My daughter was 16 when she found my suicide note. I had written the same six words my father used to rehearse his own death in 2011: “I have the right to die.” For years, I watched him stage his funeral from the couch — eyes closed, a newspaper on his chest, narrating the details like a pro duction. With Gov. Hochul recently signing the amended Medical Aid in Dying Act, joining other states in legalizing euthanasia, it is time to stop debating abstractions and ask a harder question: What does the right to die look like when a loved one is left to live with it? By normalizing assisted suicide, we are transforming suicide from something medicine works to prevent into something it may one day prescribe. I know how dangerous that shift is — because had it existed a decade ago, I would be dead. Current laws restrict suicide access to terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less. Mental illness is not included. Assisted suicide was never meant to replace treatment, but in some countries, assisted suicide laws have expanded to include psychiatric conditions. In Belgium, in 2023, 427 euthanasia cases were justified by psychiatric disorders under existing law. In the Netherlands, a young woman’s request for euthanasia on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering was approved. In 2023, Dutch authorities reported that 138 people were euthanized for mental-health reasons — a 20% increase from 2022. Among them was a teenage minor.  Canada — where assisted suicide is legal for many non-terminal conditions — is considering extending eligibility to people whose only condition is mental illness. Lawmakers have delayed the change until 2027 amid concerns about safeguards and readiness. Physician-assisted suicide was once a fringe idea in this country; today, it exists in more than a dozen states and Washington, D.C. The question is no longer whether it should be legal, but how far it should go. In this country, only about half of millions of adults with mental illness received mental health treatment in the past year. Unlike terminal illness, where death is inevitable, mental health conditions fluctuate. Research shows that most suicide survivors do not go on to die by suicide. I am one of those who survived. If assisted suicide expands to include mental illness, lawmakers will be forced to decide which suffering qualifies as “unbearable” — PTSD, eating disorders, or suicidal ideation itself. The complexity of mental illness makes such determinations dangerously subjective. A 2023 Harvard University study found that nearly half of the global population will experience a mental illness at some point. If assisted suicide is normalized for mental illness, that sends a message to people who are struggling that there is no hope. In 2015, I attempted suicide after decades of struggling with bipolar disorder, convinced my pain would never ease — never realizing I could learn to manage and improve it. I am grateful to the emergency room doctors who saved my life. Without them, I would never have seen my children get married, met my granddaughter or experienced writing my memoir with my daughter. I would never have experienced the meaning of becoming a mental health advocate sharing my story in organizations, rehab centers, homeless shelters, and women’s prisons. What saved me was not a safeguard or a statute. It was my daughter who said, “You don’t have the right to die.” When the law tells people in despair that death is a right, it is without compassion. It is an act of surrendering hope. Wasden is a mental health advocate and co-author of An Impossible Life. ...read more read less