Fatal Freedom: The Ethics and Politics of Suicide
- Is suicide a voluntary act? - Should physicians be permitted to prevent it? - Should they be authorized to abet it? The author's thoughtful analysis of these questions consistently holds forth patient autonomy as paramount; therefore, he argues, patients should not be prevented from exercising their free will, nor should physicians be permitted to enter the process by prescribing or providing the means for voluntary death. Dr. Szasz predicts that we will look back at our present prohibitory policies toward suicide with the same amazed disapproval with which we regard past policies toward homosexuality, masturbation, and birth control. This comparison with other practices that started as sins, became crimes, then were regarded as mental illnesses, and are now becoming more widely accepted, opens up the discussion and understanding of suicide in a historical context. The book explores attitudes toward suicide held by the ancient Greeks and Romans, through early Christianity and the Reformation, to the advent of modern psychiatry and contemporary society as a whole. Our tendency to define disapproved behaviors as diseases has created a psychiatric establishment that exerts far too much influence over how and when we choose to die. Just as we have come to accept the individual's right to birth control, so too must we accept his right to death control before we can call our society humane or free. |
What people are saying - Write a review
FATAL FREEDOM: The Ethics and Politics of Suicide
User Review - KirkusSzasz (Emeritus, Psychiatry/SUNY Syracuse; The Meaning of Mind, 1996, etc.) has produced an intelligent critique of the cultural misunderstanding of suicide without providing a positive description ... Read full review
Contents
Our SelfMutilated Vocabulary | 1 |
What Counts as Killing Oneself? | 9 |
The Fateful Evasion | 29 |
Saving Lives | 45 |
Death as Treatment | 63 |
Killing as Treatment | 89 |
Death Control the Final Responsibility | 107 |
Appendix | 133 |
Notes | 139 |
157 | |
169 | |
173 | |
175 | |
176 | |
177 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
References to this book
Best Practices for Teaching Introduction to Psychology Dana Dunn,Stephen L. Chew No preview available - 2006 |