I have long been in favour of offering access to assisted dying to competent people suffering from treatment resistant major depressive disorder. Other than the occasional newspaper column or blog entry I didn't have time to actually write a proper peer reviewed paper on the issue. Well, that's finally rectified. It came out yesterday. I jointly authored it with Suzanne van de Vathorst of Amsterdam University's Medical Centre. Here's the abstract:
Competent patients suffering from treatment-resistant
depressive disorder should be treated no different in the
context of assisted dying to other patients suffering from
chronic conditions that render their lives permanently not
worth living to them. Jurisdictions that are considering,
or that have, decriminalised assisted dying are
discriminating unfairly against patients suffering from
treatment-resistant depression if they exclude such
patients from the class of citizens entitled to receive
assistance in dying.
