There was a case like that somewhere in Europe earlier this year. I think it was in the Netherlands, but it was a young woman who had numerous mental health issues that were causing her real suffering and she would probably have done the deed herself at some point.
It was only about the second time it had been approved, and required a lot of time and numerous doctors to sign off on their being nothing they could do to help her professionally.
It made me feel quite uncomfortable, but then thinking about it logically she met all of the criteria, the only real question was about confirming she knew what she was doing.
GetOffMyLan@programming.dev 4 months ago
I mean mental illness can cause plenty of suffering so I don’t see why it should be excluded. As long as that person can give fully informed consent the same as other conditions.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 months ago
So why do we have suicide hotlines, then?
Disaster@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Suicide is not assisted, leaves a mess for those that discover a corpse, EMT’s and others to clean up. Someone’s suffering might end when they jump in front of a train but the train driver’s suffering only just begins at that point.
Suicide is often an unmanaged, chaotic process which causes trauma. It also often fails whilst leaving those that attempt it in bad physical shape. A law like this reduces the necessity of discussing, normalizing or enabling suicide because there is a safe and properly counseled path out of a no-win situation for those that truly need it. A policy on containment when there are probably household cleaners that could do the job effectively with a small amount of chemistry knowledge is absolutely insane - and if someone truly is in that much pain, they’ll find a way. Families and loved ones also have time to work through grief and loss rather than getting the wind knocked out of them when they hear the news.
The fact that we’ve hit a point where we can even have a discussion about this is probably something that should be celebrated, rather than being so totalitarian and controlling that we effectively force people to live even when they’re in enormous pain.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 months ago
So the problem with suicide isn’t people taking their own life, but the mess they leave behind? How heartless is this attitude?