By Wesley J. Smith
Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong
We have reached the point that indisputably mentally ill people are being allowed to commit suicide or to die from their terrible psychiatric afflictions.
In Belgium, a chronic self-harmer was voluntarily euthanized and organ harvested.
In California, a regulation permits the involuntarily institutionalized mentally ill dying to be released for the purpose committing assisted suicide.
And now, a court has ordered that a woman with anorexia not be kept alive through forced feeding even though it means she will starve herself to death.
From the Daily Record story:
[Superior Court Judge Paul] Armstrong found that the woman identified as A.G. had expressed an unwavering wish to refuse force-feeding after a near-lifelong battle with anorexia nervosa.
Armstrong said that the people around her — her parents, treating psychiatrist and physicians, the bioethics committee of Morristown Medical Center, her guardian and lawyer – all concur that it’s in A.G.’s best interests to be transferred to a palliative care unit at the hospital where she won’t be force-fed as the state Department of Human Services – which operates Greystone – wanted.
I understand autonomy. But by definition, this poor woman is not competent to make decisions about herself and her own wellbeing with regard to food. A.G. is lethally mentally ill!
Everyone who should be her most ardent protectors… instead surrendered to her disease.
Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog.