To what extent are our moral standards responsible for killing people?

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Camila Carneiro, a third-year medical student at the State University of Amazonas, Amazonia, Brazil. She is affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

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“Listen without imposing anything on what you are listening to — do not judge, for when you judge, the listener ceesses.” This phrase was told by Osho, a brilliant professor of Philosophy, who abandoned his academic career in the name of spiritual enlightenment. Founder of a liberal lifestyle, the guru attracted hundreds of followers around the world and challenged American politics by creating a kind of town full of drugs, dance and meditation. This escape from the routine to another world is the same escape of the 21ST century whose specific name is suicide. Released in March 2018, the documentary “Wild, Wild Country” revealed the contradictions of the Guru’s trajectory and opened the possibility of reflecting on what led thousands of citizens to meet an unconventional lifestyle and often to the abandonment of their own family. The will to be heard, that is, to share their thoughts without being rebuked is a hypothesis. In a society founded on moral duties, the individual as a creative, free and autonomous being does not exist, except in the manuals of Philosophy and Law. Because it does not fit into a square of dogmas, the psychological pressure to not erring dominates to the point that the human being isolates himself and commits suicide. In this subjective context, without exact answers to suicide, the solution to self-inflicted mortality is found in what we call the medicine “therapeutic test”. The diagnosis is not known, however, through the patient’s syndromic condition, we can apply a treatment and, if the patient responds well to it, the diagnosis is assumed and the pathology is controlled. By analogy, in the example of suicide, we experienced a series of methodologies in a sample (with mental illness or not) and we harvested the results, measured through phrases of appreciation, decrease in the number of suicides in the locality where the “test treatment ” was made, filling out forms or through behavioral change after the” therapeutic test “is performed. Some alternatives to be included in what we call a “therapeutic test in combating suicide” is the implantation of applications in which psychologists in training and already graduates respond to anonymous disapos. Moreover, the creation of documentaries by students of performing Arts and Journalism helps to contextualize the epidemic of suicides and to touch the public. In the third sphere, primary prevention should occupy space in radio, television and scientific journals every month. Fourthly, the decentralization of health services to the periphery through governmental advertisements is of fundamental importance for the care of people of low socioeconomic status, without conditions to pay for public transportation to City center. Creating more basic health unit with lots of jobs is solution as well. Besides the issues of cultural domain, suicide is the final effect of the cascade of moral violence, economic inequality and restricted accessibility to education so that political engagement the remedy for the change of economic standards that difficults universal access to first-need goods. About the author Camila Carneiro is a third-year medical student at the State University of Amazonas, Amazonia, Brazil. She is local officer in the Public Health Committee of IFMSA Brazil. She participates in the Academic League of Pulmonology and Tisiology of Amazonas. She also volunteered in the Regional Electoral Court of Amazonas and in the Vascular Surgery Outpatient Clinic. She is interested in writing, poetry and promoting local campaigns to help people recognize their rights and create their own beliefs so that a healthy society is built.