Assisted suicide by the Dignitas clinic

Created: 2009-04-01 19:08:04

Comment by Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, on assisted suicide by the Dignitas clinic:

"Mr Minelli, founder of Dignitas, offers a seductive but dangerous solution to the feelings of anguish and hopelessness experienced by some people with mental illness.  These feelings are often due to neglected or inadequately treated conditions which, unlike those of terminal disease, can be altered by improved medical and psychological therapies.

"While we do believe psychiatric patients should have the same rights as those with physical illness, they are not comparable as mental illness is more of a perception of mood and thought and is not a fundamentally irreversible progress of an invasive or degenerative condition.

"We should be making these treatments more available and effective, helping people to recover, rather than condoning his one-way ticket to despair and unnecessary death."

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