News

Blog post by Augustin Hamilton (Quebec Life Coalition) — Photo: Freepik

"Mental health: offering medical assistance in dying to prevent suicide" is the title of an opinion piece published in Le Soleil. The paradox it presents would be laughable were it not for the fact that this is an extremely serious matter.

Just think about it: proposing death to prevent people from killing themselves! Offering suicide to prevent suicide...

This is the proposal of Dr Chantal Descoteaux and Dr Claude Gagnon, who are thankfully currently retired. Their piece is riddled with contradictions from start to finish.

It is said that people who take their own lives are either experiencing a temporary crisis or have been receiving long-term healthcare and have tried all the suggested solutions. Driven by despair, they chose to end their lives. The doctors then go on to say, "Turning a blind eye to this reality does not save any lives." A strange line of thinking, since how exactly does killing suicidal people save lives?

While it is true that this would reduce suicide rates, since assisted suicide is not counted as a suicide, this is a fundamental error since in both cases the person wishes to end their own life.

They claim that "the debate should not focus on the unease that the idea of a person with a mental health condition requesting medical assistance to die might cause in those who do not experience this reality", yet they also mention the families of people who have taken their own lives and the "trauma that will stay with them for the rest of their lives". Have they considered the trauma experienced by those who have lost a loved one to euthanasia?

They also state that access to euthanasia for people with suicidal thoughts should be strictly regulated. They add that allowing a person with a mental health condition to request medical assistance in dying does not mean their request will automatically be granted. However, how will this prevent those whose requests are refused from taking their own lives?

In their conclusion, they state that they would "a thousand times" rather accompany a patient through "medically assisted dying carried out with dignity" than find them dead by suicide. What they are proposing here is simply the sanitisation of suicide, replacing a solitary suicide carried out using more shocking means with an approved suicide in an orderly environment. This makes assisted suicide even more hypocritical: the same act is being carried out, but the poison is administered by a healthcare professional who believes to be compassionate (although he is not, strictly speaking, providing a treatment). Indeed, death is more palatable when offered with a smile. Ultimately, however, the result is the same: a dead body. The method of taking one's own life will make no difference whatsoever to the deceased.

This text completely overlooks the fact that the true brutality stems from the act of suicide itself, whether assisted or not. It is extremely brutal for a person to take their own life, whether with the state’s approval or not.

Furthermore, if we were to follow these two doctors' proposal, many people who would not ultimately have taken their own lives would lose theirs because their wish to die would have been granted, regardless of how "rigorous" the system might be.