Physically healthy Dutch woman Zoraya ter Beek, 29, dies by assisted suicide

A young Dutch woman finally got her tragic wish: to die by assisted suicide.

29-year-old Zoraya ter Beek’s life was terminated last week after waiting three years for final approval for her euthanasia, which is legal in the Netherlands if the patient is deemed to be experiencing “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement.”

Ter Beek was diagnosed with autism when she was 21, and by the time she was 22, she wore a “Do Not Resuscitate” tag around her neck, The Free Press reported. She reportedly had been hoping to end her life since she was a child as she was bullied growing up and often felt like she didn’t fit in. 

“For me, autism is the major hiccup in my life,” Ter Beek told the Free Press. “That bothers me the most.”

While Ter Beek was physically healthy, she struggled with mental illness: depression, anxiety and an unspecified personality disorder, The Free Press reported. In school, she dressed as a goth to ward off bullies and seem scarier. 

“The whole black look looked right, because that is how I felt on the inside,” she said.

Ter Beek lived with her boyfriend, Stein, an IT programmer 10 years her age, but her parents didn’t approve of the age difference. She had been estranged from her mother and three older sisters for six years, while her father died from cancer last year. 

Stein worried about Ter Beek and encouraged her to seek treatment, so she tried various things to treat her mental illness, including 33 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy, in which electric currents jolt the brain. But, after her last treatment in August 2020, her psychiatrist told her, “There’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never going to get any better.”

“After we heard that, we all kind of knew what that meant,” Ter Beek had said, solidifying her decision to apply to the Netherlands’ Euthanasia Expertise Center in December 2020. “I was always very clear: if it doesn’t get better, I can’t do this.” 

“My whole friends and my support system, we really did it together,” she had told The Free Press. Ter Beek reportedly saw herself as an ambassador for the Dutch euthanasia program and believed there is proper protocol in place to prevent abuse of the system. 

“We’ve had this law for more than 20 years,” she had told the outlet. “There are really strict rules, and it’s really safe.”

Ter Beek opposed “suicide kits” being widely available for those waiting for or have been denied state-sanctioned euthanasia and did not support an update to the law that would allow those seeking assisted-suicide without prior medical intervention or the approval of the state, she had told The Free Press. 

“I’m pro-death. But we need to be careful to protect people who’re in psychosis or depressed and not thinking straight,” Ter Beek said. “If you go on the suicide kit road, you don’t know if somebody, maybe with the right help, could have chosen to live.”

Suicide related to mental illness is on the rise, The Free Press reported. In 2010, there were only two recorded cases of medically assisted suicide that involved psychiatric suffering, compared to 138 in 2023.

Ter Beek had a back-up plan if her application didn’t get final approval. She planned to use a suicide kit she obtained from Exit International, which advocates for the legalization of voluntary euthanasia. But she ultimately didn’t need to use her “escape plan,” as she called it. 

“Zoraya passed away today at 1:25 p.m. Or as she saw it herself: she went to sleep,” a friend posted to X on May 22.

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.