Herein lies the rub - it is very difficult to determine if a given metal health condition is truly irremediable, to the point that the state should authorize physicians to help patients suffering from treatment-resistant cases end their lives, compared to other conditions.

I’ve always been torn about MAID in this regard. I do truly think that the ability to end one’s own life is a question of the right to bodily autonomy, a fundamental right from which all others spring. And obviously, it’s better to accomplish this in the least painful, most dignified way possible if someone makes that choice.

But at the same time, how many people who have had treatment-resistant mental health conditions but eventually found a successful course of treatment, and are living content lives today, would no longer be with us if we set the bar too low? What diagnostic criteria can be set to definitively state a given patient will live this way and suffer the same or worse between the time they ask for MAID and the time of their natural death?

I don’t know - I wrestle with the ethical implications here. Happy to hear others’ perspectives on this.