Some questions about MAiD, or why are hanging, poison, guns and trains the only options for dying for those with mental illness?

 

Like many Canadians, I am conflicted about the idea of making Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) available to people struggling with mental illness.

 

The federal government is conflicted, too, having decided to delay the implementation of a provision to the current MAiD legislation that would allow it.

 

Justice Minister David Lametti said the delay is needed after the federal government heard concerns that Canada’s health-care system might not be prepared for the expansion.

The Liberal government agreed to expand eligibility to people with mental illness in 2021 after the Senate amended the bill to include it, arguing that excluding people with mental illness would violate their rights.

The bill included a two-year delay to the expansion, which is set to expire in March unless Parliament passes a new law.

 

The bill has been tabled until 2024.

 

While I welcome the additional time to consider the implications of the expanded bill, not everyone feels the same way.

 

That includes a friend of mine who struggles with depression. 

He has written honestly and movingly about the pain and challenges he has faced because of it—challenges he still faces. 

That includes suicide, which he contemplated. 

This is why the proposed expansion of MAiD to include people with mental illness is so important to him.  

As he told me: “It should be an option for people like me with mental illness. Why should the only option be a violent taking of my own life?” 

Indeed; why? 

It’s not like people who struggle with mental illness won’t kill themselves because there is no MAiD option. 

Every year about 4,500 people in Canada die by suicide. That’s 12 people a day. 

Most who died by suicide do so by hanging (44%), followed by poisoning (25%) and guns (16%). 

Over 40 people in Canada die each year by throwing themselves in front of or under a train.   

In all these cases, the deaths are hard and violent, leaving behind traumatized family and friends (along with those who work on trains and witness the deaths). 

So if people are going to kill themselves anyway, why not make it something that is more humane and peaceful? 

Something that could be done in community, with family and friends, not something done in isolation and shame?   

In other words, people struggling with mental illness will continue to choose to die. That won't stop. So why not enable them to do it in a less violent way?

As a letter writer to the Winnipeg Free Press put it: “There are many reasons to feel uneasy about allowing someone to end their own life, but our uneasiness is not preventing many from choosing that option, even without MAiD.”

 

And to deny people with mental illness the opportunity to choose MAiD, he said, “implies someone else’s choice has no merit.”

It also forces them to live by the choices someone else has made for them, along with forcing them to find terrible ways to die.

 

As someone who doesn’t face the challenges of mental illness, I can live with a delay in the expansion of the legislation. I can even live with it not becoming law since I don’t ever expect to need it on the basis of mental health.

 

But that’s just me. What about my friend, and the thousands of others each year who feel there is no way out but to die? Why should I, as a healthy person, deprive them of their choice? 

I don’t have a final answer to those questions. But I believe they should be asked. 

As for my friend, he is not currently contemplating suicide. But he knows there’s no cure for his depression. He will never overcome it; now he knows the only thing he can do is manage and cope with it. 

But if it ever gets to a point he can’t do that anymore, I would prefer that a better option be available, not just hanging, poison, guns or trains.