I receive the New York Times every Sunday so I can take a stab at one of the most challenging crosswords that they publish on the last page. For one, it’s sort of a bragging right if you can complete them, they’re at times extremely clever and difficult. For another, I hope doing this crossword, even though frustrating at times, will help ward off senioritis. You know, growing old and letting your mind go to waste.
A few weeks back, I was struck by an article published June 1, 2025 and actually read it prior to flipping to the puzzle on the last page. The article concerns MAID, or Medical Assistance in Dying. In a nutshell a doctor helps you in committing suicide. No other way to describe it.
Paula Ritchie as photographed by Oliver Farshi
The article is titled Paula Ritchie Wasn’t Dying by Katie Englehart, with the tagline:
“Canada Offers Medically Assisted Death to Patients Without a Terminal Illness. Is that Kindness or Cruelty?”
Usually the NYT requires a subscription, but you can read the entire article by clicking the link.
You should read this article if you’ve ever thought suicide was your only way to escape the mental anguish you’re currently experiencing. The mental pain won’t kill you, but can make your life unbearable.
Canada passed bill C-14 in 2016, which made it legal for physicians to assist a patient in taking their own lives. It was originally meant for patients who were suffering from a terminal illness, and assisted death would relieve them from an otherwise long painful and agonizing end. A more dignified way to die, versus lying in bed in pain as the disease takes control. With no hope of a cure.
Canada is one of several countries that offers MAID. There are extensive caveats and tests to qualify, both physical and psychological, in order to be granted MAID. It certainly isn’t just picking up the phone and bang, you’re dead. Some patients who were denied MAID for one reason or another ended up committing suicide, which in itself to proved to be a horrible way to die.
The bill was challenged in 2017 in Quebec. One of the plaintiffs was a male patient who was suffering spastic cereberal palsy since he was born, and his quality of life non-existent. At 51 he was completely immobile and relied solely on others for everything. It’s important to note he wasn’t suicidal, as he couldn’t perform that act himself, but saw no point in continuing to live. He had considered starvation as a means of dying, but knew the pain at the end would be overbearing.
In response to the lawsuit from plaintiffs like the gentleman above, the Canadian Parliament passed bill C-7, which offered a means of qualifying for MAID even if your death was not in the near or foreseeable future. This addition to the law is known as Track 2. Which was the case with Katie Ritchie from the New York Times article, who was mentally tormented by a very real pain, although caused by a neurological disorder. You know that type, when you’re told “It’s all in your head.”
The opening line on the cover really caught my attention, especially the “kindness or cruelty” comment. Is it cruel to let a life slip away due to mental illness? I believe it’s more cruel to have someone suffer an intolerable existence, even if it’s mentally driven. Where there is no quality of life left and the patient has to be so medicated to make it one more minute.
Who can really say that? Who has that power to say “your suffering is tolerable, you need to keep going”?
Is it because the patient isn’t strong enough to go on, doesn’t have the mental stamina, and is deemed “weak” by others, including the medical community? Have doctors and psychiatrists exhausted all measures to make this patient’s life better, where the quality of life has improved enough to find some rhyme or reason to keep going?
If you look at the suicide rate for trans folk, some estimates have it as high as 30%. You have to wonder if MAID is a better pathway. Or for people with chronic depression who take their own life. Suicide can be extremely painful, and we’ve all heard stories of a “botched” attempt that leaves the person in an even worse position. Coma, paralysis and more pain.
With transsexuals the answer in my opinion is no, suicide or MAID isn’t the answer. The response to gender dysphoria is within society and social norms to provide the way out or cure. Simply by being more tolerant and accepting of the vast amount of differences outside the “norm”. That’s confusing, but in a nutshell just allow us to live as any other person does.
For other mental disorders, where patients have gone to extremes to relieve their suffering, I strongly believe MAID is a viable option. The decision to do so can’t be solely left to the patient to make.
I value life too much to consider this as an option, yet. And that’s a strong “yet”.
If chronic pain and depression make life totally unbearable and there is absolutely no quality of life left…sign me up.