Emotionally devastated by a massacre she had physically survived, Shanti De Corte, a 23-year-old Belgian girl, died of euthanasia. The Belgian judiciary has allowed this by virtue of one of the most open legislations in the world on the question of the end of life.
The 2016 attack in Brussels
Shanti, a Flemish girl from Antwerp who miraculously escaped six years ago to the attack that took place at the Brussels-Zaventem airport and claimed by Isis, has never overcome the psychic trauma suffered following the explosion of the bomb in the check-in area of the airport of the Belgian capital. Even before, local media have reconstructed, the girl suffered from psychological problems, but the shock suffered with the attack had aggravated her condition making it unbearable.
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On March 22, 2016 Shanti, together with about ninety classmates from his school – the college of Santa Rita di Kontich, in the province of Antwerp – was about to embark for Rome to celebrate the end of the high school cycle.
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The appointment with destiny was set for 7.58 that morning, when the first of the two bombs brought into the airport by kamikaze bombers exploded a few meters from the girl. She, however, miraculously left her unharmed in a landscape full of death and destruction: the victims of the attack at the airport were 16, plus the two attackers and many wounded. Among her victims were also some of her schoolmates. Since then Shanti’s has been a real ordeal, inside and outside the psychiatric hospital: she is the victim of sexual abuse, stuffed with antidepressants and psychotropic drugs.
The choice of euthanasia
The most difficult choice, that of asking for euthanasia, came to fruition on 7 May when she finally said goodbye to life with her parents at the bedside. For years she was tormented by nightmares: “I laughed and cried until the last day”, she left her written on her Facebook profile. “Now I’m leaving in peace.
Know that I already miss you. “
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The controversy
The case has now been brought to the fore due to criticism of the granting of euthanasia by a renowned Belgian neurologist. But the federal commission responsible for monitoring euthanasia has closed the case for now, stating that the law has been fully respected and that the girl “was in such a state of mental distress that her request was logically accepted”.
The case of Godelieva de Troyer
In recent days, a decision by the European Court of Human Rights caused a sensation in Belgium, according to which euthanasia granted to a 64-year-old woman suffering from clinical depression violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to life.
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“The court ruled that the violation occurred when the Belgian Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia did not adequately examine the circumstances that led to the euthanasia, also stressing the lack of a timely criminal investigation after the fact “, writes Aleteia, reporting the details of the case, which took place in 2012, in which Godelieva de Troyer received a lethal injection due to her diagnosis of” incurable depression “, an epilogue disputed by her son Tom Mortier according to which the mother “She suffered from depression all her life, even though she was in excellent physical health.”
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Recently, Pope Francis also spoke on the debate about the end of life. Responding to journalists on the return flight from Kazakhstan, he reiterated the Church’s firmly opposed position: “Killing is not human. Point. If you kill with motivation – he said – in the end you will kill more and more. Let us kill to the beasts ”.