Euthanasia laws in Belgium

[ddt]

I suppose that's that Catholic saint (Catherine of something ?) who basically starved herself to death but that's about it.

Apparently, it's called Anorexia mirabilis, and enjoyed some popularity among girls/women in the Middle Ages. The wiki article has some more examples, with lurid details.

 

[ddt]

Good point, but I'm not aware of too many martyrs who:

• Killed themselves deliberately
• Didn't take some of the infidel with them

There's a few more. Saint Pelagia threw herself off the roof of her house in order not to risk dishonour from Roman soldiers. Saint Domnina drowned herself and her two daughters for the same reason.

In general, of course, Christianity has condemned suicide, but with many of the early martyrs of the Church, their martyrdom seems more like suicide-by-cop. One example:

Overall, Roman governors were more interested in making apostates than martyrs: one proconsul of Asia, Arrius Antoninus, when confronted with a group of voluntary martyrs during one of his assize tours, sent a few to be executed and snapped at the rest, "If you want to die, you wretches, you can use ropes or precipices."

(highlighting mine).

 

[Rat]

Saint Domnina drowned herself and her two daughters for the same reason.

Presumably not in that order, else she certainly deserves the title.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Which is not the case, see my post #10. The OP is wrong about that.

From the position of supporting euthanasia to begin with (which I don't necessarily do, but I think a move toward it is inevitable as an extension of a patient's right to reject treatment), I would not necessarily be opposed to extending it to psychiatric illnesses, providing one can reasonably rule out suicidal ideation (which is rather different from a genuine wish to end one's life), and that the suffering is of a similar level as one would expect in relevant somatic illnesses (e.g. a lifetime of frequently recurring psychotic episodes that do not respond to preventive treatment and are severe enough to preclude the patient from leading anything resembling a normal life), and that the patient can be ruled capable, which will probably be the hardest bit in the cases the law would concern.