Canada’s euthanasia for the mentally ill

[Noicant]

https://globalnews.ca/news/9454089/medically-assisted-dying-bill-mental-disorder/

Canada is in the process of introducing the option of Euthanasia for the mentally ill. It looks like this has been delayed for the time being but AIBU to find this concerning?

Just to be clear I fully support euthanasia as an option for people with terminal or chronic conditions. I think it’s human to offer people a peaceful death when there is no chance of things improving.

BUT this seems utterly mad to me. I’ve suffered from poor mental health in the past and only started feeling better after going through a few therapists and finding the right one. There were many times over 20years where I would have happily signed up for death. If someone is so ill that they are very impaired by their condition are they truly competent to make a decision like this and if it’s milder isn’t there a possibility of recovery?

It seems utterly dystopian. I guess I’m looking for someone to help me understand if I’ve missed something or not understood something that will help me understand why anyone would think this is a good idea.

Isn't it the expansion of an existing bill to include mental illness as opposed to targeting people with mental illness? I suspect this would be severely life limiting mental illness that the person no longer wanted to live with. It's specifically not for use in cases of depression/suicidal ideation. So a suicidal person would never be offered this under the law,

Canada has always been a trailblazer in eugenics.
Wasn’t there something recently about a disabled athlete asking for MH treatment and being offered euthanasia instead?

It’s absolutely awful, but it follows logically from legalising any kind of euthanasia.

Yes it is an extension and I don’t expect that people will be offered it very easily.

It just seems a bit hopeless to me. I find myself conflicted here, your life should be your own to do what you wish with but I worry about reconciling someone being so severely unwell but also trusted to make this decision.

I assume you would have to have some suicidal ideation to want to actually apply in the first place?

@SleepyRich
I don’t think you have that correct. It says assisted dying will become available to those with mental illness under existing provisions for those whose deaths are not foreseeable

If a persons death is not imminent or foreseeable, then how can it be a “severely life limiting mental illness”? Do these even exist? I cannot think of one mental illness that is “severely life limiting” with treatment.

And isn’t wanting to die a key symptom of depression and suicidal ideation? If you’re physically or mentally ill, you are at high risk of developing depression on top of whatever else you have because you are ill. How on Earth are they going to filter out the depressed from not depressed?

Grotesque.

And yeah, the irony of it not being available for people who are feeling suicidal.

Yeah I think this is the worry, for complex cases does it become likely that people are given this option faster. I don’t like the slipper slope argument usually but it does seem a bit of a slippery slope.

We have no ability to control our descent into this world so I think all of us should have the priori on to control our ascent. That’s how I feel about it.

*ability to

It could help the mental health crisis.

How long would you insist a person lives with severe mental illness I hope of a cure? 10 years? 20? 40?

The reality is that many, at some point, decide they've had enough and die by their own hand. I guess this change would allow that option for those in secure accommodation.

There's no doubt this is a difficult area to legislate for, but I do doubt the humanity of forcing someone to live under suicide watch for years on end on the basis that they might one day feel better.

I suspect that the reality is that it will be available, the person will only have to perform happiness or some random “suicidal but not depressed” box ticking exercise. I’ve been sectioned and we inmates all gave each other advice on what to say and how to act for the psychiatrists so they’d see us as fit to be discharged. Then we performed it, and were discharged. Or others escaping bad situations like one had been homeless sleeping on the streets, he performed madness so he’d not be discharged. Another young woman had been attacked by her mum with a knife the mum cut her up, then threw the knife in the bathroom with her and called the police saying she’d self-harmed and was threatening suicide. She’d try to say her mum had attacked her but no one believed her, so she didn’t want to be discharged to the care of her mum.

I can see the argument for allowing euthanasia for patients with extreme and unremitting (for decades) mental illness that has proven intractable despite exhausting every avenue of treatment and is causing appalling suffering with no realistic prospect of ever improving. It would need very tight controls though to ensure that there truly are no other treatment options and that the person's capacity to make such a decision remains intact despite their illness.

How?
How would it help the loved ones of those people in enough despair to avail themselves of it? How would it help those people who are in despair, giving them the most final and despairing 'way out'?
It seems to me it will only massively increase the mental health crisis.

I don't understand it. If you are choosing to die then how are you not suicidal?

Tbh, I was more alarmed when the law was changed last year to allow "the poor" to be euthanized in Canada.

I object to euthanasia per se, and this is just another plan to object to. I can see people being put under pressure, especially how difficult it is for those living with a person with some mental health issues that can be faced.

Actually assisted dying has been a thing in canada for a while now - lots of ethical questions about people choosing it do they don't become a burden when they are terminally ill www.dyingwithdignity.ca/end-of-life-support/get-the-facts-on-maid/

I'm with @DisquietintheRanks . It's cruel to dangle the carrot of hope in front of someone with severe and enduring mental illness. Nobody ever answers the question of how long you want to force people to suffer, take heavy medication which still doesn't work, be constantly watched, be forcibly admitted to inpatient units. For some people there is no recovery and we have to accept that. I'm from the Netherlands which already allows assisted dying for people who are mentally ill. There have been very few cases because the process is incredibly strictly managed, but the option is there. That's as it should be.

It is also incredibly patronising to assume that someone who is mentally ill cannot consent to assisted dying. Everyone who makes this point should read up on the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act - you'll find it isn't nearly as simple as you think.

What?
I mean - what? Have you got any links about that? That's horrific.

It was a disabled athlete asking for a wheelchair lift
https://nypost.com/2022/12/03/canada-offered-to-help-euthanize-christine-gauthier/

“It is also incredibly patronising to assume that someone who is mentally ill cannot consent to assisted dying. Everyone who makes this point should read up on the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act - you'll find it isn't nearly as simple as you think.”

OP wasn’t assuming though, her opinion is based on her experience of being mentally ill including 20yrs of feeling suicidal. I have similar experience and I agree with her. I don’t think reading Acts of Parliament is going to give the sort of insight that survivors of mental illness like us have? And if you’re not going to listen to us, but rely on legal text then what is the point?

I suppose the fear is that instead of offering (often expensive) treatment and day to day support and paying out welfare to vulnerable people this will be the 'prefered' option which just so happens to save the state millions...

This is a timely thread for me as after decades of severe mental ill health I said to my NHS HCP last week that if the state doesn't want to give me the treatment I need (haven't seen a psychiatrist in years and it's pot luck if they even listen to you when you do), provide the support I need to live a less isolated life (day centres closed), if I feel constantly judged for being on benefits (see it all the time on here), if I will live constantly with the threat of homelessness due to no social housing and being discriminated against in the private sector (was all set to sign a tenancy agreement once, had 2 months up front, deposit, perfect credit score etc then once it was discovered I was 'DSS' refused) all while going through regular periods of hearing voices, being so frozen i cant wash, feed myself properly, being so depressed i can barely speak, then for gods sake let me die.....

Of course, an empathetic society that actually cares for its most vulnerable above money would be preferable but the voting electorate has consistently decided against that in the last 12 years. So here we are.....might see if I can access it

Yes. There was a man on benefits due to disability and when his rent was raised and no housing available and no increase to his benefits, he went to the local government to say he couldn’t survive homeless on the streets and was offered euthanasia.

OH and I had this discussion a while back when it was in the news.
We both asked the question why those with a terminal condition, ie: cancer etc, have the right to decline further treatment yet those who suffer years and years of debilitating depressive illnesses that just can't be cured, are expected to suffer.