In just a year, physician-assisted suicide has shifted from an extremely narrow legal option for the terminally ill to a far wider policy experiment in Canada, Europe, and New York. On February 7, New York Governor Kathy Hochul enacted the Medical Aid in Dying Act, permitting adults with six months or less to live to seek a prescription for a lethal drug—a major shift in policy on physician-assisted suicide.
Canada demonstrates where this debate can lead. When medical assistance in dying (MAID) was legalized in 2016, it was framed around terminal illness. Parliament then broadened eligibility to include people whose death cannot be reasonably foreseen, permitting assisted dying for those with chronic disease, disability or severe pain when death is not imminent. Federal health reports estimate 4 to 5 percent of all annual deaths in Canada now occur through MAID, amounting to thousands of cases. Canada proposed extending MAID to individuals whose only qualifying condition was a mental disorder, but postponed that policy until 2027 when health officials questioned whether the system was prepared to safely assess psychiatric suffering.
In the Netherlands, where euthanasia became legal in 2002, deaths from euthanasia soared in 2024, approaching 10 percent more than the previous year, with an increasing number involving psychiatric suffering, depression, and chronic mental health disorders. In Spain, which legalized euthanasia in 2021, the country’s final judge held that an individual had a right to continue euthanasia despite legal opposition from relatives.
Some American groups, including Native Americans, Alaskan Native communities, and workers in construction and agriculture, have high suicide rates. Critics warn that if policy responses prioritize expanding assisted-death choices at the expense of bolstering mental health care, vulnerable communities could face increased risk. The American Medical Association maintains that physician-assisted suicide is inconsistent with the doctor’s role as healer. Medicine’s foundational principle is primum non nocere—do no harm.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/commentary-physician-assisted-suicide-expands-3727281/