Org. Calling For Euthanasia Option For The Chronically Depressed

[The Straight Story]

Org. Calling For Euthanasia Option For The Chronically Depressed

September 21, 2006 8:38 p.m. EST

Josephine Roque - All Headline News Staff Writer

London, England (AHN) - A controversial Swiss group is calling for the UK to drop its suicide laws to allow assisted suicide for those chronically depressed instead of terminally ill.

Dignitas headed by Ludwig Minelli is also requesting the Swiss Supreme court to allow changes in law.

So far, Swiss laws have allowed Dignitas to assist 54 Britons to die and while another British man is to follow next week.

Minelli said: "The question for politicians in Britain today is why do you force your citizens, people in the most terrible circumstances who are determined to end their suffering in a way of their own choosing, to leave their country and travel to Switzerland to exercise their free will."

Dignitas is allowed in Switzerland due to its liberal laws on assisted suicide that say a person can only be charged if they are acting out of self-interest.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004941207

[Bucky]

1. There's a better cure for chronic depression: vote for Democrats

At least you'll have a little something less to be depressed about.

[Deja Q]

2. I'm not sure I want to comment on this.

I will undoubtedly be flamed.

[cali]

3. That's just fucked up

Assuming there's nothing physical to hinder them, why would someone who's chronically depressed need assistance to commit suicide anyway?

[The Straight Story]

5. Good point, and if someone did and they came to you

or me I would try to help them end their depression and not their lives.

Totally fucked up...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. What a depressing article..... don't they have something for

chronic depression? I'm sure they have something for that.

1: Int Rev Psychiatry. 2006 Apr;18(2):149-54.Click here to read Links
High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging sinc-interpolation-based subvoxel registration and semi-automated quantitative lateral ventricular morphology employing threshold computation and binary image creation in the study of fatty acid interventions in schizophrenia, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and Huntington's disease.

* Puri BK.

MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK. [e-mail]

Serial high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain can now be precisely aligned, with six degrees of freedom (three mutually orthogonal translational and three rotational degrees of freedom around three mutually orthogonal axes), using a rigid-body subvoxel registration technique. This is driven by the in-plane point spread function for images acquired in the Fourier domain with data obtained over a bounded region of k-space, namely the sinc interpolation function, where sinc z = (sin z)/z, with z being any complex number (including zero).

Computational subtraction of the three-dimensional Cartesian spatial representation matrices of serially acquired scan data allows for the determination of structural cerebral changes with great precision, since voxel signals from unchanged structures are almost completely cancelled. Thus changes readily show up against a background of noise. Furthermore, lateral ventricular changes can now be accurately quantified using a semi-automated method involving contour production, threshold computation, binary image creation and ventricular extraction.

These techniques have been applied to the investigation of the effects on cerebral structure of intervention with fatty acids, particularly the long-chain polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), in disorders such as schizophrenia, treatment-resistant depression, chronic fatigue syndrome (myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME), and Huntington's disease.

PMID: 16777669

[dkofos]

6. I would support a law to euthanize the terminaly stupid

We could start with fux news watchers

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. That's like saying we should assist diabetics in stuffing themselves with

candy so that they'll go into a coma.

Seriously misguided.

[Bucky]

8. New cure for gingivitus: euthanasia

Also cures baldness, scirosis of the liver, and dispepsia. I don't even know what dispepsia is, but I'm sure euthanasia will cure it.

[Warpy]

9. They'd better safeguard it damned well

meaning depressives must have gone through the full spectrum of treatment: drugs, psychotherapy, shock.

Some depressives have NOTHING work. They are living in hell. I can see no reason they shouldn't have an easier out than a gun, a rope, a high building, or a cop.