Do you support euthanasia?

[IanHulett]

I can see the mental health community gathering their torches and pitchforks at the idea of allowing anyone to kill themselves.

I'm certainly for euthanasia, but as far as allowing people outside the terminally ill to do so, I'm torn. I know it's not my place to say who can do what with their own lives, but the people that are most susceptible to suicide are the mentally ill. The last thing they need is encouragement in the form of socially legitimizing suicide. Again, I realize that mentally ill or not someone has the right to do with their lives as they wish, but I can say with quite certainty that if suicide had been legally and socially acceptable fifteen years ago, I would not be here today. The thing is at that point I would have never dreamed that I could have the control over my depression that I do now.

I believe that people have the right to control their lives, but I'm just not sure that making it okay for anyone to kill themselves is the right message to send.

I can understand the aversion, but if a person with a mental illness is at that point of considering suicide as a seriously viable and attractive option, do you really think they'd go to a hospital and undergo a screening/evaluation specifically designed to determine if they're mentally ill (and therefore block them from euthanasia alltogether in my opinion at least)?

But I'm mentally ill. I have Bipolar Disorder w/Psychotic Features, borderline Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. If I were to become terminally ill and end up suffering day and night, should I be denied the right to euthanasia simply because I'm mentally ill?