Inclusion Daily Express -- Assisted Suicide's For Mental Illness, Too, Swiss Court Rules

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Assisted Suicide's For Mental Illness, Too, Swiss Court Rules
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
February 5, 2007

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND--A psychiatric disability can be just as "unbearable" as a physical disability, and therefore, people "suffering" with such conditions should be able to seek a doctor's help in killing themselves, Switzerland's highest court announced Friday.

According to the Associated Press, the Federal Tribunal made the ruling after a 53-year-old man diagnosed with bipolar disorder requested permission to receive a lethal dose of pentobarbital without a doctor's prescription.

While the tribunal denied his request, it said that if the wish to die "is based on an autonomous decision which takes all circumstances into account, then a mentally ill person can be prescribed sodium-pentobarbital and thereby assisted in suicide."

"A distinction has to be made between a death wish which is an expression of a curable, psychiatric disorder and which requires treatment, and (a death wish) which is based on a person of sound judgment's own well-considered and permanent decision, which must be respected," the judges said.

Many disability rights groups have opposed legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia out of fear that it would make people with disabilities, particularly those with psychiatric disabilities such as depression, more vulnerable.

While supporters of assisted suicide have pointed to protections for vulnerable people, groups such as the Switzerland-based assisted suicide clinic Dignitas have reportedly been responsible for helping people with disabilities to kill themselves when they did not have terminal illnesses.

For example, Robert and Jennifer Stokes, a couple from England, died in Zurich three years ago by swallowing lethal doses of drugs supplied by Dignitas. Mr. Stokes, 59, had epilepsy while Mrs. Stokes, 53, had diabetes and back problems. Neither was believed to have been terminally ill.

Copyright © 2007 Inonit Publishing
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