A reader responds to the meat of the issue:
“Shouldn’t adults be able to make decisions about end of life? But if one has a mental illness, particularly a treatable illness, then they may make a decision which they might not otherwise make.”
The question is, who decides if an illness, especially a mental illness, is treatable.
The more current research delves into how the brain works, the more (what I read) it appears that many treatments are no more effective than placebos. That is, conventional wisdom, or the accepted position of therapeutic professional organizations is that they CAN treat most or all illnesses — but those positions are based both upon out-dated science and self-preservation (of reputations, organization and business income). But the emerging reality is that there’s more we don’t know, causes are more myriad and complex, and most of all, most drugs prescribed are next to worthless and often actually harmful.
The doesn’t make me feel very comfortable with allowing an organizational “opinion” be the deciding factor in what an adult can choose to do or not do.
On the other hand, I’m not saying we should make easier for people to impulsively commit suicide.
It’s a tough question, indeed.
I think – or hope – as genomic medicine begins to mature, we’ll see medications differentiated based on the responsiveness of a patient with a particular genome to the medication family – i.e., your genome will suggest which medicine is best for you. I believe this is already taking place in oncology, although still in its infancy. Here is a study at Mayo.
I think we lack a really objective view of the human mind. I know psychologists work to achieve such a viewpoint (my sister is a psychologist), but … well, I recall listening to a psychiatrist talk about the ‘schools’ of psychiatry, by which he meant the various schools of thought on psychiatry. He seemed a little bemused at the very thought; I think his medical degree (pediatrician) training had trained him to see things one way, as the right way, and the schools approach didn’t have the same rigor. Or maybe not. I failed to interrogate him when I had the chance.
If we had that objective view of the mind, then perhaps we could make real progress on this question. I believe Senator Eaton’s bill will require two doctors to sign off on permitting the dispensation of fatal meds:
Eaton’s bill would require two doctors to sign off on a terminal patient’s state of mind before prescribing medication that would end the patient’s life.
It doesn’t say what sort of doctors, and Eaton hasn’t issued anything more specific that I can find. But I can’t say I’m comfortable with that requirement, even if they’re psychologists. At least not without credible studies showing psychologists can properly assess the current state of someone’s mind at a high enough accuracy rate. It’s a conundrum.
