Home euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: What my sister's euthanasia exposed about this controversial topic
SlateMy sister Theda had been bedridden for seven years when she first decided she wanted to die. Psychiatric disorders manifesting as physical disease are at the very bottom of that pile.” This distinction between physical, psychological, and hybrid suffering didn’t matter much to Theda in the end. “I’m not crazy!” she told me when mental illness causing physical symptoms came up once. She talked a lot about her physical condition, calling it “the sickness Theda has.” She believed that her illness existed because our family was in the “wrong realm.” She mythologized our migration and ethnic experience when speaking like this, saying our parents had migrated from more agreeable realms in their “past lives.” She also commonly linked her physical illness to trauma from “a past life” in which she’d been raped and buried alive for attempting to move freely in a single-ethnicity culture while being a half-caste. When we recognize that mental and physical illnesses are not so cleanly divided, we can also question the usefulness of that “divide” for deciding on someone’s right to die.
History of this topic
Judge bars woman from euthanasia at last minute
The Independent
Euthanasia doctors in Canada struggle with the ethics of killing vulnerable patients
The Independent
Euthanasia Debate | The case against legalisation of euthanasia in India
Hindustan Times
Physically healthy 28-year-old woman in the Netherlands chooses euthanasia. Here’s why
Hindustan Times
Alberta judge greenlights euthanasia for 27-year-old autistic woman DESPITE objections from her dad, who says she's healthy - just 'vulnerable' due to mental health problems
Daily Mail
Do You Want To Die Today? Inside Canada’s Euthanasia Program
Al Jazeera)
Doctor uses pillow to 'euthanise' terminally ill woman in Belgium
Firstpost
Vancouver hospital offered 'medical assistance in dying' to suicidal 37-year-old woman who was told it would take too long to see a psychiatrist
Daily Mail
Canada’s euthanasia system should be warning sign to other countries, MPs told
The Independent
The story of my mother-in-law's assisted suicide
LA Times
‘It’s meaningful work’: The doctor who performs euthanasia in Canada — and the doctor who refuses
The Independent
Police probe assisted suicide in Canada as daughters hit out at procedure
The Independent
The case against medical aid in dying: Insurance firms, doctors and Hollywood among those accused of pushing ‘assisted suicide’
The IndependentDiscover Related
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