Belgians doctors agree to "assist the dying" of healthy 24yr old with suicidal thoughts
- Thread starter spudbynight
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Hit the quote button, go on, it tickles
There you go! *sigh*
I find you very curious, why go to so much work to post images when you can simply quote the person you're talking to, you can multi quote as well if you want to include more than one person.
Caporegime
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Thread needs locking. This is childish stuff.
"people are saying things I don't like" is identical to things being childish, right?
Of course they are (I never implied otherwise), but those estimates differ greatly pending on the assessment of the individual condition in question.
Using historic reference points you can say with a high degree of certainty that the chance of recovery for cancer type X will be between Y & Z - the same level of certainty is far more difficult with mental disorders which manifest is far more subtle forms.
Again, I'm not stating at all that one is utterly different to the other - just that the shades of difference & subjectivity involved make it a difficult situation.
It's also highly sceptical that there is an overwhelming consensus within the community of psychologists on this that suicide for depression is a viable method of final treatment either, implying that many aspects are open to interpretation & subjectivity.
I'll say one last time, you seem to be missing my point - I'm not saying mental & 'traditional physical' disorders are fundamentally different, neither am I against the idea of euthanasia for either if the prognosis is definitive or as good as.
I'm simply voicing what appears to be a specific complexity regarding this case & a genuine concern regarding how able a person living with depression is to make a fair assessment of their own ability to recover (assuming this is also a factor they take into account). This, combined with the statistical variance makes any definitive treatments (death in this case) something which should be highly scrutinised.
Not for what many advocate as 'sanctity of life' (I don't believe in that concept at all) but for the protection of people with severe depression & mental disorders from themselves.
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Actually you'd generally be very careful not to say this and explain what you would expect to see if you saw a population. If people want to infer from that that's their business. Part of this is the reason these things can't be categorised discretely and therefore you have to accept broad population statistics. There are far too many caveats.
I can't ever remember telling someone a specific percentage more if I were to see 100 or a 1000 people I would expect this.
Such a things is not a treatment for the depression. It's an act to prevent lesser harm when a person attempts to do the same thing themselves. Euthanasia by its actual process precludes itself from fitting into a palliative care type framework anyway by the pure definition of palliative care.
I know you're not. You're one of the few that actually gets quite a simple concept.
Well that is where the suitable checks and measure come in. But at the end of the day people should be the masters of their own destiny. When all other options have been exhausted for a minority of individuals, who we know have no chance of cure, then we can maybe acknowledge that.
The way this is presented is like it would be a on a treatment pathway. And that suggestion is just false. This is about assisting people who have made that decision do it with the least harm for themselves and those around them.
I agree with that you are saying, just that there are also factors which can result in a recovery from depression outside of medical intervention & treatment, this alone makes the exhaustive argument not the only consideration.
Really the choice may have been right in this case (I have neither the expertise or the information to say either way), but simply appreciating that it's both a medical & ethical minefield due to the complexities around duty of care for those who's view of the future is clouded by illness.
In cases without these complexities it's far more straightforward & far less likely to be prone to mistakes (not that we have any way of knowing after the fact, but due to the fallibility of all it's most certainly to occur given enough repetitions).
I'm more stepping back & appreciating the incredibly complex potential concerns risks & considerations, all of which I'm fairly confident would have been addressed in this case I'd like to think.
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Surely they would be considered as part of a milieu therapy programme?
Caporegime
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Being totally dispassionate and rational I have to agree.
That said I can't help but feel how tragic it must be to be only 24 and want to dieI'd rather the doctors offer her the ability to change her view point on life - but then I guess they're interfering but surely justifiably?
Who says they haven't, they likely have. Who knows what is wrong with her. She may have gone through severe abuse for 15 years of her life, have been in treatment for 5 years and have had no improvement at all and simply hates her life.
It's far better to die pain free in a hospital than screw up a suicide attempt outside of a hospital and die in agony effecting many more people around you.
People who come home to find a family member in a bathtub full of blood, or hanging from something, the hours of having a dead body in the house. What about someone who rents a house kills themselves and isn't found for 3 months till the landlord discovers the corpse. That is all better than letting someone who has decided not to go on die peacefully and without any of the horrific ways of effecting other people in the process.
Depression isn't even remotely 100% treatable, many people have scars or problems on going in their lives that can never be fixed.
That doesn't even account for all the people who seriously try to commit suicide but fail or do it wrong. Taking paracetamol and expecting to 'slip away' but dying in agony over days instead, or those who jump but break a ludicrous number of bones and die or cause brain damage, someone who jumps infront of a car but doesn't die, someone attempts to hang themselves but the rope or support breaks. Many suicides go VERY badly when they don't need to and most of them end up with someone discovering the body in a way that causes a great deal of hurt.
There are plenty of ways to kill yourself, doesn't mean a safe, clean, pain free way that also saves family and friends a great deal of pain. Knowing someone killed themselves can be very bad, knowing someone died in agony for 3 days because they did it wrong or finding a rotting corpse IS worse.
As above really, I'd like to think so yes.
But it most certainly makes the judgement far more difficult (therefore prone to error) than a far more easily recognisable & predictable standard terminal illness.
People can be entirely wrong about what they need.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=28251527&postcount=58
But while depressed he believes would have taken that choice. It would have been his choice, he'd have died believing it to be his best option and it would have been entirely wrong in hindsight.
Not the only person to have improved from a condition of depression I'm sure.
For the reason that predicting the outcome is entirely grey and that neither the mental or physical self is destroyed by depression I cannot agree with death being acceptable as an option.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=28251527&postcount=58
But while depressed he believes would have taken that choice. It would have been his choice, he'd have died believing it to be his best option and it would have been entirely wrong in hindsight.
Not the only person to have improved from a condition of depression I'm sure.
For the reason that predicting the outcome is entirely grey and that neither the mental or physical self is destroyed by depression I cannot agree with death being acceptable as an option.
It's a tough one this, but I believe that assisted suicide should only be granted in cases of terminal illness... and as damaging as it can be to those experiencing it, depression is not a terminal illness, regardless of the potential for suicide or not.
I would even say that to my mind that to family and friends, an assisted suicide is, while physically less gruesome than a DIY suicide, no less damaging for the fact that your young loved one wants to die in the most cold and calculated way possible.
Either way I personally think it is morally wrong to assist the suicide of a mentally ill patient who more often than not unable to think or decide with a clear head. If those people want to commit suicide then from a medical perspective every effort must be taken to prevent that, even if it means ultimately institutionalising them for a period of time. Actual death should be an act only of the mentally ill person of their own hand and volition imo.
I would even say that to my mind that to family and friends, an assisted suicide is, while physically less gruesome than a DIY suicide, no less damaging for the fact that your young loved one wants to die in the most cold and calculated way possible.
Either way I personally think it is morally wrong to assist the suicide of a mentally ill patient who more often than not unable to think or decide with a clear head. If those people want to commit suicide then from a medical perspective every effort must be taken to prevent that, even if it means ultimately institutionalising them for a period of time. Actual death should be an act only of the mentally ill person of their own hand and volition imo.