Noa Pothoven is Gone

by Sam Tobin, June 12, 2019

I read a Tweet the other day, from a prominent pro-life activist I greatly admire. The Tweet mentioned a Dutch girl who had been euthanized in The Netherlands. Here is Matt Valliere, from Fox News on this seemingly tragic story from Europe. To be fair, here is the New York Intelligencer's report, as well. It is interesting how divided this story has become, but as a week or so has passed, it is clear that Noa died from starvation...and no one at her family home, nor any doctors that knew Noa's history and what was going on, tried to stop it.



A brief aside, I also read the furious, indignant replies to this Tweet from my pro-life activist friend. All claimed to be from The Netherlands, and they stridently Tweeted Noa Pothoven was definately not euthanized. Half the coverage of this story claimed that Noa was not euthanized; the other half  was reporting that a Dutch clinic had euthanized her, at her request, after a long and prolonged bout with depression.

Which story is true? It matters, but then again, not so much. Noa Pothoven is gone.

Noa Pothoven is gone, forever.

Is Dutch law callous when it permits these types of deaths, when it permits assisted suicide? Apparently there must be a few prominent Dutch people who sincerely feel it is compassionate and understanding to permit doctors to perform euthanasia, and so promote these macabre clinics of death. Are they wrong? Is it evil, or good, to claim death as a valid, moral option towards the alleviation of suffering?  It's evil, in my opinion. Government/societal policy should not be assisting-and so encouraging-people to die.