Assisted suicide: 47-year-old, anorexic and death-wanting. Canada will soon allow it

Lisa Polley doesn’t want to live anymore.

The 47-year-old Canadian has been battling anorexia nervosa for decades. She said she has had a troubled relationship with her body since the age of eight Reuters.

Today Polly weighs 42 kg and often does not eat for several days. She is so weak that she has to stop to rest frequently when hauling groceries home.

“Every day is hell,” he says. “I’m so tired. I’m done. I tried everything. I feel like I’ve lived my life.”

Today Polly cannot undergo assisted suicide, but that will soon change with changing standards that Canada will implement from March 2024, when the practice will be allowed even for those with only mental illness.

In 2016, Canada legalized assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses, and in 2021 it expanded the measure to include chronic but non-fatal diseases.

With changes to be implemented next year, Canada is expanding assisted suicide more than any other country, according to an expert report presented in Parliament.

Proponents of this practice consider it a matter of self-determination. However, some organizations of patients with disabilities are concerned that some citizens may choose to commit suicide simply because they cannot access social services.

However, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that the new framework does not open the system to such violations.

In 2021, the latest year for which data is available, 10,064 people in Canada underwent assisted suicide, a number that corresponds to 3.3% of deaths. In comparison, the corresponding percentage in the Netherlands is 4.5% and Belgium is 2.4.

According to Canadian government data, the vast majority of assisted deaths comply with legal standards, but there are a few cases that warrant investigation.

In the 2021-22 biennium, the province of Quebec found that 15 assisted deaths, or 0.4% of the total, violated the rules and referred them for investigation to the medical association. A county commission reported that in six of those cases, the patients did not suffer from a serious and incurable disease.

In British Columbia, a total of 21 incidents have been referred to the medical association or police since 2018.

Doctors were not penalized in any of the above cases.

30,000 assisted deaths

Since the practice was legalized in 2016, more than 30,000 Canadians have undergone assisted suicide. Even after the terminal illness criterion is abolished, 98% of deaths concern patients with limited prospects of survival, according to Ministry of Health data.

“So far I don’t see anything to suggest we’ve gone too far,” Canadian Justice Minister David Lammet said of the planned changes.

The procedure is only available to those who are covered by insurance funds. It requires a written application and an evaluation by two independent physicians, at least one of whom must specialize in the patient’s condition if the patient is not dying.

The end usually comes with an injection given at home.

As Lamit reported, the government is considering a parliamentary committee proposal that calls for extending the measure to also include minors who are deemed capable of making the big decision themselves.

The federal government is also considering implementing a nationwide law approved in June by the province of Quebec that allows patients to proactively request death when they reach a predetermined level of disability from Alzheimer’s or similar diseases.

The measure was implemented across Canada at the request of Dying With Dignity Canada, which has sent nearly 10,000 letters to the government so far.

Lamet said, however, that “more time is needed” for a decision to be made.

Lisa Polley first discussed the issue with her psychiatrist Justin Denbo in 2021. Polly has tried a variety of treatments and been hospitalized twice for anorexia, but to this day has not found a solution and is constantly pondering what to do next.

Polly’s mother, Mary Heatley, initially could not accept that her daughter might choose death. But he changed his mind when he discussed it with her.

“She can’t see herself living another 10 or 20 years in this situation,” Heatley said.

medical standards

Some experts believe that mental illness alone cannot be a criterion for assisted suicide. Sonu Jade, a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, points out that in many cases it is difficult to assess whether mental illness is truly untreatable, just as it is difficult to distinguish between pathological suicidal tendencies and a rational decision to die.

“We don’t even understand the biology of most mental illnesses,” he said.

Some activists also worry that expanding the measure will put people with physical or mental disabilities at risk.

Michelle Hewitt of patient organization Disability Without Poverty gave the example of ALS patient Sean Taggert, who chose assisted suicide in 2019 when he tried unsuccessfully to secure 24-hour care at home.

“He was very clear about what he wanted, more hours of in-home care. When he was told he would have to move into a nursing home away from his family, especially his son, he assisted suicide,” Hewitt said.

Incidents of this kind are “tragic”, Lamer replied, but the law does not allow patients to kill themselves simply because they are facing social or financial hardship.

“If you are not covered by the medical criteria, they will not have access,” said the Minister of Justice.