Assisted suicide is being used to relieve people of poverty, isolation and social suffering. This is not OK
“My death, my choice” sounds good but it doesn’t let us off the hook as a society
This, from a report issued by the Ontario chief coroner’s office on how medical assistance in dying (MAID) is being carried out in this province:
Mr. A, “a male in his 40s,” was suffering from inflammatory bowel disease. He also had “a history of mental illness, previous episodes of suicidality, and ongoing alcohol and opioid misuse.” No one offered him treatment for his addictions, but a psychiatrist gave him information about MAID. He was approved for death under what’s known as “Track 2” — cases where death is not reasonably foreseeable. A MAID provider personally drove him to the place where he was given an assisted death.
Mr. B, “a male in his late 40s,” was suffering from severe ulcers. He also “presented with multiple mental illnesses, namely depression, anxiety, narcissistic personality disorder, and bipolar mood disorder type 2. He had chronic suicidal ideations” — and indeed had attempted suicide a year earlier. Mr. B also applied under Track 2 and became one of 116 Ontarians to die that way last year.
I spell out those details because the two recent reports on MAID from Ontario’s chief coroner are like that: detailed, clinical, dispassionate. They’re the opposite of sensational, at least in style.
But what they reveal ought to be shocking. Some patients are being euthanized while suffering from untreated mental illnesses and addictions. They’re more likely to come from poor areas (those with “high levels of marginalization,” as the reports put it) and be suffering from inadequate housing, a lack of social supports and simple loneliness.
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Another step down the slippery slope
