Monday, February 05, 2007

Shrink Wrapped Up

I knew the Dr. would have insight into the gloriously bad Swiss idea of helping the mentally ill kill themselves:

Yet, in the last 30 years we have had entire classes of medications become available to treat hitherto untreatable Psychiatric disorders; we have drugs in the pipeline which may well revolutionize the treatment of Cocaine and Heroin addiction; we are closing in on cures for alcoholism; severely disturbed Schizophrenics and Manic-Depressives can often be stabilized well enough to live satisfying and productive lives; medical science, including neuroscience, is proceeding at such a rapid pace that anyone who claims they can predict the state of the art in treatment five years from now is lying. With all that, the Swiss have now decided that if a person feels sufficiently hopeless and helpless (ie, depressed) that they want to kill themselves, we should agree they are hopeless and helpless and help them do so.
I expect the Swiss will do what the Swiss will do - and all we can do is watch. Funny, well, not funny, that the Swiss will have the problem of keeping the Suicide Hotline and the Suicide Helpline separate. "No, you want 01 / 291 46 46 for help in not killing yourself.... but hey, let's talk for awhile...."

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