Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) writes a moving personal story of his mother who suffers from dementia, arguing the case for assisted suicide for early stage dementia patients – as he and his mother did 10 years before.
Colin Brewer, former psychiatrist and current associate coordinator of MDMD, follows this up with another BMJ blog expanding and clarifying the case for Medically Assisted Rational Suicide (MARS) for dementia cases. He expands the arguments to include severe incurable psychiatric cases. Among many important issues he raises, he usefully points out the illogical and cruel limitations of any “terminally ill” time constraint on permitting legal MARS.
