In a STAT First Opinion essay, editor Torie Bosch argues that medical aid in dying should be available to people with severe, treatment-resistant mental illness, drawing on her mother's decades-long struggle with suicidal behavior. Bosch describes her mother's repeated attempts—about two dozen—and her eventual death alone in 2016, after which she was found days later.
Currently, only Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Luxembourg permit psychiatric MAiD. Canada had planned to add mental illness to its program in March 2027, but announced on Oct. 7 that it would indefinitely suspend that expansion, citing concerns about access to mental health services and questions about whether mental illness can be deemed incurable.
Bosch acknowledges objections: patients might face family pressure, equity concerns, and the possibility that depression distorts decision-making capacity. But she contends that 'sometimes mental illness is terminal,' and that her mother received extensive care without improvement. For her, MAiD could have offered a more comfortable death and a less complicated grief—and, she speculates, might even have saved her.