Presto Agitato: Tacking Right

July 05, 2009

Tacking Right

I don't disagree with Penn in substance on the drug issue, although maybe in the amount I'd be willing to intervene. Or perhaps not. I don't have any friends about whom I can even imagine that this could be a problem. Perhaps my imagination fails me.

Regarding suicide, however, I take a slightly different tack: Many people do contemplate and even commit suicide when facing temporary or correctable circumstances, such as an illness which is not terminal or clinical depression which can be treated although admittedly rather ham-handedly. (Psychiatric medicine is not all it's cracked up to be. Yeah, I'm sorry.) In such a circumstance, I'm not entirely opposed to a forced 'time out' while friends and responsible professionals help the individual to sort things out. But I am not happy with such an application of force against an innocent person, so that period would have to be very short. I mean, it should be measured in a small number of weeks, and I would hope that all involved would be deeply troubled — sickened — by the moral dilemma.

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But in the case of a terminal illness where the only prospects are pain and medicated oblivion, suicide is a reasonable option. I also understand the possibility that a person who loses his beloved wife (or her husband) might not want to continue as a lonely old doddering and demented coot; in that case, as before, I would suggest a time-out to consider the possibilities of life and to work through the immediate bereavement. 'As before,' I say, and with the same qualms. One hopes that family and friends would make themselves available in a way that encourages the desire to 'go on.'

And then there's assisted suicide, to which I am absolutely opposed. I do not trust others to involve themselves in the process in a way that may simply be convenient to them. Yes, I do think some people are low enough to encourage an old, medically-expensive parent not to be 'a burden.' And old people, especially the slightly demented, are easily suggestible. This is why many states (such as my own) have laws to protect 'vulnerable adults' from their own families; because they can be robbed — or manipulated — blind.

Posted by Mike at 14:00 | Permalink

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