With 1 in 4 people suffering from a Psychiatric illness, that’s a hell of a lot of people to potentially eliminate from the gene pool. This argument doesn’t really work on many levels. Lots of suicidees do not suffer from mental illness (although admittedly, the majority do). A lot of elderly people commit suicide, and would therfor not be passing on their genes anyway. It’s a bit of a Nazi way of looking at things. By the same argument, you could say that nobody with any illness with a hereditary element should be treated. Cancer, for example. 1 in 3 of will get it. It runs in families. Should we not treat cancer patients in order to eliminate the disease from our precious gene pool?
Mental illness is highly prevalent, and much more treatable than most people realise. A lot of people who commit or attempt suicide do so in part because their symptoms are not picked up by health professionals or are inadequately treated. Do we punish them for this?
In the UK, Suicide accounts for 1% of all deaths, and 20% of all deaths of young people. Between 1984 and 2004, the number of suicides among men ages 15 to 24 increased by 64%. It is possible that the true rate of suicide among children and young people is as much as three times the official recorded level. This may be due to uncertainty about the circumstances of death, unwillingness to use the label of suicide, or the constraints of registration policy and practice, as well as protection of the family.
The suicide rate for older people has fallen over the last few decades, although older people are more likely to be successful in their attempts than younger people, perhaps partly due to the increased likelihood of having prescribed medication and overlooked symptoms of depression. In 1998, 16% of all suicides in the UK were people aged 65 or over.
Around 90% of suicides and suicide attempts are carried out by people with a recognisable psychiatric illness, and research into this has revealed the following statistics:
- Depression carries a 15% lifetime risk
- Schizophrenia carries a 10% lifetime risk
- Manic depression carries a 20-25% lifetime risk
- Alcohol dependency carries a 15% lifetime risk
- Substance misuse carries a 20-25% risk for younger people
- Borderline Personality Disorder carries a 15% lifetime risk
These people deserve treatment as much as anyone with any other illness. It is not for anyone in the medical profession to decide on someone’s right to live or die. If we see a patient who has attempted suicide and is either unconscious or judged incompetent (ie, of “unsound” mind), we have to treat them. That is our job.
Other common factors leading to suicide, or attempted factors seem to be:
- Severe stress or life crisis (e.g., a relationship breakdown or job loss)
- Disturbed or unhappy family background (especially if there is a history of abuse)
- Socially and/or educationally disadvantaged background
- Social isolation
- A history of deliberate self-harm
These people are sad. They deserve help. They need help. Who are we to judge them? There are a few cases, true, where the individual will have made up his/her mind, is thinking clearly, and whose mind will not be changed, and in such cases, yes, they have the right to end their own lives. Everyone has the right. But they deserve a chance to be helped first. Scenarios such as this are sadly few and far between - the vast majority of suicdees are mentally ill.
"People think that in medicine you can cure people and that in psychiatry you just foozle around. Fact is, it’s the reverse. You don’t cure heart disease or kidney disease, you palliate it. With a basically healthy young woman like this who wants to kill herself, if you can connect with her right now, at this shit-moment in her life, she’ll probably never try to kill herself again! If that ain’t cure, what is?”
- Samuel Shem
Mount Misery
And incidentally, I haven’t just dragged up a few random statistics from a half-arsed internet search. This is subject on which I have done a considerable amout of research and writing.