 ASSISTED SUICIDE FOR THE MENTALLY ILL: NOT AS CRAZY AS YOU'D THINK
You ever have one of those days when you wake up, curse the fact that you're still alive and attempt to remedy that by smothering yourself with a pillow? I've been having one of those days every day since I was eight months old. Needless to say, smothering yourself with a pillow is much harder than it looks. Also, there are few things as downright adorable as a suicidal toddler. Every babysitter I've ever had will tell you that. There's just something about the stoicism of an infant as he attempts to tie his own noose that warms the heart and may in fact be chicken soup for the soul. Since I'm pretty shy about sharing my opinions in public, you might not know that I'm a pretty pro-suicide breed of cat. All right, that's not entirely true. You couldn't be more pro-suicide than me, at least not since Kurt Cobain died. I don't care if its my suicide, yours, or just some idiot on the street's. For every person who dies by their own hand, that's one more person I don't have to deal with. And another angel gets its wings. I'm actually thinking of suing Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne for not having backward masking on their albums. I love death like fat kids love cake. If I had a nickel for each of you that has fallen in love with my nhilism, I'd be having all the fun instead of that mongloid Diddy .... who really should kill himself soon. After all, it's not like anyone else is interested enough to actually kill him. How many other rappers can you say that about? Finally, the Swiss have proven that they're useful for something other than watches, chocolate and the mandatory ownership of assault weapons. They've decided to give people like me what we've always wanted. A ruling by Switzerland's highest court released Friday has opened up the possibility that people with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives. Switzerland already allows physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients under certain circumstances. The Federal Tribunal's decision puts mental illnesses on the same level as physical ones.
"It must be recognized that an incurable, permanent, serious mental disorder can cause similar suffering as a physical (disorder), making life appear unbearable to the patient in the long term," the ruling said.
Yippie kiyay, motherfucker! I'm sure that there are any number of fucking killjoys out there who want to blunt my buzz by saying that lunatics like me can't make a rational decision about enjoying some good, old-fashioned self-offery. Well, the Swiss Supreme Court wants you to know that you're a fool on top of being a jackal. "If the death wish 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," it added. The logic of the decision is pretty easy to follow when you really think about it; just because you're nuts doesn't mean that you're stupid. Even if you're bouncing off the walls, seeing monsters in the closet, the CIA put a transmitter in your teeth, batshit fucking crazy, that doesn't necessarily preclude you from recognizing that life isn't worth living. Shit, it might actually make you uniquely qualified to make that decision. As you might imagine, I've long been fascinated by the debate over euthanasia. It might very well be the the final frontier in the quest for personal liberty. And people on every side take positions other than those you would expect. The pro-abortion movement, which essentially argues for the autonomy of the person, is decidedly silent on the right to die - at least in public. Conversely, conservatives, who would lke nothing better than to start each day by executing a retarded fifteen year old who held up a liqour store and stopping the government from doing anything else, couldn't be more opposed. It should go without saying that this confuses me. Just as you would expect, most people are opposed to medically assisted suicide for those suffering from debilitating, incurable diseases such as ALS and stage three cancer. Those are horrible, lethal maladies that destroy not only those suffering from them, but often those around the patient as well. If someone is against the merciful ending of that kind of suffering, you can only imagine what their reaction is to someone seeking same merely because they're overly cukoo for coco-puffs. When it comes to mental illness, people seem to want to impose a different competency test for voluntary death than they would a judicially imposed one. Let's for one moment look at the great state of Texas. Upon conviction of a capital crime, an appealant has but thirty days to base his or her appeal on innocence. After that thirty days, you could provide a videotape of someone else committing the crime and you still get to die. That procedure has been affirmed by the United States Supreme Court and unlikely to change anytime soon. In the criminal process, the test of competency is the ability to differentiate right from wrong. If a case, however thin, can be made that you posses that ability, it matters not how goofy you otherwise are, you're still fucked. If however you want to kill yourself, the stakes go up dramatically. Not only would you have to prove your own total competency, you would have to demonstrate that everyone around you has almost Christ-like motives. The natural impulse to kill sick folks for insurance money is the giant bugaboo in arguing against the right to die. And the above would only be true if assisted suicide were legal in North America, which it isn't. Conservatives, who insist on the dignity of capital punishment, will do everything in their power to deny that same dignity to those who are guilty only of not having the full use of their bodies or minds. How can anyone reconcile letting someone who raped and murdered a child having a more pleasant death than someone who is merely horribly ill? The Swiss Federal Tribunal's decision also inserted safeguards to sensibly prevent abuse. "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," they said. American prisons routinely keep the condemned on enough anti-psychotic medicines so that they can meet the Eighth Amendment's demand that they know that they are being executed and why. If the state can do that to the mentally ill, I see no reason why the mentally ill should be precluded from doing so to themselves. If you can, you're a far more agile intellectual acrobat than I am. Here's another little secret. Regular old suicide of the non-assisted variety isn't a crime. And hasn't been for some time now. If you're bound and determined to take yourself out, the state will largely stay out of your way, but they will compel you to make a big mess and further traumatize your loved ones. Dignity is given to those who desrve it least and denied to those that need it most. That this is being doing in the name of a "culture of life" might be the greatest obscenity I can think of. Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: I Hate Myself And I Want To Die By: Nirvana From: The Beavis And Butthead Experience Permalink Labels: I Fought The Law, I Hate Myself And I Want To Die
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