Mental Health and Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide It is obvious to the television viewer that under the banners of compassion and autonomy, some are calling for legal recognition of the "right to suicide" and social acceptance of “doctor-assisted suicide”. Suicide advocates conjure up the image of someone facing intolerable suffering and calmly and rationally deciding that death is better than life in such a state. They argue that society should respect and defer to the freedom of choice these people exercise in asking to be killed. This essay aims to dispel this view on the basis of mental illness among the patients involved. What would be the consequences of accepting this perspective? Let's examine the facts. Accepting the “right to commit suicide” would create a legal presumption of sanity, preventing adequate mental health treatment. If suicide and physician-assisted suicide became legal rights, the presumption that people who attempt suicide are deranged and need psychological help, confirmed by many studies and years of experience, would be overturned. Those seeking suicide would be legally entitled to be left alone (Sullivan) to do something irremediable, based on a distorted assessment of their circumstances, without genuine help. A suicide attempt, some psychologists say, is often a challenge to see if anyone comes out of it. we really care(Stengel). Indeed, seeking medical assistance in a suicide, rather than simply taking action to kill oneself, may be a manifestation, however unconscious, of that very challenge. If society creates a “right to suicide” and legalizes “physician-assisted suicide,” the perceived message from an attempted suicide will likely not be, “We respect your wishes,” but rather… middle of paper. .....TRY 455 (1973).Neuringer, Dichotomous Evaluations in Suicidal Individuals, 25 J. OF CONSULTING PSYCHOLOGY 445, 445 (1961).- - -, supra note 12; A. Alvarez, THE SAVAGE GOD 199 (1972) cites the case of the suicide of the 17th century poet Thomas Chatterton as an example, according to some critics, of an individual who perhaps overestimates his own talent and has unrealistically high expectations for immediate success. Rosen, The Serious Suicide Attempt: Five Year Follow Up Study of 886 Patients, 235 JAMA 2105, 2105 (1976).Rubinstein, Meses & Lidz, On Attempted Suicide, 79 AMA ARCHIVES NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY 103, 111 (1958).Sullivan, TO. Voluntary active euthanasia for the terminally ill and the constitutional right to privacy, 69 CORNELL L. REV. 363 (1984). Stengel, SUICIDE AND SUICIDE ATTEMPT 113 (1964).