Belgian doctors to euthanize depressed woman who is otherwise healthy

Couldn't find a link to an article about this that wasn't on a conservative site and don't want to give them traffic. Yall can google it though. Anyway, I Imagine most ilxors are in favor of euthanasia for people with incurable, painful illnesses but this seems like something else. Like most people I have known in my life many who were unhappy or even suffered terrible traumas. It seems obscene to suggest their life is less meaningful than that of someone whose life is more pleasant but that is the premise these radical right to die people seem to be operating under. My therapist described himself as a rational egoist/epicurean hedonist or something along those lines, I wonder what he would think of someone whose depressive symptoms just wouldn't improve with treatment. Anyway, this story is disturbing to me and its hard for me to see indulging someones suicidal ideation as a promotion of their autonomy, but maybe that is bc i am patronizing them and ascribing their own views to "sickness" bc it makes me more comfortable.

Throwing this one to you all

Couldn't find a link to an article about this that wasn't on a conservative site

maybe there isn't actually any good information out there about this, then?

'otherwise healthy' is pretty problematic

Particularly given the woman in question was 85.

There was an article in Newsweek but theres a paywall. The conservative sites I am talking about are the daily news and the daily mail, not like breitbart. It seems the facts of the case are that in rare cases patients with severe chronic depression oved a number of years are approved for doctor assisted suicide. The woman they interviewed in the articles I read described her only disease as depression and her main symptom as suicide ideation.

Here's one of many articles about it

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/belgian-doctors-euthanise-healthy-24-year-old-woman-suffering-depression-1508578

feel like there's something going on that's specific to Belgium here

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/right-die-belgium-inside-worlds-liberal-euthanasia-laws-2/

Yes. The rhetoric around it is strange to me. Depression is a lot of things, but part of what it is involves a distortion in how one sees themselves and the world. So respecting the "autonomy" of the depressed person by assisting her desire to hurt herself seems, if not a fallacy, at least a minefield. I guess I've never experienced the inner depths of depression, but in my early twenties I was really low, and had frequent thoughts of self loathing and things like that. I was able to sort it out with medication and therapy, and others are less fortunate, but still, in my experience depressio is a disease that makes people 1.) lie to themselves 2.) undervalue themeselves. Someone in such a state needs to be protected from themselves imo

Sorry the "yes" at the beginning of my comment was agreeing that these sort of extremely liberal euthanasia laws are currently limited to belgium and its hard to imagine them taking off in the US

u are lining yrself up for an internet shouting-at and for what

It seems obscene to suggest their life is less meaningful than that of someone whose life is more pleasant but that is the premise these radical right to die people seem to be operating under.

I'm not sure that is their premise at all.

Thats an uncharitable way to put it. I guess they are saying that death is the only way to stop the suffering in some cases. I don't know if this can really be said of a 24 year old but i'll leave that to doctors. There is a kind of subtext though that the life full of suffering is less worthwhile than the healthy or fortunate life. Maybe this is clearly true in cases where the suffering is "unbearable" to the point when it blocks out everything else. But who makes the call when that is actually the situation? What if the patient has a disease that distorts their view of reality?

what if a depressed view of reality isn't a distorted one?

tbh I find myself wondering about doing this from time to time. It has fuck all to do with how "meaningful" my life is or isn't, what a weird thing to prioritise.

There was a good article in the new yorker about this

what if a depressed view of reality isn't a distorted one?

all views of reality are distorted except God's. terminal illness and depression are widely divergent cases and it's weird to say "well, depression's like terminal illness insofar as it's chronic." chronic illness one can treat. terminal illness will kill you, and so euthanasia is a way to say to the terminal patient "you have the right to do this on your terms, not your disease's."

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/the-death-treatment

here's that nyer article, it is quite good

JLC otm. The depressed person's worldview might not be more distorted than the "healthy" person's, but in the case of suicide ideation it's coming from a very unkind place. If someone says "I'm a stupid loser who deserves to die" that view should be challenged by a mental health professional, not validated, even if it is the kind of subjective statement that can't be validated one way or the other.

that view should be challenged by a mental health professional

Yeah it probably should be, good luck with that ever happening. I dunno what it's like in the US but I can't imagine it's much better than here

"Ever"? People successfully work through negative thought patterns with the help of therapists all the time. There isn't a guaranteed cure but there is a treatment that works for many people, just like there is with most other illnesses.

Also euthanasia for depressed people is a bad solution for a poor mental health care system imo

I should probably stay out of this thread and I'm already regretting posting in it.

I'm sorry I'm just having a bad day.

The Oregon law, which was the first in the USA, specifically requires a diagnosis of terminal illness together with a prognosis of six months or less to live, plus a mental health evaluation of the person requesting the euthanasia. Palliative care must be available to the person. After the initial request and evaluation there is a waiting period and the request must be reaffirmed.

Yeah, this issue of euthanasia for psychiatric distress is limited, I think, to Belgium and maybe a few other European countries

The Oregon law does not legalize euthanasia. It legalizes physician-assisted, self-administered aid in dying. The major right-to-die advocacy groups in the USA (including Compassion and Choices) do not advocate for euthanasia.

The decision to end one's own life peacefully seems like a human rights issue to me.

sorry. i'm logging out for now. i'm just gonna drink in bed all day and watch cable news until things get better.

Depression is a lot of things, but part of what it is involves a distortion in how one sees themselves and the world. So respecting the "autonomy" of the depressed person by assisting her desire to hurt herself seems, if not a fallacy, at least a minefield.

denying that some people are fully rational actors, and raising the question over whether their autonomy and by extension rights need to be respected if their symptoms are deemed to fall under the pretty nebulous blanket of depression seems dangerous to me. lots of people are going to be put off seeking medical advice if a diagnosis of depression could have such a huge impact on them.

my understanding from a friend who is a doctor who has worked in mental health is that, in the uk at least, if tell your doctor how & when you are going to commit suicide they cannot intervene to stop you on the basis of you being depressed, and I think that's right. the same doctor has told me so many horror stories of botched suicides that I'm fairly sympathetic to the idea of the state providing tools to end your life cleanly and painlessly, but it's very difficult to see how you can police that people are making the decision for themselves without pressure

In the US, a doctor can contact the police or have you forcibly committed if you discuss imminent action, so you have to be careful to not mention it.
I do think about this often - what is right here - who gets to decide when suicide is finally "permitted"? Is it fair or rational itself to automatically decide that suicidal tendencies are the result of mental illness rather than the calculus of years upon years upon years of past and future suffering? Eh...

we probably shouldn't even have threads about suicide. they attract crazies, and lead to a moral imperative by which someone feels like they need to do something.

in any case, it is extremely frustrating for me that it is assumed that, to be alive, is an intrinsically good thing, when it truly isn't for some. but, were anyone to take that idea seriously, i suppose it would only open a deep can of philosophical worms.

part of what it boils down to, is. . . there are young people who have been in the mental health system for years (interviews with psychiatrists, mental hospital stays, and so forth) who want to end their lives in a non-messy way. and, also want their family members to understand that it may be a happy decision to end one's life (yet assuming living is intrinsically good to do makes this harder -- and people who are ready to die are forced to continue to live in agony.

i know that sounds extreme.

just, can't the laws be arranged so that, as long as you've worked with psychiatrists for a few years, and are over 30, you can be prescribed cyanide or something? at least, for the sake, of preventing a bloody mess.

denying that some people are fully rational actors, and raising the question over whether their autonomy and by extension rights need to be respected if their symptoms are deemed to fall under the pretty nebulous blanket of depression seems dangerous to me. lots of people are going to be put off seeking medical advice if a diagnosis of depression could have such a huge impact on them.

i mean ctrl-h 'depression' here with 'mental illness' and we're describing a state which exists for many other conditions already

yes, and it's worth looking at seriously for other diagnoses too, but I don't see that it has any bearing on how depression (which is ofc extremely common, highly variable, often caused or exacerbated by concrete social and material factors, and, relatedly, often transient) is treated. it's too weak and vague a concept to be the basis of legislation

Labour MP, Robert Flello said: "It almost sends the message that if you are the victim of abuse, and as a result you get a mental illness, you are punished by being killed, that the punishment for the crime of being a victim is death.

probably the stupidest thing a Labour politician has said this year

the punishment for the crime of being a victim is death

seems fair imo

life is strictly 4 hyperboreans like me

depression is very chronic and it returns all the time. fighting it is a constant battle for many (most?) sufferers and it never really "goes away."

everyone needs to choose if they want to engage in that battle or not. however, i think doctors should only help people fight the disease. they shouldn't help the disease, which is trying to kill the patient too, in various ways. (i know that positing such a firm line between the "patient" and the "disease" might not be totally ontologically tenable but the law is built on arbitrary distinctions all the time.)

i'd be way more comfortable with nembutal being sold over the counter than giving doctors the right to advise people in the direction of suicide. some people get very influenced by their therapists.

i also think this has nothing to do with the law in oregon, which is for terminal patients. sorry if people thought i posted this article originally as an inflammatory way to attack the right to die people. i totally believe in right to die for terminal patients. it's much dodgier when it comes to mental health patients, especially when they are in a situation where this "right to die" is being facilitated by the deeply flawed mental health care system.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sex-abuse-victim-in-her-20s-allowed-by-dutch-doctors-to-undergo-euthanasia-due-to-severe-ptsd-a7023666.html

here is the story where imago got his quote btw. you can make your own decision whether it was the right thing for dutch doctors to help this young woman kill herself. (this is not the same thing as judging whether it was the right thing for the woman to kill herself, which is something only she can speak to.) in any case, it's very tragic. you can't help but read that and wish there could have been a better outcome.

Belgian doctors to euthanize woman with 3rd degree burns over 95% of her body who is otherwise healthy

well, the woman in the original story backed out of the assisted suicide at the last moment anyway so she at least doesn't agree with you that her condition was comically, outrageously hopeless

Every time this thread is bumped I write multiple paragraphs-long responses and then delete them. I have strong feelings about this but probably best not to share.