Canada Can’t Decide Whether to Let This Woman Die
Canada’s ongoing debate over medical assistance in dying has become deeply personal for one woman. Claire Brosseau, a 48-year-old Toronto comedian, is seeking the right to a medically assisted death, saying decades of severe mental illness have left her in constant psychological pain.
Brosseau’s life includes many markers of success and stability: a close-knit family, a comedy career that has brought her to major stages, and a small dog named Olive. But alongside those joys is a lifelong struggle with mental illness that began in childhood. Over more than 30 years, she has tried at least 25 medications, numerous therapies, and extensive electroconvulsive treatments. None, she says, have relieved her suicidal thoughts or what she describes as unrelenting mental suffering. She has survived multiple suicide attempts and says she does not want to die violently, but rather through a regulated medical process.
As Stephanie Nolen reports in the New York Times, Canada allows medical assistance in dying (MAID) for people experiencing intolerable suffering from incurable conditions, even if they are not near the end of life. The exception is mental illness: if it is a person’s sole underlying condition, they are not eligible. That exclusion was originally set to expire in 2023, then delayed to 2024, and has now been postponed again until 2027.
For Brosseau, that delay felt unbearable. When Nolen first spoke with her in 2023, Brosseau had largely withdrawn from daily life. She rarely left her apartment, relied on deliveries, and met with psychiatrists only via video calls. “I’m not a person,” she said at the time. “I can’t be in the world.”
Brosseau has since joined a legal challenge supported by Dying With Dignity Canada, arguing that excluding people with mental illness from MAID violates their right to equal treatment under the law. Nolen notes a change in Brosseau’s tone since joining the case — a sense of renewed purpose — even as she continues to say she wants to die.
The case reflects a broader national debate, one that is also playing out on a very personal level. Brosseau’s two longtime psychiatrists disagree sharply on whether MAID should ever be extended to someone in her situation, underscoring the unresolved questions at the heart of Canada’s right-to-die discussion.
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