Швейцарские психиатры считают, что возможность различить есть.
International Herald Tribune.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland: A ruling by Switzerland's highest court has opened the possibility that people with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives.
Switzerland already allows physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients under certain circumstances but the Federal Tribunal's decision, which was released on Friday, puts mental illnesses on the same level as physical ones.
"It must be recognized that an incurable, permanent, serious mental disorder can cause similar suffering as a physical (disorder), making life appear unbearable to the patient in the long term," the ruling says.
It goes on to state that "if the death wish is based on an autonomous decision which takes all circumstances into account, then a mentally ill person can be prescribed sodium-pentobarbital and thereby assisted in suicide."
Various organizations exist in Switzerland to help people who want to commit suicide, and assisting someone to die is not punishable under Swiss law as long as there is no "selfish motivation" for doing so.
The judges made it clear in their ruling that certain conditions would have to be met before a mentally ill person's request for suicide assistance could be considered justified.
"A distinction has to be made between a death wish which is an expression of a curable, psychiatric disorder and which requires treatment, and (a death wish) which is based on a person of sound judgment's own well-considered and permanent decision, which must be respected," they said.
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