Paying the price for their autonomy
The latest euthanasia scandal in Belgium shows that some doctors have discovered an easy way to dispose of some of their medical failures. They can kill them. Legally.
Last Monday afternoon the victim of a botched sex reassignment surgery was euthanased by the country’s leading euthanasia doctor, Wim Distelmans. Cameramen from a local TV station filmed the lethal injection.
Forty-four-year-old Nathan Verhelst was born as Nancy Verhelst into a family which despised girls. “When I saw ‘Nancy’ for the first time, my dream was shattered,” her mother told the Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper. “She was so ugly. I had a phantom birth. Her death does not bother me.”
Unsurprisingly, Nancy grew up hating her femininity. Four years ago she embarked upon a course of hormone therapy and last year she had her breasts surgically removed and underwent surgery to construct a penis. Belgian media showed images of Nathan, Nancy’s masculine alter ego, now tattooed with a shaven head, sun-bathing on a beach.
But the operations did not work. “I was ready to celebrate my new birth,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws. “But when I looked in the mirror, I was disgusted with myself. My new breasts did not match my expectations and my new penis had symptoms of rejection. I do not want to be… a monster.”
Nathan’s solution was to seek euthanasia. He sought the help of Dr Distelmans. After studying his case and giving him six months of counselling, Dr Distelmans and his team decided to grant his request because it fulfilled all the conditions of the law. Although Nathan was not terminally ill, he was experiencing unbearable psychological suffering. Two other doctors agreed, one of them a psychiatrist. And on September 30, Dr Distelmans gave him a lethal injection.
Nancy Verhelst’s doctors — her psychiatrist, urologist, gynaecologist, and cosmetic surgeon — had destroyed her life. But they weren’t the ones who paid the price. She did.
This is not the first time that legal euthanasia has erased the errors of the medical profession in Belgium.
Loading ...
