Is it Crazy to Allow Doctor-Assisted Euthanasia for Crazy People?
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16679)
Boston, Massachusetts
May 14, 2016 2:43pm CST
Over the years, as more jurisdictions have decided in favor of allowing voluntary euthanasia, one thing was always said to be a guarantee - that the person seeking physician assistance in ending his or her life was of sound mind. That is, the assurance was that people who were allowed to commit doctor-assisted suicide were mentally competent and capable of making that decision for themselves.
However, the Netherlands - apparently the most progressive nation on Earth - has , in recent years, become more relaxed about the whole competency thing and now allows people to commit suicide for reasons other than intractable pain or terminal illness. Now, if you are simply emotionally unstable or mentally ill, and you don't like being mentally ill, you can avail yourself of a neat little physician-assisted suicide.
In 2015, 56 mentally ill people in the Netherlands were allowed euthanasia services. This number includes a woman in her twenties who suffered mental and emotional damage from being abused as a child.
I am not comfortable with people with depression receiving fatal administrations of drugs rather than psychiatric help. I am also not comfortable with the idea that if suicide is an option, psychiatrists will be less concerned about their failure to successfully treat a person suffering mental illness.
In The Netherlands, the mentally ill are considered competent to make life and death decisions. In Belgium, minor children are now allowed to decide to commit suicide.
It seems to me, that the motive behind these progressive attitudes towards suicide is to make everything easier. Society will be relieved of the burden of caring for the disabled and the mentally ill.
I think it's crazy to let crazy people commit suicide rather than continuing to try to make them mentally whole.
And for those who believe that we all have the right to do whatever we wish with our bodies, try asking your doctor for some heroin or cocaine because you wish to put those drugs in your body. A 12-year-old in Belgium can make the decision to end her life, but she can't buy a pack of cigarettes. So, there is no real right to do what you wish with your own body in the eyes of governments in general - unless you want to kill yourself.
Revelation from Netherlands commission on assisted suicide rekindles debate over when someone should be allowed to chose to die
19 people like this
11 responses
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
15 May 16
@JudyEv Yes. I wonder if we put the same emphasis on solving this problem as we did getting to the moon, if it might come to an end.
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
15 May 16
Maybe, but how do we as a society deal with people who are in over whelming pain? Is there some relief for them? I don't know, and I would not want to make the decision for them.
2 people like this
@vandana7 (99118)
• India
15 May 16
I am also not agreeable to this. I take a long time to condemn anybody for good. Adolf Hitler was innocent in my eyes till I chanced upon some document in which he gave orders for mentally unstable folks to be killed. That to me was more conclusive evidence of his ruthlessness than whatever Simon Wiesanthal came up with. Because that proved that he was looking for something like Universal Soldier. Till then I always asked where are newspapers, documents, registers, etc., proving Hitler went to concentration camps. No record of his visits even from survivors. So I'd believed that such things were going on without his knowledge, and the final solution - he was being made scapegoat of. Anybody lacking empathy for mentally unstable needs to get real, because everybody is unstable to certain extent, sometime or the other in their lives.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 May 16
@vandana7 He had Eichmann to oversee the situation. Certainly, it could not have gone on to that extent without his consent. I knew someone who had been in Auschwitz, a Polish man. I agree that Hitler probably was never seen by anyone who survived the camps, and I don't know if he visited them. It would have been smarter not to, so that he could deny all knowledge if he was defeated. But killing himself rather than being captured seems to indicate that a bullet to the head was preferable to what might await him if he were captured. And that points to his being aware of the war crimes being perpetrated.
1 person likes this
@vandana7 (99118)
• India
17 May 16
@Rollo1 .. If the man learned that his name has been misused for whatever was done, still it could be the same result, isn't it? No...it could not have happened without his knowledge. He could see that star being worn on sleeves as he passed through streets. He would have known that they were being separated from the main crowd by by Eichmann and others but I was looking at the "final solution". Did he really order that? Could he have? That was the question that bothered me till I came across the paper signed by him in which he ordered execution of mentally ill Germans, and not alone jews. That sort of helped me declare him as guilty. Because if he could do that, then he could do what he did to the jews. I would think he would have received regular reports of concentration camps, deaths there, and so on and so forth.
1 person likes this
@vandana7 (99118)
• India
17 May 16
@Rollo1 .. No ...I did not mean that there would be newspaper reports. But there would be some evidence of Hitler having visited the concentration camps. At least one of the survivors would have seen him in one of the camps. There is no survivor who said he saw Hitler at the camp. There are no records such as expenses during Fuhrer's visit (obviously there would be extra), or any other thing that links Hitler to the concentration camp. If he genuinely hated jews that much he would have loved to see them suffer every now and then...there are no records indicating his presence in the vicinity. Generally, if a leader visits some place, the newspaper mention that. Today, what we know as Auschwitz was not exactly as famous as back then. So it would have had folks talking about it especially in relation to a man like Hitler. I searched and searched...he never went to concentration camps. Obviously, he was not preparing himself for defeat!
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (159936)
• Boise, Idaho
16 May 16
Why continue to help people with any kind of disease or illness if this is the case. THey can just go the euthunasia route. Ugh! Where do they draw the line?
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (159936)
• Boise, Idaho
17 May 16
@Rollo1 ....It all sounds like something out of a sci-fi book. I think man kind has some time left. Scientists do seem to go off into realms we should be more careful with that is for sure.
@LadyDuck (460403)
• Switzerland
16 May 16
@miniam They have just closed a clinic in Melide, because they accepted to end the life of human beings without asking too many questions. There were people from Italy bringing their elder parents with dementia... I think you imagine what I mean.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
15 May 16
There are always advances in medical science. People who would have been terminal 100 years ago are easily cured today. Psychiatric disorders still hold mysteries, but I don't think the answer is to help mentally ill people kill themselves. I do think that is cheaper and it may be that in the world of checklist medical services, that it may be the one that governments are most likely to choose.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
14 May 16
I honestly don't know what I think. I am sure sure when it's my right to stop someone from choosing to end their life, a child well... I would think that would cross the line, as they aren't an adult yet.
1 person likes this
@Daljinder (23233)
• Bangalore, India
15 May 16
Reading this, I was reminded of Hitler wiping out disabled, mentally ill, etc... 
@Daljinder (23233)
• Bangalore, India
17 May 16
@Rollo1 If things are like that then I would be beyond scared in their position too to go to a hospital. 
