MAID advocate: Legalize assisted suicide for mentally ill or they'll end their own lives

An advocate for Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada told legislators last month that the country must legalize assisted suicide for those with mental illness, so that they don't end their own lives by some other method.

Key Takeaways:

• Canada has been considering allowing assisted suicide and euthanasia for people whose only diagnosis is mental illness for years.

• Since legalizing euthanasia, Canada has become one of the world leaders in death.

• An assisted suicide activist recently testified that suicidal Canadians need access to assisted suicide and euthanasia... so they don't choose to end their own lives some other way.

The Backstory:

For years, Canada has been considering expanding assisted suicide and euthanasia to individuals whose only health issue is a mental health condition.

Canada, now one of the world's leaders in euthanasia deaths, has been eroding the original safeguards on MAiD and has been plagued by reports that people were being approved for assisted suicide even when they were not considered to have a terminal illness.

Despite the debate over expanding medical assistance in dying (MAID), a 2024 survey revealed that less than half of respondents support allowing assisted death solely for mental illness.

The Details:

On March 24, during a parliamentary committee debate on the issue, Jocelyn Downie, a pro-assisted suicide activist, claimed that if mentally ill Canadians are not allowed to access assisted suicide, they will end their own lives by some other route.

“What will happen," she said, "if there is an extension or an exclusion, is that people will die by suicide."

She urged that MAID be opened up to individuals when the "sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness" so that people don't die by 'regular' suicide earlier than they would die after waiting for a doctor's approval and assistance.

This isn't a new argument. According to the National Post, Downie was involved in Carter v. Canada, the 2015 Canadian Supreme Court decision that paved the way for legalized assisted suicide. "[T]he Supreme Court accepted the argument that 'the prohibition on physician-assisted dying had the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely,'" it reported.

“It is therefore established that the prohibition deprives some individuals of life,” the court wrote.

Then, in 2019, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that not allowing non-terminal individuals — namely Jean Truchon, a man who had a degenerative illness and wanted to die — to access assisted suicide violated the right to "life, liberty and security of the person."

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Truchon, unable to die by physician assisted death, had "devised a plan to buy a drug on the street and to take a lethal dose, but he was afraid of having his money stolen by dealers and not getting what he wanted," the ruling said.

The court accepted the false idea that the not allowing MAID for non-terminal individuals would force them to "take hasty steps to end their lives prematurely out of fear that they will no longer be physically able to do so once their suffering becomes intolerable." Therefore, it would put them at "a heightened risk of death."

As the National Post explained, "All of this was ultimately evidence to support the court's final decision, which held that Truchon's "right to life" was violated by federal sanctions against him seeking a premature death."

Under this argument, the right to die is required in order to have a right to life.

The Bottom Line:

The government was then set to expand assisted suicide for mental illness in March 2024, but it has continuously been pushed back, and is now set to take effect on March 17, 2027. In the meantime, the debate continues.