Should people with a mental illness be helped to die if that is what they wish?

Following Canada's legalization of assisted suicide for terminally ill people in 2016, Adam Maier-Clayton led a campaign for his own right to death. Suffering from Somatic Symptom Disorder, a mental illness which expresses itself as physical symptoms without an apparent bodily cause, Adam insisted that Canada include mental health problems in its legislation for assisted suicide—but to no avail. Adam committed suicide this April, without his family beside him and after four years of suffering from crippling and untreatable pain.

Adam's story is no less important, however, given his achievements in sparking new, yet controversial discourse in Canada. While some skeptics fear that assisted suicide, if its requirements are expanded to mental health conditions, will simply provide people an "'out' to tough situations" (medicine should only aim to alleviate, not eradicate, suffering, the argument goes), pro-euthanasia campaigners contend that people suffering from severe mental health conditions, like Adam, deserve a dignified way to die. Should there be a distinction between mental and physical illness vis-a-vis a person's eligibility for assisted suicide, as Canadian legislators have decided? Or do legislators (justifiably or unjustifiably) delegitimize the suffering caused by mental illness when they mandate people like Adam to "tough [their disorders] out"?

协助自杀经常被抽象地讨论，但现在是伦理学家和立法者更具体地思考这个问题的时候了。在评估谁有资格接受协助自杀的问题上，谁应该承担评估痛苦(精神上或其他方面)的责任——医生、病人、“家庭证人”还是立法者?如果亚当的精神障碍导致他失忆或精神分裂症，而不是身体疼痛，他的案例是否就不那么令人信服了?Learn more about Adam's poignant storyhereand tell us what you think in the comments below.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40546632