RECOGNIZE the SIGNS of SUICIDE
Most people with depression are not suicidal, but they all need help and the support of friends and family. To save a life by recognizing the warning signs that someone might make a suicide attempt...
Symptoms and Danger Signs (http://www.save.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_ID=705F4071-99A7-F3F5-E2A64A5A8BEAADD8)
Warning Signs of Suicide
- Ideation (thinking about suicide)
- Substance use or abuse (increased or change in substance)
- Puposelessness (no sense of purpose or belonging)
- Anger
- Trapped (feeling like there is no way out)
- Hopelessness (there is nothing to live for, no hope or optimism)
- Withdrawal (from family, friends, work, school, activities, hobbies)
- Anxiety (restlessness, irritability)
- Recklessness (high risk-taking behavior)
- Mood disturbance (dramatic change in mood)
Additional Warning Signs of Suicide
- Talking about suicide.
- Statements about hopelessness, helplessness, or worthlessness.
- Preoccupation with death.
- Suddenly happier, calmer.
- Loss of interest in things one cares about.
- Visiting or calling people one cares about.
- Making arrangements; setting one's affairs in order.
- Giving things away, such as prized possessions.
FOR MORE
To learn more about how to save a life by recognizing depression and suicidal tendencies, see.
- http://www.save.org/
- http://www.afsp.org/
- http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/suicide-prevention/index.shtml
EUTHANASIA AND PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE
The following is an excerpt from an article about the Conservative movement's position on euthanasia.
In class, we discussed that the traditional Jewish position considers a person who is dying a goseis, one who is going to die but should be treated as a fully living person in all manners. This position, held by Rabbi Avram Reisner, suggests that one can remove or withhold a respirator or heart-lung machine, but not IV nutrition or hydration. Rabbi Elliot Dorff takes a more radical position, considering a person to be a tereifah, a person who is even closer to death than a goseis. In the times when Jewish courts had the authority to try murder cases, a person who killed a tereifah would not receive the same punishment as for a healthy person or even a goseis; by this thinking, the penalty of "a life for a life" cannot apply for someone who does not, for all intents and purposes, have a life. Rabbi Dorff, in a position considered to be equally valid by the Conservative movement, says that this case can be extended to allow the removal of nutrition and hydration.
Both rabbis emphasize that the only type of euthanasia that might be allowed is passive euthanasia, the removal of treatments keeping a person alive. The person then dies of their original illness. Active euthanasia--actions taken to bring the death of an ill person--is absolutely forbidden according to the Conservative movement's understanding of Jewish law.
From Rabbi Dorff's teshuvah:
I sympathize enormously with patients going through an agonizing process of dying, and in cases of irreversible, terminal illness, I have taken a very liberal stance on withholding or withdrawing life-support systems, including artificial nutrition and hydration, to enable nature to take its course. I would also permit the use of any amount of medication necessary to relieve pain, even if that is the same amount that will hasten a person's death, as long as the intention is to alleviate pain.
The [Conservative movement's] Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has validated that stance, as well as that of Rabbi Avram Reisner, who permits withdrawing machines and medications from the patient but not withholding or withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, and who permits using large doses of morphine to relieve pain up to, but not including, the amount that poses a risk to the patient's life.
-- Conservative rabbi Elliot N. Dorff. Reprinted from "Teshuvah on Assisted Suicide," Conservative Judaism (Summer 1998).
FOR MORE
- http://myjewishlearning.com/ideas_belief/bioethics/Bioethics_Euthanasia_TO.htm
- http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/law/teshuvot_public.html (particularly, examine the papers on "Visiting the Sick and Medicine"
WITHHOLDING CARE AND MAKING END OF LIFE DECISIONS
The Conservative movement encourages individuals to make up their mind regarding prolonging their lives through extreme measures BEFORE it becomes an issue. I have included here the Kaiser Permanente Northern California packet regarding Advance Directives for Health Care, a legally binding document which can be filed even by a healthy individual to record their desires, as well as a packet usable by every Californian from the Californian Coalition for Compassionate Care. Advance Directives also allow people to engage in the mitzvah of designating their organs for donation. There are a number of articles and resources available.
