This column was published by thelaker.ca on January 15, 2024.
This column is written by Moira Wilson, President of Inclusion Canada, and the parent of an adult son with a disability.
 |
Moira Wilson
|
By Moira WilsonPresident, Inclusion Canada
On March 17, 2024, individuals in Canada whose sole underlying
medical condition is a mental illness will become eligible for medical
assistance in dying (MAiD) – unless the federal government decides not
to go forward as planned.
As a parent, a medical professional, and an advocate for human
rights, we must put a stop to this inhumane policy. By legalizing MAiD
for mental illness, Canada will further deviate from the practice of
preventing suicide — for everyone.
While “assisted suicide” may be an unsettling term, I use it
intentionally. It’s time that we reckon with the discomfort of reality.
People with disabilities are now legally dying by suicide in Canada with
assistance from MAiD providers, and this will become far more common
with the availability of MAiD for mental illness.
Medical assistance in dying was, for the first five years, an option
made available to people with a “grievous and irremediable medical
condition” and a “reasonably foreseeable natural death.” Then, in 2021,
Canada began to allow all eligible people labelled with a grievous and
irremediable illness, disease or disability to die by MAiD.
The
caveat was (and is) that people with a mental illness were to be
“excluded” from MAiD as a solution to suffering associated with their
mental illness. They are therefore “included” under the Criminal Code’s
protection from suicide promotion and facilitation, which is a
protection most Canadians enjoy. People with a mental illness currently
remain eligible for MAiD if they have a co-occurring illness, disease or
disability.
This mental illness “exclusion” will expire in March.
Research shows that recovery from mental illness is very difficult to
predict. While mental illness can be treatment resistant, it is
impossible to predict the likelihood of improvement for a given person
at a given time.
As the parent of a son with an intellectual disability, I have some
experience with doctors predicting quality of life. This is a
near-universal experience for parents of people with disabilities.
The
nature of these early-diagnosis conversations can change your
life-course and give or take away hope. I am thankful that my son’s
doctor told us to never put limits on him, but others in my community
were told that their child simply would not thrive (they later defied
these predictions).
I have little faith in a medical professional’s ability to
predict without bias what is scientifically known to be unpredictable.
As a medical professional myself, I am disappointed with Canada’s
choice to pivot away from suicide-prevention — which was a key reason
for legalizing MAiD in 2016. I’ve come face-to-face with suicide at
various points throughout my career, including leading reviews of deaths
by suicide in my community.
Because of this, I want to be clear
not to overlook the “grievousness” of mental illness. Mental anguish
paired with social stigma can be a lot for one person to hold. Many
people expend precious energy into keeping themselves alive every single
day.
This is exactly why, when a person wants to die, they don’t need to
hear that their suffering warrants death. They don’t need their suicidal
ideation affirmed.
People who experience mental illness do not need help to die. They
need support to live, to be heard, to be invested in, to have the
conditions of their life improved upon, and to be unconditionally
valued. Even if — especially if — they may be “difficult” to work with.
Social determinants shape a person’s likelihood of acquiring a mental
illness, their likelihood of accessing adequate and appropriate
treatment for their mental illness, and the likelihood that their
treatment will be successful.
Four out of five people with a mental health disability have at least
one other type of disability, and over 40 per cent of people with an
intellectual disability have a co-occurring mental health condition.
Yet, our elected officials are pursuing MAiD for mental illness of their
own accord and on their own rushed timeline.
How did we get here? At the recommendation of the Senate, elected
officials made the hasty decision to go down the path of legalizing
assisted suicide for people with a mental illness at a pre-determined
date. They made this decision over the course of 29 days in 2021.
If
no further action is taken, this predetermined course of action will
come into effect in March, with no new safeguards being added to the
law. That leaves us, Canadians, in the unfortunate position of needing
to ask elected officials to admit they made a mistake. Join me in
encouraging them to do so.
Moira Wilson is the President of Inclusion Canada and the parent of an adult son with a disability.
