Depression and the right to die.

There is a complex relationship between depression and the capacity to forego life-sustaining treatment. On the one hand, the courts have recognized a constitutionally protected right to die for competent persons; on the other hand, psychiatrists have tended toward the presumption of incompetence on the part of anyone who refuses lifesaving treatment. This traditional psychiatric viewpoint stems from experience with many patients whose wish to die disappears when their depression is successfully treated.