A process that Nathalie Huygens began more than two years ago and for which her children support her . His son also published an open letter in March 2022 where he wrote: “Almost six years later, even the most dedicated caregivers in the country are at a loss for what to do. (…) We have been in a situation for years where mom is still physically alive, but mentally long gone.» Even if Nathalie has obtained her authorisation, she wishes await the civil trial of his attackerbefore executing it.