Reply to Interesting WP article about "terminal" anorexia.

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "Interesting WP article about "terminal" anorexia."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In my line I've work, I've dealt with many individuals with severe mental illnesses and people who have taken many serious attempts on your life. Its hard for me because on one hand, you don't want to let people die. But on the other hand, it almost seems cruel to keep them alive.  I don't feel this way with non mental health issues and feel like everyone should have a right to choose how they want to go out.  However with those with mental health issues, if their brain isn't working right due to chemical imbalances, is it that different than the elderly dementia patient whose child is making their medical decisions because the patient's brain isn't working right either?    Its ethically a grey area when it comes to mental health [/quote]

The chemical imbalance theory of mental illness was debunked decades ago. Mental illness has a complex psychopathology and neurobiological basis just like many other illnesses. And mental illness is not synonymous with a loss of competence. With some people with severe mental illness or in an acute episode may not be competent, the majority of people with mental illness are competent.

All right to die legislation has built in protectors. MAiD legislation isn’t just that anyone at anytime can ask someone to help them die.[/quote]

I think you are missing the PP’s main point, which is not about the causation of intractable mental health issues.

The point is: “I feel differently about this for mental health diagnoses than I do for non-mental health diagnoses, but I realize that that may be irrational. For instance, I would support MAiD being expanded to a person with advanced dementia, who is not in any kind of gray area as to competence; they are categorically unable to make their own decisions and I still think it would be OK.”[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics