Fatal Freedom: The Ethics and Politics of Suicide 1st Edition

by Thomas Szasz (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0275966461

ISBN-10: 0275966461

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Fatal Freedom is an eloquent defense of every individual's right to choose a voluntary death. The author, a renowned psychiatrist, believes that we can speak about suicide calmly and rationally, as he does in this book, and that we can ultimately accept suicide as part of the human condition. By maintaining statutes that determine that voluntary death is not legal, our society is forfeiting one of its basic freedoms and causing the psychiatric/medical establishment to treat individuals in a manner that is disturbingly inhumane according to Dr. Szasz. His important work asks and points to clear, intelligent answers to some of the most significant ethical questions of our time:

• 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.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Fatal Freedom deepens Szasz's commitment and our understanding of what might be called the libertarian tradition. In considering the theme of suicide as part of the larger question of the place of State power in individual decision-making he has made a genuine contribution in advancing the current discourse on matters of profound moment to us all."-Irving Louis Horowitz Professor of Sociology & Political Science Rutgers University

"Szasz demonstrates cogently the rhetoric of suicide by which the decision to end one's life is erroneously depicted as a problem or a disease, which must be solved or cured."-Richard E. Vatz Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, Towson University

"Szasz strikes yet another blow for clarity, dignity, and liberty. When we finally break out of our bad habit of medicalizing moral choice, Thomas Szasz will garner well-earned laurels for having shown us that tyranny administered by doctors with good bedside manners is tyranny nonetheless."-Sheldon Richman, Editor The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty

"This is an important book written with the clarity and unassailable logic which we have come to associate with Szasz. It is a work of scholarship which is immediately accessible and addresses a major issue in our society. It must be read!"-Professor James McCormick Trinity College, University of Dublin

"Thomas Szasz is one of the great independent minds of our age. Once again he has made us think, and about a central moral problem of human existence."-Geoffrey Wheatcroft, journalist and author

?An intelligent critique of the cultural misunderstanding of suicide....Szasz is particularly persuasive in hacking through the thicket of medical ethics in "right to die" circumstances.?-Kirkus Reviews

?One can read this book from the perspective of moral philosophy, political science or clinical medicine....Fatal Freedom is a very serviceable book for physicians, who in one way or the other have to deal with suicide in their medical practice.?-Medical Sentinel

?This is a book for all that wish to expand their awareness of the historical and modern attitudes toward suicide, and explore differing views on this sensitive topic. Definitely written and efficiently organized, this book would be of interest to medical and legal professionals, the clergy, students of these disciplines, as well as lay people. The book is interesting, easy to read and understand.?-Risk: Health, Safety, & Environment

?Thomas Szasz advances his defense of autonomy and liberty by speaking out for the right to suicide. Szasz has written many provocative and courageous books. He has done so again.?-Ideas on Liberty

"An intelligent critique of the cultural misunderstanding of suicide....Szasz is particularly persuasive in hacking through the thicket of medical ethics in "right to die" circumstances."-Kirkus Reviews

"One can read this book from the perspective of moral philosophy, political science or clinical medicine....Fatal Freedom is a very serviceable book for physicians, who in one way or the other have to deal with suicide in their medical practice."-Medical Sentinel

"Thomas Szasz advances his defense of autonomy and liberty by speaking out for the right to suicide. Szasz has written many provocative and courageous books. He has done so again."-Ideas on Liberty

"This is a book for all that wish to expand their awareness of the historical and modern attitudes toward suicide, and explore differing views on this sensitive topic. Definitely written and efficiently organized, this book would be of interest to medical and legal professionals, the clergy, students of these disciplines, as well as lay people. The book is interesting, easy to read and understand."-Risk: Health, Safety, & Environment

About the Author

THOMAS SZASZ is Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse. He is widely recognized as the world's foremost critic of psychiatric coercions and excuses and as a leading philosopher of liberty-and-responsibility. He is the author of 24 books, including The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) and Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market (Praeger, 1992).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Praeger Publishers; 1st edition (January 1, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0275966461
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0275966461
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1420L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,446,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,503 in Medical Ethics (Books)
- #16,300 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #24,440 in Medical General Psychology

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Vanessa

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 30, 2015

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Carol Hebald

An eloquent plea for our civil right to suicide.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 23, 1999

In his new book, FATAL FREEDOM, Dr. Thomas Szasz has taken the first step in destigmatizing suicide. In so doing he reminds us that not so long ago in England the failed suicide was punished by execution and his family deprived of his property. To "insanitize" him, that is, render him non compos mentis, seemed the only just solution.
Dr. Szasz does not admit the existence of mental illness unlike Dr. Kay Jamison who, in her book NIGHT FALLS FAST, assumes in the suicide its "almost ubiquitous presence." She discounts the will as a vital force in determining behavior; he emphasizes it as follows: Suicide is not a disease but a deed and as such, poses a moral, not a medical, problem. To allow medical experts to pathologize it is indicative of our willingness not to think, but to be thought for. More, these agents of our ever-expanding "therapeutic state" seem unable to call things by their right names. For example: Why say suicide is an unnatural act when they mean it is a wrongful one? Or misname medical intervention for the dying as medical treatment? Szasz deplores imprecise language because it rigor-mortises thought and begs significant questions. How can we, for example, without empirical evidence, accept the idea that mental illness is like any other illness?
Dr. Jamison reminds us that suicide among the young has tripled in the last forty-five years; Dr. Szasz asks whether suicide prevention in its present form does not increase its likelihood. Her study echoes the latest orthodox belief in biologically-based mood disorders. He, on the other hand, takes issue with our tendency to pathologize socially unacceptable behavior: Only yesterday we believed masturbation and homosexuality cause insanity. Today insanity causes suicide. To call the subject ill and to incarcerate him "for his own good" not only presupposes his act unjustified, it relieves him of responsibility for it;-and because it is more blessèd to forgive than to blame, relieves us of responsibility too.
Szasz goes further: If we have birth control, why not death control? If we allow justifiable homicide on grounds of self defense, why not justifiable suicide? The question gives one pause.
Death is the final indignity imposed by time; it is, paradoxically, our only refuge from it. "One loves ultimately one's own desires," writes Nietszche, "not the thing desired." And when desires fade from old age or debilitating illness, are we not sometimes obliged to relieve our loved ones and ourselves of further agony? Yes, says Szasz. For suicide is not only an act of will, it may be a moral responsibility.
I think of the Myth of Sisyphus, its corollary in our lives: Sisyphus, whose punishment was to push a boulder up a mountain that must always roll down again, could not choose but submit. Can free will have taught us that unless we find joy in our struggles we had best not struggle at all? Shall we all lie down and sleep in the shadow of the rock? Yes, if we choose, says Szasz! Yet he does not advocate suicide, only its option: Who but we should control how and when we die? he asks. But to sanction such a choice for every adult?
Running rampant among the young today is the infectious disease of despair that breeds on the fallacy that things difficult are necessarily impossible, and what is largely true is wholly true. And symptomatic of this disease is the alarming insistence that there is nothing to prevent the pendulum from swinging us all into annihilation. Statistics don't lie. These are parlous times.
And our suicide-prevention programs are failing. Should we abolish them then? No, says Szasz, we should abolish coercive suicide prevention, and instead practice verbal persuasion as do the Samaritans in England. They, in respecting the suicide's wishes, more often than not dissuade him from the act.
I don't remember the last time I talked back to a book. FATAL FREEDOM is an exciting read, a tonic breath of fresh air. I recommend it highly for lay people and medical professionals alike.

46 people found this helpful

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N. Martin

An honest and compassionate defense of suicide

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 10, 1999

Thomas Szasz is one of century's brilliant social thinkers. He's best known for his criticism of psychiatric pseudo-science and coercive practices, but his intellectual reach is vast. In this remarkable book about suicide he defends the right of individuals to control their bodies and lives -- including the ways they choose to die. He takes issue with physicians having the power to determine our fate and places the choice and responsibility for suicide into the hands of the individual. He would end drug prohibition (including limits on access to prescription drugs), and permit adults (not children) to obtain the drugs necessary to commit suicide. He presents a convincing argument that physician-assisted suicide takes us farther from personal autonomy, making us more dependent and vulnerable. He notes that about a quarter of physicians in Holland, where physician-induced euthanasia is common, admit to having killed a patient without asking for the person's permission. As I write this review the American Medical Association is enlarging its interest in suicide prevention, but Szasz points out that doctors and psychiatrists commit suicide at much higher ratest than the general population. Szasz asks readers to look to the historical record of physician participation in euthanasia (Nazi germany, for instance) to see what moral depravity and mortal mayham have resulted. Szasz flatly supports the right of an individual to commit suicide without interference from physicians, psychiatrists or government. As is always true with Szasz writings, this book is tightly reasoned and beautifully written. It is a work of great compassion and honesty.

26 people found this helpful

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Patricia Celis

Szasz clarifies ethical and practical aspects of suicide

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 1999

If you are bewildered by the debates over physician-assisted suicide, suicide prevention, and the legal right to suicide, then this book should answer your questions. Szasz demonstrates clearly and logically what a mess we have made of dying and how we can choose ethical, compassionate options that give power to the dying rather than to government and physicians. Why should individuals be deprived of the right to the means of dependable, dignified suicide? What are the dangers of giving doctors the power and tools to kill people? Why are physicians --who are themselves three times more likely to commit suicide than the general population-- the appropriate persons to engage in "suicide prevention"? How is the "war on drugs" stripping us of the power to control pain and death? Szasz tackles these and many other questions. He points out that in Holland, where physician-assisted suicide in common, 23 percent of physicians say they have participated in the killing of a patient WHO DID NOT AGREE TO BE KILLED. Is this compassionate medicine or nazi-style euthanasia? Szasz provides convincing answers to the complete array of questions surrounding suicide.

16 people found this helpful

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Fatal Freedom: The Ethics and Politics of Suicide 1st Edition

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