In Belgium, a perfectly healthy woman decided to legally commit suicide after her daughter and husband died. The widow, Simona De Moor, was 85-years-old and told the Australian TV show Dateline that five minutes after her daughter passed away from a heart attack she decided to kill herself in assisted suicide.
Before she died, she said, “I have no reason to live anymore, grief is unbearable pain. It’s driving me mad and I don’t want to go to a mad house, I want to die. Five minutes later I knew.”
Apparently, De Moor never considered assisted suicide before that moment but knew it was within reach because of Belgium’s liberal suicide laws. The Daily Mail reports that she died on June 22nd with Doctor Van Hoey, an infamous assisted suicide and euthanasia proponent in Belgium.
Journalist Brett Mason chronicled De Moor’s journey toward suicide and said it was the most difficult experience he’s ever had. He explained, “It was, without question, the most difficult day I’ve had as a journalist. As a foreign correspondent, I’ve seen a lot of people dying. I’ve witnessed a lot of final moments. All of those people, I remember very clearly, didn’t want to die. They had something to live for, something they feared losing. What I struggled with most, was that despite being in near perfect physical health, Simona believed she had nothing and no one in her life worth living for.”
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However, Mason also indicated that De Moor’s decision was final. He said, “Once she made up her mind, Simona told me no one could take the decision away. It was hers, and hers alone.” De Moor’s death is a perfect example of why legalizing assisted suicide is dangerous. Although lawmakers who promote the practice say it would only be for terminally ill patients, it often leads to physically healthy depressed people killing themselves.
As LifeNews previously reported, in states in the U.S. where assisted suicide is legal people have killed themselves without proper mental health evaluations, and patients were denied medical treatment and steered to assisted suicide by the state health plan. Unfortunately, earlier this month, the California Assembly passed legislation that would legalize assisted suicide in the state; and if their Governor, Jerry Brown. signs the bill, California would become the fourth state to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide following Oregon, Washington and Vermont.
The President of the National Right to Life Committee, Carol Tobias, condemned the vote and called on Gov. Brown to veto the bill. She said, “Friday’s vote shows a blatant disregard for the lives of California’s medically vulnerable citizens and sends a message to these citizens that their lives are less worthy to be lived. The so-called ‘right-to-die’ movement promotes these laws as simply ‘another medical option’ at the end of life, but their real goal is euthanasia on demand for any reason.”
