(February 18, 2015 at 10:58 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: 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)?
Well, attempting to create some sort of test for mental stability creates a whole different can of worms, but that's not really my issue. What stops a lot of mentally ill people from killing themselves is that the act goes against their biological and moral instincts. I feel that creating a law that essentially legitimizes suicide for most people would help mentally ill people overcome their instincts and give them justification for doing so. They certainly wouldn't be able to accept the reasoning behind allowing a non-mentally ill person and not allowing a mentally ill person, and they could be enticed into committing suicide by the desire to exercise a right.
Many mentally ill people have better options than suicide, and legalizing it would be the equivalent of pointing them in that direction.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
