NYT Slammed for Promoting Assisted Suicide for Mental Illness

Sad man sitting at home. Sadness, stress concept.
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Joshua Klein

Assisted suicide is “moral progress” and should also be available for those suffering mental illness, according to a recent New York Times piece that ironically admits many who have experienced intense mental suffering eventually “find themselves grateful for their lives once the suicidal moment or attempt has passed.”

The essay, titled “Medical Assistance in Dying Should Not Exclude Mental Illness” and penned by Canadian essayist Clancy Martin, begins with the author’s description of his personal suicide attempts when young.

“My first attempt to kill myself was when I was a child. I tried again as a teenager; as an adult, I’ve attempted suicide repeatedly and in a variety of ways,” he writes.

Despite his attempts, the author admits to being grateful for having failed each time.

“And yet, as a 55-year-old white man (a member of one of the groups at the highest risk for suicide in America) and the happily married father of five children, I am thankful that I am incompetent at killing myself,” he writes.

Martin, who serves as a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, expressed his belief that “almost every suicide can be prevented, including my own, with access to good behavioral health systems.”

“I have talked many, many people ‘off the ledge,’” he added.

As a Canadian, Martin notes how eligible adults in the Great White North have the legal right to request medical assistance in dying (MAID).

He describes acceptance of such legislation — which “has been spreading” to many other countries and districts — as “moral progress.”

“When a person is in unbearable physical agony, suffering from a terminal disease, and death is near, surely it is compassionate to help end the pain, if the person so chooses,” he writes.

He then highlights the current debate in Canada surrounding the inclusion in MAID of those “living with severe, incurable mental illness” — a part of the law scheduled to take effect next year.

Oddly, despite Martin admitting that “many people who want to end their lives because of intense mental suffering find themselves grateful for their lives once the suicidal moment or attempt has passed,” he still expresses support for assisted suicide for those suffering from mental illness.

“One might expect that as someone who has repeatedly attempted suicide and yet is happy to be alive, I am opposed to euthanasia on psychiatric grounds,” he writes. “But it is because of my intimacy with suicide that I believe people must have this right.”

Though requests for euthanasia on psychiatric grounds should be treated with “particular care” because of our uncertainty surrounding psychological suffering, Martin insists that the lack of clarity “is in fact a reason to endorse a prudent policy of assisted suicide for at least some psychiatric cases.”

“When people are desperate for relief from torment that we do not understand well enough to effectively treat, giving them the right and the expert medical assistance to end that misery is caring for them,” he writes.

He also notes that major depression “is one of the psychiatric diagnoses most common to suicidal people, and approximately two-thirds of people who die by suicide are depressed at the time of their death.”

Martin suggests that the involvement of a suicidal individual in a behavioral health setting offering a variety of assistance “might result in rethinking the desire to die.”

“By interrupting or complicating the habitual patterns of chronic suicidal ideation, the prospect of relief through MAID could, paradoxically, ease the need for ending one’s own life,” he writes, adding that as an application is being reviewed, one may benefit from “treatment and reflection.”

In addition, he claims, “the knowledge that there is a way out may alleviate the terrifying claustrophobia so common to suicidal people like me and to people in acute suffering more generally.”

According to Martin, when people are given the right to physician-assisted suicide, “they may opt not to use it.”

“People should be granted the right to this assistance,” he argues. “It does not follow they will exercise that right.”

“If we are willing to help people end their physical suffering by assisting their death, can we in good conscience deny them that help for their mental suffering?” he asks.

Calling for “wise regulation,” “expert advice,” and the “best” medical information, Martin admits that caution is required.

“Must Canada, and other countries with similar policies permitting MAID on psychiatric grounds, like Belgium and the Netherlands, continue to proceed with the utmost care, with the advice of appropriate behavioral health and ethical experts? Of course,” he writes.

“Should we be especially cautious when it comes to cases involving anyone about whose informed consent we have concerns, such as minors or the disabled? Of course,” he adds. “But this is how any enlightened health care policy must proceed.”

The author concludes by demanding those suffering from psychological torture be granted the right “to consult a medical expert about medical assistance in taking their own lives and be given that assistance if their need is justified,” adding that individuals attempting to end their lives on their own “is much worse, and it’s happening every day.”

In response, many expressed outrage over the “unhinged” essay.

“We’re going to hear this more and more, and it’s important not to get habituated to it,” wrote editor Bria Sandford. “It’s evil, even if meant as kindness.”

“A totally unhinged article,” wrote one Twitter user.

“Excuse me, I hadn’t realized that @nytimes was running Mustapha Mond’s byline these days,” wrote another.

“Just wait until they go from ‘let’s help people with mental illness end their own lives,’ which is horrifying in and of itself, to ‘maybe we should just euthanize people with mental illness, which we’re now defining broadly as everyone who isn’t cis and straight,’” another user wrote.

“It is 2023 and here’s someone in the NYT saying people suffering with poor mental health should have access to euthanasia,” wrote another Twitter user.

“Are people off their rocker? We should help treat people with mental illness so they can become healthy,” the user added.

“So dismaying to read this in the Times. Martin doesn’t address the many reports that denial of medical care and poor treatment in Canada has led to people submitting to euthanasia,” one user wrote.

“How about advocating for better treatment, rather than killing patients?” the user asked.

“NYT Liberalism: Please die instead of us having to pay for your mental healthcare,” wrote yet another.

After legalizing assisted suicide in 2016, Canada has become one of only seven countries allowing medical professionals to administer lethal drugs to patients and is the only country that allows nurse practitioners to kill their patients.

Though euthanasia was initially limited to patients over the age of 18 suffering from a terminal illness, the standards have been increasingly loosened with each passing year.

A document for doctors produced by the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers brought to public attention last year, suggests that doctors are obligated to bring up the topic of euthanasia before their patients do if the patient is eligible and it is “medically relevant.”

Canadian religious leaders have expressed growing concern over the looming activation of new policies that would allow those suffering from mental illness to be euthanized with considerable speed — just 90 days after two doctors approve a request for assisted suicide.

In November, leading Canadian fashion retailer La Maison Simons launched an ad campaign titled “All Is Beauty” that was accused of “promoting” and “romanticizing” assisted suicide.

In the roughly three-minute clip, a now-deceased terminally-ill woman in her 30s named Jennyfer describes her coming to grips with the choice to end her life while seeing the “beauty” all around, as she presents euthanasia as “the most beautiful exit.”

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

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