Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagMental illness

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28-Year-Old Woman Schedules Euthanasia Appointment in the Netherlands

It's shocking, but more and more people are choosing to die to escape any kind of pain

According to The Free Press, a shocking 5% of deaths in the Netherlands in 2022 were from euthanasia. Zoraya ter Beek, a 28-year-old woman from the Netherlands, was approved for euthanasia because of her struggles with mental health and is scheduled to die in May. It’s a dark and tragic story, but reflects how more and more people in the West are seeing death as the only way out of pain. Free Press reporter Rupa Subramanya writes, There won’t be any funeral. She doesn’t have much family; she doesn’t think her friends will feel like going. Instead, her boyfriend will scatter her ashes in “a nice spot in the woods” that they have chosen together, she said. “I’m a little Read More ›

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Hallway the emergency room and outpatient hospital. 3d illustration

The Small Steps That Lead to Dystopia

Revisiting a 1993 article warning about the future of assisted suicide

Editor’s Note: The following piece was originally published in Newsweek in June 1993. Today is my 76th birthday,” the letter began. “Unassisted and by my own free will, I have chosen to take my final passage.” Suicide. My friend Frances died in a cold, impersonal hotel room after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, with a plastic bag tied over her head suffocating the life out of her body. Frances was not a happy woman. She had family troubles. She suffered from chronic lymphatic leukemia and was facing the difficult prospect of a hip replacement. She also had a chronic nerve condition that caused her to feel a burning sensation on her skin. But Frances was lucid, aware and involved. Read More ›