I'm uncomfortable with the idea that someone who is in agony must be kept alive at all costs.
The agony is temporary. The not being alive is permanent. It's an irrational suboptimal decision that they would regret 2 years later. It makes sense to help them.
It's like helping your friend quit smoking. They will be agonized for a few months, but eventually will get out of the addiction and be thankful.
However, some people suffer with chronic depression for their entire lives. What makes me uncomfortable is that no exceptions are ever allowed. Every sufferer must continue to stay alive indefinitely no matter how much pain they are in.
I understand why this idea will forever be taboo, but it still bothers me.
But there is a third option and that is you work on finding ways to improve quality of life. That's what I do for myself.
I suspect a lot of depression is biologically based and it should be treated first as a medical condition, not a mental health issue. A very large portion of my mental health stuff is a side effect of medical stuff.
I don't know how to popularize that approach.
It needs at least an adjective in front of "agony". I don't expect you're suggesting euthanizing someone with acute appendicitis or a severe cluster headache.
ETA: At the same time, it's important to recognize that suicides inflict dramatically more pain on those left behind than other causes of death.
If it's close to or actually zero, then maybe it's a strawman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment-resistant_depression...
Treatment-resistance is relatively common in cases of Major Depressive Disorder. Rates of total remission following antidepressant treatment are only 50.4%. In cases of depression treated by a primary-care physician, 32% of patients partially responded to treatment and 45% did not respond at all.
I'm not advocating withholding help from any of them. It's more of a philosophical quandary.
If you believe (as I do) that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, that life has no greater purpose beyond this one life, and that minimizing human suffering is worthwhile; then the idea of forcing someone to live a life of pain bothers me. And at the same time, the idea of a suicide increasing the suffering of those left behind also bothers me.
It's probably impossible to avoid this degenerating into a religious debate, but those are my thoughts.
Woah.. treatment resistance is nowhere near the same as being untreatable. It's an alarmingly huge leap to make, especially since the definition kicks in after only two anti-depressants have failed.
> minimizing human suffering is worthwhile;
I agree..
> then the idea of forcing someone to live a life of pain bothers me
But I still take issue with the seeming over-simplicity of this statement, as well as your original comment, because it (dangerously, in my opinion) brings the notion of euthanasia/suicide [1] into the dicussion merely because of some pain.
If someone's life is going to be, essentially, nothing but pain, then, OK, I agree it's inhumane to force that someone to live, but that just hasn't been established.
Meanwhile, philisophically, I'm uncomfortable with not pursuing all the other avenues of pain relief before resorting to death.
[1] Assisted, unassisted, whatever.. I'm not categorically opposed, by any means.
Also, characterizing a country that doesn't support physician-assisted suicide as one which forces people to live strikes me as a non-sequitur. Merely decriminalizing suicide is enough to remove any "force".
This is why I, again, object to your glossing over the details when speaking on this issue. The details matter, especially if you're not just trying to gratuitously stir up emotion or controversy.