Talk:Noa Pothoven

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Controversy[edit]

Starting this topic since another user seemed to disagree with point 3 (faulty reports) as part of the controversy surrounding Noa's death (see editing history).

Elements surrounding the controversy I've identified:

  • Her public death wish prior to her death and denied request to get euthanasia
  • Her activism for mental health care
  • Faulty foreign media reports about her death

If anybody disagrees with this, please let's discuss. PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 16:13, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Passive euthanasia?[edit]

Could Pothoven's death be considered Passive euthanasia?

"Passive euthanasia entails the withholding treatment necessary for the continuance of life. Active euthanasia entails the use of lethal substances or forces (such as administering a lethal injection), and is the more controversial. While some authors consider these terms to be misleading and unhelpful, they are nonetheless commonly used. In some cases, such as the administration of increasingly necessary, but toxic doses of painkillers, there is a debate whether or not to regard the practice as active or passive." PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 22:11, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

According to her local newspaper [2], she died after refusing to eat and drink. That's not any kind of euthanasia. ghouston (talk) 03:18, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Noa's own family has explicitly stated their regrets that it has been suggested in foreign media that their daughter died from active euthanasia.[3] According to Pothoven's own Instagram post, she stopped eating and drinking and received pain relief at home, and 'after many conversations and reviews it has been decided that I will be released because my suffering is unbearable.' Her statements indicate she received palliative care as a result of her death wish and refusal to eat and drink. This could be seen as 'passive euthanasia' since it was not decided to force-feed her (like had happened in the past). I would consider this 'passive' euthanasia as described on the euthanasia Wiki page. Thoughts?

Noa Pothoven's last Instagram post:

PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 07:45, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's really the Dutch legal system for euthanasia that was under discussion in this case, and nobody suggests it was used. The decision was presumably to refrain from declaring her mentally incompetent and no longer able to make her own decision to refuse food. It doesn't seem to me the same as passive euthanasia, since she wasn't relying on medical treatment to survive. However, I don't have any expertise in this area. ghouston (talk) 08:43, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No expertise here either, which is why I'm interested in the opinion of others. The Euthanasia page on Wiki describes passive euthanasia as 'the withholding treatment necessary for the continuance of life'. It has been mentioned that Force-feeding was used as treatment on Noa in the past in order to keep her alive, and that it was decided to not do it this time, which I assume could be considered 'witholding treatment necessary for the continuance of life'. Furthermore it was mentioned by Noa herself that she was receiving 'strong pain relief', seeming to indicate palliative care. Article 450 [4] in Dutch criminal law states that a person who does not provide help to someone who is in immediate danger, could be punished with 3 months imprisonment or a fine in the second category. I don't know if this law concerns people who put themselves in danger willingly as well. Furthermore, article 294 section 2,[5] mentions that assisting someone or providing them the resources to die by suicide, could be punished with 3 years imprisonment or a fine in the fourth category. Exceptions in both these cases are when they follow the euthanasia laws, but it has been stated Noa was 'not euthanised', so I wonder 'how legal' everything was that happened, given the witnesses surrounding her and aware of her plan to die. PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 18:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Let me give my reaction as a Dutch forensic doctor, who routinely does investigations after euthanasia. First, the Dutch law doesn't recognize 'passive euthanasia'. There is only 'euthanasia', being an active deed, and 'assisted suicide'. Moreover: in our country, there is no obligation to live, and not helping someone who is in immediate danger is only considered a crime if the subject does not reject that need.
Moreover, Article 11 of the Constitution of the Netherlands says: 'Ieder heeft, behoudens bij of krachtens de wet te stellen beperkingen, recht op onaantastbaarheid van zijn lichaam.' (Everyone shall have the right to inviolability of his person, without prejudice to restrictions laid down by or pursuant to Act of Parliament.)[6] That article forbids actions to anyone's body if that one actively declines or forbids that action (even if it is regarded as 'help', which is of course arguable in this case). In the case of Pothoven, it is clear that she has actively declined any 'help' to keep her alive. Erik Wannee (talk) 12:16, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply and the resources Erik! I recognise the Dutch law has no such thing as 'passive' euthanasia. If we would look at this case in general, using the 'global term' of passive euthanasia, do you think what happened in Noa's case could be classified as such? I'm asking for personal understanding of the 'general' idea about passive euthanasia in this case. PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 16:15, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You will understand that I'm not familiar to the 'global' term 'passive euthanasia' because it is my conviction that something like that doesn't really exist. I would classify Pothoven's death as a form of suicide by means of actively stopping to eat and drink, with the deadly aim. The word 'passive' sounds strange to me in this case, because the decision to stop eating and drinking was a very active one. Regarding the definition that is given in the article passive euthanasia, it says: "the withholding treatment necessary for the continuance of life". Well, that rises the question what 'treating' is. I think giving food and drink is not a (medical) treatment, and in the extreme: force-feeding is a way of torturing, which is of course cruel and illegal.
Pothoven did not have assisted suicide according to the Dutch law, because that is only the case if someone else actively provides means to someone else to kill her/him self. Only medical doctors are allowed to do that in the Netherlands, under very strict circumstances. Knowing that someone else is going to kill her-/himself, and taking no action to keep that person alive, that's not illegal. Most people who decide to commit suicide, decide to do that in lonelyness, but there is another option to do it surrounded by friends and relatives, on conditions that they absolutely do not help. So they may not give a deadly drink, but they may see the other person taking the drink. This is called 'zelfeuthanasie' ('self-euthanasia'). [Books about self euthanasia, including practical and legal information: Boudewijn Chabot, Stella Braam: Uitweg: Een waardig levenseinde in eigen hand, ISBN 9789038893143 (in Dutch). Boudewijn Chabot: Dignified dying, A Guide, Death at your bidding, EAN, ISBN 978-90-816194-7-9.] In order to prove that nobody did help this person in her/his suicide, the patient often writes a letter, confirming that she/he did everything her/himself, and I have even seen some cases where everything was filmed, in order to be able to prove that nobody helped, in case there might be a juridical prosecution. The term 'self euthanasia' might be embarrassing, as in Dutch legal terms this is no euthanasia but suicide. Erik Wannee (talk) 19:30, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your input and giving insight into this. I'm was confused as to why Noa's parents in the media would refer to her death as not being 'active euthanasia' because it seemed to imply her death could be considered passive euthanasia. Your points about torture are good, and I agree with you there. Do you have any thoughts on how De Gelderlander brought Noa's death wish prior to her death, in the 2018 interview they did with Noa and her family? The headline is phrased 'Noa (16) is already done with her ruined life', not presenting the headline as a citation, but fact.[7] I personally find this morally bankrupt journalism and am surprised this hasn't been discussed in the media yet. De Gelderlander brought her story in the headline as if it was a fact, a confirmation essentially. Also, within 24 hours of her death they published about it, and within days the original journalist started giving interviews to foreign media about the circumstances of her death, and the paper they wrote for added an article on how famous her case has become in just a few days. It doesn't sit right with me how De Gelderlander has been handling this story. PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
De Gelderlander is a newspaper; not a scientific magazine. The headline is a fact, in the way that she, her parents and her therapists all agreed that there was no remedy against her persistent death wish. So if everybody confirms the fact that Noa has no perspective (after being raped several times, her personality disorder, her anorexia, her many suicide attempts, her 20 forced treatments in psychiatric hospitals, her traumatic stay in isolation cells, being artificial fed during one year and her many psychiatric treatments including electro shock therapy), then the journalist writes this as a fact. And after reading this, I can imagine that he wrote it this way.
Some way, other news media seem to have written that Noa has died by euthanasia, which is not true, because she died by voluntarily stopping to eat and drink - which is not too difficult if you already have anorexia nervosa -, not by giving her a deadly medicine by a doctor.
I don't know the exact motivation of the journalist to do what he did, but I guess he wanted to give a rectification for this misconception because he didn't want that other people called this suicide 'euthanasia'.
Medical doctors may never write or tell things like these about her disease and the way she died, because doctors have a medical confidentiality. But for journalists, this is completely different: they have the right - or even the duty - to publish things they have found out. (Disclaimer: Noa has never been my patient; I didn't know her nor her therapists, I didn't do her after death examination, and I write these remarks as a Wikipedia volunteer; not as a doctor.) Erik Wannee (talk) 21:31, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem is that he wrote the headline before she died. In 2018. 'Noa (16) is already done with her ruined life'.... So that's not a rectification relating to foreign media claiming she had euthanasia in 2019. The headline gave a public confirmation of her ruined life before she died by suicide. Can you justify that? PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
O, then I have misunderstood the sequence of the things that have happened. Noa had said that she had done all things on her bucket list, except for one thing... dying. Her parents and her caregivers had accepted that she would soon die, so it had become inevitable. So maybe that was the reason to publish already about her death as a fact. But I must admit that I don't know all ins and outs of this case. Erik Wannee (talk) 07:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Contested deletion[edit]

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because Noa's death has caused global controversy and false media reporting. I'm inserting more resources and controversy. Furthermore, Noa is an award winning author.--PhotoandGrime (Pieke Roelofs) (talk) 19:43, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This case was initially barely reported on in the Netherlands[edit]

Dutch person here. I cannot remember hearing about this case on the televised news, and it has not been trending on Dutch YouTube. I only saw it yesterday on Facebook. Curiously, Pothoven is a Dutch person with an English Wikipedia-page, but not with a Dutch Wikipedia-page. Perhaps someone will write it later on, but currently it does not exist.

I think it should be added that Dutch media barely reported on Pothoven until after the case went global. This article from the NRC, a major Dutch newspaper, could be used as a source. It begins:

Elsewhere in the same article:

I should note that there was some initial media attention for Pothoven, especially because she wrote a book about her life. For instance: this article with video interview by the AD, published 1 December 2018, six months before her death. But most of the Dutch media attention came after the story broke internationally. I'm not surprised, because to me, this doesn't seem like a very unusual case. I am myself a psychiatric patient, have been for years, and I recognize many of the complaints Pothoven made against the Dutch psychiatric system. I also know a thing or two about eating disorders, and unfortunately, quite a few young women end up like Pothoven. My best wishes to her family and friends. :-(

Manifestation (talk) 08:23, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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