[Serious] Euthanasia for Mental Illness

[brewer]

Wasn't there a teenage girl in Denmark who had untreatable depression and fought the government for the right to die?  I think she won her case, iirc.

I might have been confusing the above case/details with this, in which case I remembered many things wrong:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/j...ed-at-home

This story also seems relevant:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45117163

And this:
https://news.sky.com/story/ive-been-gran...e-12055578

I believe we were previously discussing the Belgium womans case.

BTW, all three of my parents died while under a morphine drip. Their minds had gone but the cause of death was physical, not mental.

[Aegon]

This is a fucking awful idea. Increases in depression and anxiety are not random and it's far too step to say that it's purely a factor of "overcoming mental health stigma." The increases in depression and anxiety specifically are a result of an environment that promotes those personality disorders (individualistic and isolating way of life, certain jobs, social media and internet usage, etc). Many other personality disorders can be traced to environmental reasons as well, like pollution. The government is going to posture a way of life that causes personality disorders, then tell those people that they can kill themselves if they want out? Horrid.

At the end of the day, anyone can kill themselves if they really want to, including those with depression. Why make it so easy for a population that could feel entirely different about their situation a year later? When I was 18 I wanted to end of my life so badly, but there was no real easy way for me to do it, so it never happened; a decade later, I'm quite pleased to be alive. This is why suicides are so much more likely if there is a gun in the household.

[brewer]

I have a living will that gives my wife full authority to "do what makes sense to you, dear." We've discussed various scenarios, and she knows my wishes. I cool with it.

That might work for withholding life saving/continuing measures but I'm not sure that it would qualify for actively terminating life.

[zwanzig]

There's also the consideration that a lot of cases where people might want assisted suicide is due to a lack of care or access to care to begin with.

Doesn't it feel....gross, to let poor people with mental/physical health issues be killed and disposed of rather than doing anything that might actually alleviate their suffering or improve their quality of life?

Why don't we try a not for profit system of medical and mental health services FIRST before we start just agreeing, "Yeah that sucks. You WOULD be better off dead."

[brewer]

There's also the consideration that a lot of cases where people might want assisted suicide is due to a lack of care or access to care to begin with.

Doesn't it feel....gross, to let poor people with mental/physical health issues be killed and disposed of rather than doing anything that might actually alleviate their suffering or improve their quality of life?

Why don't we try a not for profit system of medical and mental health services FIRST before we start just agreeing, "Yeah that sucks. You WOULD be better off dead."

There is some suffering that just can't be fixed. If you don't think so visit some hospice units.

bold: The individual gets to make the request/choice for euthanasia and the process will only proceed if that individual is found mentally competent by the powers that be. No one in the process gets to make the statement in bold.

[zwanzig]

Nvm. My post has absolutely nothing to do with anything this thread is about. Apologies.

[brewer]

There is some suffering that just can't be fixed. If you don't think so visit some hospice units.

bold: The individual gets to make the request/choice for euthanasia and the process will only proceed if that individual is found mentally competent by the powers that be. No one in the process gets to make the statement in bold.

I didn't say there wasn't some suffering that couldn't be fixed. I said we shouldn't make the ONLY option for care and support available for poor or underprivileged people being to simply die/be willingly killed.

I don't personally think it is a matter of "can't be fixed" if the person who is considering assisted suicide hasn't gotten full care or options simply because they're too expensive. That's not "well we tried everything".

For those people who are not bankrupted or put into huge amounts of debt by the care they've gotten and there STILL isn't anything we could do to alleviate their pain and suffering in existence, then yes, I gladly fucking accept they can choose death. But it is heavily stacked against them if their decision involves "well, even if I live through this treatment and am healed/cured on the other side, I will be in so much financial ruin that I won't actually be living living" then I do not personally believe that is a decision made with full capacity. And I think it is morally wrong to stand aside and let people kill themselves/assisted suicide if therapy or meds could potentially improve their quality of life. Especially with the way the mental health and medical industry is tipped so heavily by wealth inequalities.

Edit: in case it is still not clear, my stance on euthanasia isn't "nobody should die ever." My stance is that we have systemic class inequalities in the medical and mental healthcare industries that we need to work on before we can consider people's "right to die" valid. Because right now, it is not a decision the poor are making for themselves. Not really. It IS essentially the wealthy saying "You would be better off dead."

We're talking about euthanasia in Canada (and maybe Belgium-not the US) where wealth and access to care is a non issue, it's provided by the state/country government. Medical professionals (doctors) are making the determination that all medical treatments have been exhausted and that the person is competent when making the request.

Maybe you should go back and read what is in the link in post 1.

[zwanzig]

I apologize. I didn't realize this was limited to such a specific instance.

I'm a moron with zero reading comprehension.

[brewer]

I apologize. I didn't realize this was limited to such a specific instance.

I'm a moron with zero reading comprehension.

It's OK, I applaud your empathy.

The real question is 'when has all medical treatment been exhausted with the mentally ill?' That's definitely open for debate. I know that I don't have a good answer.

[arewethereyet]

I don't think we can figure out a protocol when dealing with the mentally ill when we can't figure out a humane way to ease the end of the physically terminally ill.

We, as a people, are too weird about quality/quantity of life.