Fake News: Dutch Girl Didn't Die From Euthanasia. Here's What Really Happened

On Tuesday, English-language media outlets across the world reported that the Netherlands permitted a doctor to assist 17-year-old rape victim Noa Pothoven in killing herself. Euthanasia is legal in cases of "hopeless and unbearable" suffering in the Netherlands, but Pothoven did not die from euthanasia. In fact, her euthanasia request was denied. Instead, she starved herself to death, against the wishes of the state or her parents.

Both supporters and opponents of euthanasia spread the fake news. "A 17-year-old rape victim was NOT euthanised in the Netherlands," POLITICO Europe correspondent Naomi O'Leary tweeted. She noted that Euro News, the British papers the Independent and the Daily Mail, and the American Daily Beast "are all wrong. It took me about 10 mins to check with the reporter who wrote the original Dutch story. Noa Pothoven asked for euthanasia and was refused."

Yet by the time O'Leary alerted the world, the story had already spread far and wide — to Australia, the United States, India, and Italy.

O'Leary linked to an article from the Dutch newspaper De Gelderlander, reporting the denial of euthanasia. Around June 2018, the 16-year-old Pothoven asked the Levenseind Clinic in The Hague whether she could be put to death. The clinic told her no.

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