Before Legalizing Suicide, Consider The Impact On NH's Vulnerable Populations
Fact: the World Health Organization has found that more than 700 000 individuals worldwide die by suicide each year.
According to this study from JAMA Psychiatry, the risk of suicide is elevated among individuals diagnosed with medical conditions. Those with mental disorder appear to be at such elevated risk of suicide that additional disability associated with medical conditions has little impact in this regard.
Some countries, including the Netherlands, have long allowed Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, for persons experiencing “unbearable and irremediable suffering due to a mental illness”. In Canada, Quebec’s Superior Court ruled in 2019 that restricting MAID to persons with a ‘reasonable foreseeable natural death’ violates key sections of the Canadian Charter, implying that MAID must be made available to persons with nonterminal conditions, including psychiatric illness.
While only persons with terminal illness can access MAID in those parts of the US that have legalized it, some physicians have argued that certain psychiatric illnesses, especially anorexia nervosa, can be terminal, opening the door to MAID for persons with a primary psychiatric illness.
States that open the door to legalizing physician-assisted suicide are opening Pandora’s Box – where does one draw the line on what groups are eligible? Once physician-assisted suicide becomes legal, the expansions begin and safeguards are removed. We have seen it happen in Canada. We have seen it happen in the Netherlands.
Have proponents looking to pass HB254 in New Hampshire looked at this issue in terms of the impact it could have on those populations who are already extremely vulnerable to suicide … like those suffering from mental illness?
Teens – Another Group At High Risk For Suicide
A January 2025 study looked at teens in the Netherlands with mental illness who requested to end their lives. This cohort study found that the number of young psychiatric patients in the Netherlands who requested MAID-PS increased between 2012 and 2021.
“Those who died by MAID or suicide were mostly female and had long treatment histories and prominent suicidality. These findings suggest that there is an urgent need for more knowledge about persistent death wishes and effective suicide prevention strategies for this high-risk group.”
Would it not be prudent to invest more heavily in suicide prevention programs for teens, and help for those with mental illness, than to offer state-sanctioned suicide as a treatment option?
For more information about suicide prevention and resources, visit NH Coalition for Suicide Prevention.