A complete treatise on rational suicide

Abstract

It was believed for a long time that people brought to the attention of healthcare and/or legal authorities with suicidality were automatically deemed to lack medical decision-making capacity or competence. This is despite many of these patients possessing the “mental ability to make a rational decision, which includes the ability to perceive, to appreciate all relevant facts and to reach a rational judgment upon such facts”. Several ethical and psychiatric specialists and defenders of patient rights have criticized this traditional paternalistic approach for failing to respect the right of a competent, rational person to self-determination and autonomy.

As society increasingly recognizes patients’ rights to refuse treatment, their autonomy to make decisions and the right to self-determination, the bioethical, medical and legal community must strive to identify those individuals who are not just impulsively acting and/or under the influence of factors that may hinder their capacity. As moral people who respect competent individuals who make rational decisions, regardless of whether we agree with them or not, we have a duty to respect their right to self-determination and suicide.