Euthanasia and Gender

[tenni]

The mother of a Belgian who chose to die after a botched sex-change operation has said “her death does not bother me” in a case that has revived debate over euthanasia in Belgium.

Nathan, born Nancy, Verhelst, 44, was killed by lethal injection on Monday after requesting euthanasia on the grounds of “unbearable psychological suffering” because surgery to turn Nancy into a man had resulted in “a monster”.

Explaining his decision hours before his death, Mr. Verhelst said he was “the girl that nobody wanted.”

Mr Verhelst told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper: “While my brothers were celebrated, I got a storage room above the garage as a bedroom. ‘If only you had been a boy,’ my mother complained. I was tolerated, nothing more.”

After a life of being rejected by his parents as a daughter, Mr Verhelst had hormone therapy in 2009, followed by a mastectomy and unsuccessful surgery to construct a penis in 2012. “I was ready to celebrate my new birth, but when I looked in the mirror, I was disgusted with myself,” he said hours before he died. “I do not want to be a monster.”

Jacqueline Herremans, a member of Belgium’s committee for monitoring euthanasia, acknowledged that the case posed difficult ethical questions.

“This case seems to meet the requirements of the law. But I do not yet have all the elements to say it with perfect certainty,” she said. “This is a case of conscience, a situation that raises questions. There is no immediate answer.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/03/mother-of-belgian-man-euthanized-after-botched-sex-change-feels-no-sorrow-no-doubt-or-remorse/

Your Thoughts?

[transcendMental]

Well, of course it's disgusting when a mother has no remorse for her dead child. The rejection of her daughter is disturbing at best.

But as to the transsexualism, surgery, and subsequent suicide, there isn't enough information for me to make a judgment. It isn't clear whether Nathan followed the Standards of Care for transsexualism. If he had sufficient therapy to work out whether his desire to become a man stemmed from actual transsexualism (male brain structure in a female body) or from a desire to become valuable to his parents, then I can respect his choice to have surgery. But given only the information in the article (and my lack of knowledge about access to hormones and surgery in Belgium/Europe), it seems questionable. Surely, somebody told him the serious risks of FtM surgery? And what was so monstrous? I can see a woman looking in the mirror after FtM surgery and saying "oh shit, what have I become?" I have a harder time with what a man must have seen to say that. And if Standards of Care were followed, and Nathan was a diagnosed transsexual (wasn't disgusted by the fact that he has a penis), then I would also think that one year post-surgery is awfully soon to decide you can't go on and need to die. Seems like euthanasia is maybe a bit too easy to arrange in Belgium. But really, I have too many unanswered questions to form a real opinion, other than it's a sad case.