Amy Hamm: MAID for mental illness should be put out of its misery

Photo by UNSPLASH

Article content

In its newly released report, Canada’s special joint committee on medical assistance in dying (MAID) issued a single, perfect recommendation: “That the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying.”

Article content

Conservative MP Tamara Jansen then tabled Bill C-218, which seeks to do just that: if passed, it will amend the Criminal Code “to provide that a mental disorder is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition for which a person could receive medical assistance in dying.”

Article content

Article content

Article content

This is a moral victory for our country. Since 2021, when Bill C-7 was passed with a sunset clause that would enable mentally ill people to seek MAID at a future date (which has since been delayed twice and currently sits at March 17, 2027), Canadians with mental illnesses have been living under the pall cast by the knowledge that the state was ironing out the kinks in a system that would allow them to abandon all hope and obtain state-assisted suicide.

Article content

Article content

The parliamentary report paints a picture of deep philosophical division. Some witnesses and experts argued that clinicians can, and do, differentiate between acute suicidality as a symptom of treatable mental illness and a wish to die as a distinct and reasonable desire of those suffering from untreatable conditions. Others argued that there is no possible way to differentiate between the two.

Article content

I agree with the latter view: “irremediability,” when it comes to mental illness, is purely subjective. No set of diagnostic criteria could ever delineate these suicide wishes. And make no mistake: if we allow the state to try, we will be sanctioning the deaths of untold thousands of vulnerable people.

Article content

Article content

Attached to the parliamentary report is a dissenting report from senators Rosemary Moodie, Pamela Wallin and Kristopher Wells, who insist that the government “not accept the majority report.” They question the report’s bias and credibility, claiming that it was created via a “highly irregular and flawed process,” which favoured witnesses who were opposed to the policy. They instead ask that the government refer the issue to the Supreme Court.

Article content

Article content

These dissenters miss the point entirely: it doesn’t matter how many nouveau Dr. Kevorkians are out there pushing to euthanize the mentally ill — no safeguards or clinical criteria will ever justify MAID for mental illness.

Article content

I spent 13 years working in British Columbia’s mental health system, from nursing on acute psychiatric wards to doing outreach work in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. I have met several people who’ve tragically committed suicide, and I’ve also seen countless severely mentally ill people get better.

Article content

It’s obvious to me that the most despicable thing health-care providers could do to any of these souls would be to tell them that perhaps they have no chance of recovery — or to examine whether their wish to die is clinically valid.