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Archive for the ‘Depression’ Category

Looking Beyond Shallow “Compassion” Reveals the Real Cruelty of Legal Assisted Suicide

Posted in Depression, Devaluation of Lives with Disabilities, Disability Rights Groups' Opposition, Elder Abuse, Slippery Slope on November 1, 2014 | Comments Off

John Kelly, a disability rights activist with Second Thoughts Massachusetts, has an article in the Newark (New Jersey) Star Ledger that does a masterful job of cutting through the sentimentality and the shallow idea of compassion behind the selling of assisted suicide laws.  Sadly, some individuals have bought the idea that living until their natural […]

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Suicide by any other name…

Posted in Depression, Expansion of Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia, Healthy people helped to commit suicide, Not a Peaceful Death, Slippery Slope, Suicide Contagion, Suicide Increase on August 12, 2014 | Comments Off

Again today, my Facebook feed is filled with statements of mourning about yet another reported suicide of a well known person. People who knew Robin Williams only by his public persona are grieved by his untimely death, allegedly at his own hands. We can only imagine the heartbreak being experienced by his friends and family. […]

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Is Diabetes an Acceptable Reason for a Doctor to Assist a Person in Committing Suicide? Oregon Thinks So.

Posted in Chronic Diseases Rendered Terminal by Non-treatment, Depression on March 20, 2014 | Comments Off

Diabetes is generally thought of as a chronic disease, but it is chronic only when treated.  Without treatment it is terminal. A suicidal person can render it terminal by declining treatment. Depression is also common among people with diabetes (http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/mental-health/depression.html). Unlike the  Vermont law, which will only require a listing of the prescriptions written, the […]

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Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist Asserts that Patients with Treatable Depression are Being Killed in Oregon and Will Be in Vermont

Posted in Depression, Medical Opinions on May 25, 2013 | Comments Off

May 24, 2013 5:49 p.m. ET Paul McHugh, the author of the article below, which appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal, is the former chief psychiatrist at John’s Hopkins.  The article claims that psychiatrists who have asked to examine the medical records of patients who died under the Oregon law with the aim of finding […]

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Vermont Law Creates “Perfect Storm” of Conditions for Suicide

Posted in Depression, Suicide Contagion, Suicide Increase on May 23, 2013 | Comments Off

Among the safeguards slashed from the assisted suicide legislation that has become law in Vermont, were any requirements to ensure that the person requesting suicide is not suffering from treatable depression. Depression in the dying is not uncommon.   Hospice Pioneer Dr. Ira Byock wrote in his groundbreaking book, Dying Well, that nearly everyone who is […]

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Doctor: the top three reasons terminally ill patients choose to end their lives are all symptoms of clinical depression that leads to suicide, and all can be treated.

Posted in Depression, Medical Opinions, Out of State/General on October 23, 2012 | Comments Off

The article below, from the Lynn, Massachusetts newspaper, The Daily Item, is interesting for its reporting on a physician’s insight that the top three reasons the Oregon reports say people request assistance in suicide-“loss of control, loss of enjoyment and feeling like a burden to others”-are all symptoms of treatable depression. It is also good […]

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People Supporting Assisted Suicide Laws Often Believe They Require Doctors to Screen All Patients for Depression: They Do Not

Posted in Depression, Out of State/General, True Dignity on June 26, 2012 | Comments Off

It is well-known that the treatable mental illness of depression causes suicidal thoughts, so much so that such thoughts are considered an identifying characteristic of depression for diagnostic purposes (http://www.mental-health-today.com/dep/dsm.htm).   Advocates for assisted suicide are misinformed, and misinform others, when they assert that depressed people are not at risk from assisted suicide. They assert, […]

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