Despair is Not Mercy: Why Omar and Cissy Dekkar Were Wrong

The Dekker family loved Iris.

Omar and Cissy did not abandon their daughter in suffering. They walked with her through years of pain, fear, treatment, and heartbreak. They knew hospital corridors. They knew medical appointments. They knew the terror of suicide attempts. They knew the agony of watching a child, once active and bright, become trapped inside an illness no parent could cure by love alone.

No decent person should speak of them with contempt. But love does not make every decision right, and that is the hard truth this story demands.

Iris began struggling around age thirteen. Pain came first: back pain, head pain, stomach pain. Then came the isolation of the pandemic, the depression, the fear, and the loss of ordinary teenage life. She later received a diagnosis of functional neurological disorder, or FND, along with severe depression.

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FND can cause real and frightening symptoms: paralysis, seizures, tremors, weakness, pain, and wheelchair dependence. It is not imaginary. It is not attention-seeking. It is a genuine disorder involving disrupted communication between the brain and body.

But FND is not a death sentence; there are countless stories of those who have broken through the fog, the pain, and now lead pain-free lives.

Iris was nineteen when she chose to stop eating and drinking. She entered hospice under palliative sedation and died on March 1, 2026, in Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands. Her parents believed they were honoring her wishes. They believed they were showing mercy. Their grief deserves compassion.

The decision itself should alarm every person who still understands the duty to protect the vulnerable.

A young woman with severe depression and FND did not need society to ratify her despair. She needed more time. She needed protection from the false finality of her darkest thoughts. She needed a culture willing to say, “You cannot see hope right now, so we will hold hope for you.”

Instead, she was allowed to die by dehydration and sedation.

This is not only a private tragedy. It is a public warning.

Young people listen to stories like this. They draw conclusions. A teenager with depression may hear, “If the pain lasts long enough, death becomes acceptable.” A young adult with FND may hear, “If I lose mobility or feel trapped in my body, my life may no longer be worth fighting for.” A suffering child may hear, “Maybe the people who love me most should let me go.”

Such a message is dangerous. It is deadly. It is the opposite of compassion.

The pro-life answer must stay firm and humane.

We relieve pain. We treat depression. We invest in long-term care. We support exhausted parents. We build better programs for FND. We refuse to abandon the young to their worst moment. We tell every suffering person, “Your life still has meaning. Your pain is not the whole truth. Your future deserves protection.”

The Dekker family’s grief is real. Their love for Iris was real. But this path was wrong.

Iris should have been surrounded by a society that fought harder for her life than her illness fought against it. She should have heard, again and again, that FND can improve, depression can lift, and the future can return in ways she could not yet imagine.

Her story should break our hearts.

It should also warn us.

When a culture calls death by dehydration “choice,” it teaches the young to mistrust hope. When it calls surrender “mercy,” it abandons the vulnerable. When it allows a nineteen-year-old in psychiatric suffering to die, it fails the most basic test of civilization.

We must do better.

We must say to every Iris still with us: you are not a burden. You are not beyond help. You are not your diagnosis. You are not your darkest thought.

Stay.

We will fight for you until you can fight again.

LifeNews.com Note: Raimundo Rojas is the Outreach Director for the National Right to Life Committee. He is a former president of Florida Right to Life and has presented the pro-life message to millions in Spanish-language media outlets. He represents NRLC at the United Nations as an NGO. Rojas was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Havana, Cuba and he and his family escaped to the United States in 1968.