Psychiatrist: Refusing Euthanasia for Mentally Ill Discrimination

It used to be that psychiatrists and psychologists strived to prevent mentally ill people from committing suicide. Now, a blog post by Canadian psychiatrist Ralph Lewis published in Psychology Today — of all places — understands that allowing the mentally ill to be euthanized could have a deleterious impact on suicide-prevention efforts. But what the hell. Refusing to euthanize the mentally ill is “discriminating“:

And yet, how can we justify discriminating against people with mental disorders and suggesting to them that their suffering is more tolerable than that of people suffering from physical disorders? And how do we paternalistically tell them that we do not consider them under any circumstances to be competent to determine their own life values and to appraise whether their life is worth living? How many of those people will end up dying alone by suicide in ways that are much more traumatizing and stigmatizing for their families?

It isn’t discrimination, it’s protecting the vulnerable and despairing. Oh, Wesley: Don’t be so 20th century!

The Quebec Psychiatric Association is ready to start the killing:

The Quebec Psychiatric Association has taken the lead in Canada in developing a discussion paper on access to medical assistance in dying for people with mental disorders. In it, they state: “Patients whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder should not be systematically¹⁵ excluded from MAID on the basis of their diagnoses.” They add that the Association “does not intend to promote MAID [for] MD-SUMC, but recognizes the suffering of patients and their right to make their own choice like any other person.” Each case should be comprehensively assessed on its own merits. They envisage qualifying cases will be fairly rare.

It might be rare at first, but after a few years the death business will pick up as a “treatment” for severe psychiatric disorders — just as it has in the Netherlands.