With the concept of staying alive until one’s body dies naturally under attack, one must be aware of developments that make doing so harder quietly sneaking in while focus is on another aspect of the issue.\u00a0 Could concentrating on the dangers of MAID for psychological conditions (like depression) alone detract attention from the establishment of policies that make it harder to opt out of MAID for other conditions?\u00a0 Although MAID for mental illness alone has serious implications, couldn\u2019t highlighting that it can engulf young able-bodied healthy individuals give the impression that one is against not euthanasia but merely “premature” euthanasia?<\/p>\n
To illustrate that MAID violates human rights, examples of doing it for psychological conditions on young healthy people can be relatively weaker than examples of doing it for other conditions.<\/p>\n
For one thing, a “request” for mental-illness-justified-MAID is more likely to be self-initiated, and the death is more likely to be voluntary.\u00a0 But in a world where killing people before they die naturally is routine, most official death-hastening warrants would probably be initiated by a medical provider, family member, service provider, service providing agency, or insurance company’s computer. \u00a0No matter who initiates the request, there\u2019s often a risk of people complying out of resignation, expectation, and lack of escape routes rather than real desire.<\/p>\n
If a young able-bodied otherwise-healthy person with depression requests to be killed, wouldn\u2019t a stream of kith, kin, social workers, doctors, and counselors try to talk them out of early death and suggest alternatives?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t insurance cover alternatives?\u00a0 But if a person has another MAID-qualifying condition, even if they themselves have not requested death, might some of the same people harass and pressure them to surrender to death-hastening, poo-pooing and hiding what alternatives they know about?<\/p>\n In addition, of the many reasons for killing innocent people, depression is the one most likely to fit the “we’re just ending their suffering the way they want” argument.\u00a0 Of all killings by MAID, aren\u2019t those for self-reported psychological conditions alone likely to have the highest percentage provably voluntary?<\/p>\n Concentrating on the prospect of death-hastening for psychological conditions alone can play into the hands of those who promote MAID by painting an image of patient-initiated requests, discussions of alternatives, verification that — after considering alternatives — the patient still really wants to die, and the patient going voluntarily to death, often self-administering the poison, in a “loving, peaceful” setting, in the presence of only people of their choosing.\u00a0 This ignores the people who submit to MAID because they feel they have no alternative, are killed against their will, try to escape their killers, or are killed by trickery.\u00a0 It ignores the plight of people who want to stay alive but whose family wants them dead and is legally allowed to pressure or trick them into submitting to death-hastening.<\/p>\n Moreover, the debate over which psychological conditions and anti-social behavior qualify for death-hastening might never be settled.\u00a0 Will s<\/span>ociety become comfortable going back and forth over it, using it as a debating exercise?\u00a0 Meanwhile, couldn\u2019t this debate hide or accept the quiet “settling of the issue” for certain specific non-psychological conditions — with death-hastening for people in those conditions becoming expected, allowed against the target’s will, or required?<\/p>\n Surprising as it now might seem, as late as the 1960’s, a dog care book then still in print said something like, “When your dog is old and fading, unless it is dangerous, there is no need to have it killed.\u00a0 It wants to live as long as possible so it can enjoy your company.”\u00a0 Now the idea of letting a pet live until they die naturally is inconceivable for “grown up” people.\u00a0 Issue settled.<\/p>\n It is unfortunate that the issue was settled that way for pets, and it will be unfortunate if it is settled that way for people.\u00a0 Will debates on fine-tuning who qualifies for voluntary MAID obscure that this is happening?<\/p>\n A solicitation letter from an anti-euthanasia organization in the 1990’s started with an envisioned story about a mother whose daughter one day never comes home from high school.\u00a0 After extensive asking around, the mother finally finds out that her daughter left school to go to a place that encouraged her to get out of her normal teenage depression by killing herself, which she quickly did, supported by professionals, without anybody telling her family before or after.\u00a0 Reading a story like that, one might think that is what the organization most<\/em> fears.\u00a0 Actually, it is conceivable that laws allowing MAID for psychological reasons on some people \u00a0will specifically forbid doing it for psychological reasons on otherwise-healthy able-bodied people below a certain age.<\/p>\n A more likely scenario, starting with the premise that the girl never came home from school and the mother had to ask around on her own to find out what happened, would have been that the girl had a disability or chronic illness, the mother’s ex-husband gave permission for her to be killed, the girl was dragged out of her classroom screaming for her life, and she was killed in the presence of her father, stepmother, and people she was told were her “real friends.”<\/p>\n Questioning the competence of mentally ill people to make the decision can be a double-edged sword.\u00a0 One must not assume the default assumption will be life.\u00a0 Where the law allows\u00a0 someone else to make the decision for a person ruled incompetent to make it,\u00a0 it is likely the decision will\u00a0 be\u00a0 life for healthy able-bodied people\u00a0 below a certain\u00a0 age\u00a0 who are willing to\u00a0 take psychotropic medication, and death for people judged to be too unproductive, old, expensive, uncooperative, disabled, or sick.<\/p>\n To back up statements about the wrongness\u00a0of MAID for psychological reasons alone (in addition to it being another reason to entrap a larger percent of the population in it), how about pointing out the following:<\/p>\n But these three bullet points involve cases where the death warrant is not self-initiated.\u00a0 And attention to MAID for psychological reasons tends to focus on self-initiated death requests.<\/p>\n So death-hastening for psychological reasons alone does open the door to new dangers and should be a source of concern.\u00a0 But it must not distract attention from fighting more extensive threats to the right to live until one’s body dies naturally.<\/p>\n ===================<\/p>\n Figuring out Euthanasia<\/a>: What Does it Really Mean?<\/p>\n Confronting MAID: Is it Autonomy?<\/a><\/p>\n Assisted Suicide is Inequality, Just Like All Legal Violence<\/a><\/p>\n Euthanasia by Poverty: Stories from Canada<\/a><\/p>\n MAID in Despair<\/a><\/p>\n Grieving for John<\/a><\/p>\n What\u2019s Cruel for the Incarcerated is Cruel for the Terminally Ill<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1-blog-Mel.jpg\")
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<\/a>For more of our posts on euthanasia, see:<\/p>\n