What Then

Think about a person who has suffered from depression and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for many years. She has received on-and-off treatment with variable results. She feels hopeless, has continuous negative thoughts about herself, and wants to die. What should this person do?

It's an interesting question, and one that, unfortunately goes unanswered as the author's intent is to hold up assisted death, whether that be assisting a person in ending their own life or ending the life of a person who is unable to carry out the deed themselves, as unethical. And okay, I can understand that viewpoint. And I can understand the idea that "there is something cynical and nihilistic" about the argument that for some people, death by something other than natural causes may be their best option. But leaning heavily into the point that "as members of a society" we have a duty to mitigate the suffering of the severely mentally ill doesn't answer of the question of what recourse the suffering person has if "we" fail.

In fact, after the first paragraph, where we are told that in Belgium, the sufferer can speak to their psychiatrist or therapist about assisted death, the hypothetical patient is never mentioned again. At all. They become a footnote in an argument that is ostensibly about what options they have when they feel they have exhausted all others. And that's unfortunate because "What should this person do?" is a very important question, especially when one is arguing that one option they might have be taken away from them. For some people, hope is a very powerful emotion, but it must be kept in mind that it's not possible to force it on someone else.

And maybe people know this. It occurs to me, that other than the seemingly obligatory anti-suicide messaging that accompanies stories of people actually attempting or committing suicide, I haven't yet come across can article that attempts to speak to someone with, say treatment-resistant depression and suicidal ideation, and convince them that there are better options out there than seeking to end their own lives. To the degree that the people suffering are part of the conversation of what they should do about it, they're props, at best, rather than active participants. Perhaps because they're seen as so broken that there's something wrong with taking them seriously. Or maybe because their disorders render them poor spokespeople for themselves. I don't know. But I am starting to find their absence conspicuous.