How likely will assisted dying become legalised for mental health?

31 comments

1. I don’t see this becoming a thing in my lifetime. There are medical ethics issues, insurance issues, and suicide is a cultural taboo. There’s a lot to unpack and *a lot* would have to change.

   Edit:

   > offer it for mental health disorders.

   Yo wtf? Can you elaborate on this? These people should be getting treatment, not a needle.

2. Not likely, too much potential for abuse. Decriminalization is much more likely than legalization.

3. I can definitely see the requirements being loosened and the movement to legalize assisted suicide in more circumstances picking up steam.

   Personally, if I make it to old age and start to show signs of dementia, I would rather have the option to die with dignity on my terms than living through the inevitable. Likewise, I don’t think anyone else should be forced to live through a condition that would cause them terminal horrendous suffering.

   So yes, I support voluntary assisted dying.

4. I hope it doesn’t become a thing. It is wrong in principle, and we have already seen the abuses with MAID.

   Look up Jennyfer Hatch. She wanted to live, and just felt like she was trapped in their fovernment healthcare system and couldn’t seek the treatment she needed, so her second option was killing herself.

   The fact that Canada is opening it up for mental health in 2024 is even more crazy. If someone has something wrong with their brain that makes them want to kill themselves, we shouldn’t offer death as an option. It’s pretty much the same as the suicide hotline giving killing yourself as an option.

   Also, 3.3% of Canadians now die from assisted suicide. Very sad.

5. I don’t see it becoming popular enough to be legalized unless pharma finds a way to capitalize on it and the government finds a way to tax the expense required to perform it.

   Everything is tied to money.

6. I don’t think assisted suicide should be legal for mental health issues. Terminal illness, sure, but I would rather people with psychiatric disorders be treated rather than allowed to die.

7. It speaks a lot about a society when death is considered as a solution to a treatable illnesses.

8. I would not support it at all and I don’t think it will ever pass here. I think supreme courts throughout the country would strike it down if people even tried.

9. >would you support it?

   I would 100% support it.

10. How is it possible for someone with mental health problems to be able to consent to something like this? It is a massive contradiction.

    The very definition of their condition means that they are not of a sound mind, and thus cannot possibly ethically make such a choice.

    This should never, ever be legal.

11. I don’t see it happening for issues that aren’t terminal.

12. Having had friends that have committed, I would have rather them had access to this sort of thing instead of having to go somewhere where they felt isolated and alone. Even more than that, I would’ve rather them had access to mental healthcare though. And I think the country as a whole needs to deal with that before assisted suicide even becomes an option. We are still way off the mark.

13. did canada open it up for all mental health issues ?

14. I’m not in favor of assisted suicide, especially for non-life threatening diseases, but I expect it to become more commonly accepted in this country over the next few decades.

15. Assisted Suicide isn’t legal here in most cases as it is very controversial. Assisted Suicide for mental health reasons would be an order of magnitude more controversial.

16. I really don’t understand the need for assistance. Why do you need an audience?

17. I think it’ll happen in some parts of the US in a couple of decades. The west coast, probably.

18. There are still a lot of people in the US who have a massive objection even to assisted suicide for those suffering horribly from terminal illness, so I don’t see this happening in my lifetime.

19. Expanding it? Holy fuck, they are already offering to kill disabled vets for simply requesting to have a damned ramp installed. How many more people are they going to try and kill?

20. I would 100% support it and I think most people would too because while the diagnostic requirements might get loosened I think there will be more procedural requirements which hopefully mean that more people will actually get treatment. But at the end of the day the government can’t force you to stay alive and we should at least work on preventing additional trauma to others. Someone always finds the body you know.

21. I don’t think a large enough portion of the population in in any state would go that far in the foreseeable future. I do, however, see more states legalizing assisted suicide for terminal illnesses though.

22. For mental health? Decades or more. For the dying? Hopefully very soon.

23. I’d be concerned that it turns into people getting euthanized because no one wants to deal with them. That’s a slippery slope I don’t want to go down.

24. > even fewer of them offer it for mental health disorders.

    Source this, *now* – medically assisted suicide is for *terminally ill patients*. If you’ve got someone promoting the mentally ill kill themselves you have a strong case for negligent homicide or even murder.

25. Hopefully not at all. Assisted suicide for painful, terminal illnesses is one thing. For mental health issues? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

26. “Depressed? Kys.”

    Don’t call it a thing *for* mental health, because it isn’t. It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem. We need to bring about real positive change with mental health instead.

27. Very likely in blue states and some/all purple states. Red states will say it’s eugenics.

28. Fellow Americans who are freaking out over this:

    By “mental health disorders”, what’s meant is “Alzheimer’s disease”

    (Or similar diseases that (prettymuch) only afflict the elderly, have no cure, and basically kill your brain only, leaving the rest of your body a living, idiotic, undignified vegetable for decades.)

29. If someone wants to off themselves there are plenty of painless & easily accessible ways to do it. I don’t know why anyone who wants to die would ask other’s permission or seek others help. I think suicide is horrible, but if someone takes that path that should be their choice & their choice alone.

30. Legal in Oregon, and a couple of other states, but there’s no possibility of it’s being applied to people suffering from mental health conditions. The exception might be conditions like Alzheimers & ALS, which cause dementia, but also (eventually) kill you.

31. I’m not ok with people suffering front mental illness having access to state assisted suicide.

    I’d feel like a monster if I ever said “oh hey you have a mental health issue? Let’s end your life.”