Discussion Assisted Suicide

[willitpass]

Why is assisted suicide only legal in one country for psychiatric patients? Obviously it's one thing if someone wants to die after having been mentally ill for like a year as they still have the chance to recover, however if someone has been mentally ill for 10 years and has sought every treatment in the book and is still in extreme mental pain why is it considered different than a physical illness?

 

[_Minsk]

I agree, i'd even say it should be legal without preexisting metal illness because people will stick so many requirements to it that at the end no one will be able to access it..

 

[Walilamdzi]

Completely agree.

 

[bornfree]

i agree.

Posted this elsewhere and will put it here.

There are a wide range of basic mental needs and society and culture has evolved with complete disregard for mental needs and mental suffering and mental diversity. This is a direct result of the existence of psychiatry and the biomedical or biological model of mental illness. If misery is a mental illness then it's caused by a brain defect. This is what depression means. I noted a medical student posted about what they were going through and said something like "my feelings of sadness might be so severe it is depression" as though depression is what extreme sadness is called. Extreme sadness is called extreme sadness or misery. Depression is a medical term about mental illness and evolved from a term like "dementia morbens" in the same way schizophrenia evolved from the medical label dementia praecox as coined by Emil Kraeplin who is considered by psychiatrists to be one of the godfathers if not the godfather of psychiatry. (I read a lot of mental health research and knowledge when i worked at a mental health charity a decade ago)

Depression ia a medical concept for quite a diversity of different mental suffering as is anxiety but based on biological causes and that's the problem not just for crimes committed against victims of psychiatry and crimes against humanity by doctors but also for society and culture evolving with utter disregard for mental needs and mental suffering. The biomedical model of mental illness misrepresents cause and effect. Society and culture are so much more cruel because misery and worry are mental illnesses thus they're deemed to be caused by a brain malfunction and social and cultural effects are ignored for the centuries psychiatry has existed. I do believe the disregard for mental suffering and mental needs is responsible for the criminalisation of assisted suicide because any respect for mental needs and mental suffering are the justifications why assisted suicide can never be a crime. (Yes i agree there are challenges to be met in a responsible version of legal assisted suicide be the overbearing onus must be its legalisation.)

So so many more become suicidal and stay suicidal because the cause has been misrepresented. The failures of the past and the lack of any commitment to change are why society and culture are failing so many who end up here on this forum. But this only makes assisted suicide even more invaluable to escape all the entrenched cruelty and heartlessness. So many lives are ruined by the same cruelty and heartlessness that wants to do everything to ruin death too.

There is a dearth of humane protections and a care system that is not only apathetic to ust how awful it is to be suicidal but also so cruel and ineffective and offers suicidal individuals very little of what we want and it is just too little too late. This only makes assisted suicide even more important because it is mercy.

The things that make suicidal individuals want to die can't be undone but the will to change is defined by the mentality that recognises why assisted suicide must be legal. It is also essential to reach for the objective of 100% voluntary engagement with care. When care doesn't care about free will or rights or liberty or consent then obviously it fails because some suicidal individuals don't want their mind changed and some suicidal individuals see no value in engaging with a care system that has nothing to offer us that we want.

ten years is way too long to be forced to suffer and face just more of the hurts and harms that make living worse than death

 

[Walilamdzi]

 

[kinzokukae]

I agree, i'd even say it should be legal without preexisting metal illness because people will stick so many requirements to it that at the end no one will be able to access it..

^ also, i think euthanasia should be more widely available and have less restrictions - after all, it's not like your death is going to affect things on a large scale, only close friends and family, and they can easily get bereavement counselling to help with that.