Allow assisted death for mentally ill

Some treatments just don’t work, John Wilson says.

It isn’t fair and it shouldn’t be legal to sentence people to a life of agony.

If medical treatments can’t make life bearable, then people should have access to a medically assisted death. This includes those suffering from mental illness, provided they meet the criteria set out by the Supreme Court based on our Constitution. Those with mental illness should have the same rights as the rest of us and they should have the accommodations to enable them to exercise those rights.

Mental pain is real and can be unbearable, some mental illness can’t be adequately treated and — like the rest of us — the mentally ill can at times make critical decisions with competence. Unfortunately, many people appear not to understand that mental pain can be both unbearable and not adequately treatable. Back in 2008, 46 per cent of respondents to a survey replied that people use the term mental illness as an excuse for bad behaviour.

However, following a decade of extensive education more of us now understand that mental illness is an illness like other illnesses. Mental illness affects the brain as other illnesses affect other body organs.

It can cause extreme suffering and in some cases we do not have the treatments to manage that pain.

Every year, about 90 per cent of the 4,000 people who commit suicide suffer from mental illness. In many cases, it is the illness, too often untreated, that causes the suicide. But in other cases, it is the pain that can’t be medically managed.

Assisted death is not available for mental illnesses such as mild depression or anxiety or for other mental illness that can be adequately treated because the Supreme Court stated that an illness must be “grievous” and “irremediable” for an assisted death.

By the time we reach 40 years of age, one in two of us will have had a mental illness. For

And for an even smaller number treatments won’t make life bearable.

most of us, this suffering will be bearable, but for a small number of people it won’t. And for an even smaller number treatments won’t make life bearable.

These people shouldn’t be sentenced to a life of agony or be forced to take their own lives — sometimes violently.

The Supreme Court ruled that one must be competent to request an assisted death. Some people worry that those with mental illness do not have the capacity to make life-and-death decisions.

However, psychiatrists and psychologists can determine when those with mental illness are competent to decide and when they are not. Currently this determination is made when someone is declared not criminally responsible for behaviour that would otherwise be handled by the legal system.

One mental disorder, dementia, does have very high support for accessing an assisted death. A recent opinion survey and a poll taken at the latest Canadian Medical Association annual meeting demonstrate that 80 per cent of the general public and 83 per cent of doctors support assisted death for dementia.

As most of us understand the suffering dementia can cause, we might come to better understand the suffering that grievous mental illnesses can cause.

In 2016, when Parliament passed legislation to legalize medically assisted death, the government committed to study how the law should apply to mental illness, including dementia. The studies, without recommendations, will be made public later this year.

Parliamentarians will then decide whether or not and, if so, how assisted death should apply to those suffering from grievous mental illness that can’t be made bearable. We hope our representatives will act with fairness and compassion and help to reduce the stigma that afflicts those with mental illness.

The Supreme Court has said people have the right to die.

Now we are determining what people, in what situations and with what accommodations can that right be exercised.