{"id":273523,"date":"2022-08-06T13:51:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T18:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=273523"},"modified":"2022-08-05T16:20:07","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T21:20:07","slug":"doctors-allow-uk-teen-eating-disorder-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/doctors-allow-uk-teen-eating-disorder-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors allow UK teen with eating disorder to die at her own request"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A teenager with an eating disorder <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/health\/uk-teen-severe-eating-disorder-dies-2-months-after-ceasing-treatment\/\">has died<\/a> after a judge allowed doctors to stop treating her. The girl, who lived in the UK, was allowed to starve to death with the approval of her doctors and her parents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 19-year-old girl, whose identity hasn\u2019t been released (identified only as &#8220;BG&#8221; in court records) decided that she wanted to die and wanted her treatment to stop.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BG went to court and petitioned for her artificial hydration and nutrition to be withdrawn, and the judge granted her request.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She had been struggling with mental health issues for over 10 years. She spent much of the past three years in a hospital, receiving intensive treatment for her severe eating disorder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Judge Jonathan Cohen sanctioned the teen\u2019s death when he ruled that lifesaving care could be withheld. When announcing her death, Cohen called it \u201ctragic and deeply distressing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But allowing a physically healthy young woman with her whole life ahead of her to die from an eating disorder was not \u201ctragic and distressing\u201d enough for him to rule against it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The girl\u2019s parents and her doctors all supported her decision. It\u2019s hard to imagine parents giving up on their child in this manner. The girl\u2019s doctors claimed there was \u201cnothing more\u201d they could do for her.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The judge indicated that the opinion of these \u201cexperts\u201d was key in his decision to allow the girl\u2019s death, saying, \u201cThe distinction lies above all in the fact of the agreement between experts that there is nothing more that can be done to help BG.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>PETITION: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/tiktok-censorship-petition\/\">Tell TikTok to stop censoring Live Action<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The judge further said, \u201cThe law contains the strong presumption that all steps will be taken to preserve human life unless the circumstances are exceptional. However, the principle is not absolute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the \u201cprinciple\u201d that all people with mental illness deserve to be given life-saving treatment <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">should<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> be absolute.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After treatment was stopped, it took two months for the girl to succumb to starvation brought about by her illness. Doctors and her parents refused to intervene during this time.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> magazine, BG \u201cfought for autonomy of her body and the right to make her own health decisions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The \u201cbodily autonomy\u201d argument is frequently used to justify abortion. It is now being used to justify suicide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite how pro-euthanasia media tries to frame deaths like this one, the truth is that the medical community withheld treatment from a vulnerable person with a mental illness, who may not have been thinking clearly when she requested to die.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By its very nature, mental illness affects a person\u2019s judgment and views about themselves and their future. Part of the job of a mental health practitioner is to help these patients find hope and reasons for living. BG\u2019s doctors failed in this respect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Suicidal thoughts are a symptom of different types of mental illness and should be treated as a symptom. Many people who were once suicidal are later grateful for their lives. Allowing suicidal people to kill themselves, especially when they are struggling with a recognized mental illness, robs them of this opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When those treating a mentally ill person give up on them and encourage their death, this is not empowering \u2013 it is victimization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that a court has sanctioned withholding treatment from mentally ill patients if they want to die, other patients, also failed by their doctors, may be more likely to request death and be granted it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><br style=\"font-weight: 400;\" \/><br style=\"font-weight: 400;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; A teenager with an eating disorder has died after a judge allowed doctors to stop treating her. The girl, who lived in the UK, was allowed to starve to death with the approval of her doctors and her parents. The 19-year-old girl, whose identity hasn\u2019t been released (identified only as &#8220;BG&#8221; in court records) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":261272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15,4,3473],"tags":[1577,1303,1049,924],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Doctors allow UK teen with eating disorder to die at her own request<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The 19-year-old girl, who lived in the UK, was allowed to starve to death with the approval of her doctors and her parents.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/doctors-allow-uk-teen-eating-disorder-die\/\" 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