Claire Brosseau survived multiple suicide attempts. Now, she wants the Canadian health care system to help facilitate her death. 

Brosseau is seeking what The New York Times referred to as “medical aid in dying” (MAID), “an end-of-life option that allows certain eligible individuals to legally request and obtain medications from their physician to end their life in a peaceful, humane, and dignified manner,” according to Death With Dignity, an advocacy group.

At age eight, Brosseau made a journal entry that she wished to die. At age 14, her lifestyle included drinking, doing drugs, and having sex while a student in Montreal. Sometimes, she turned “abruptly cruel.” Eventually, Brosseau received a diagnosis that included manic depression, an eating disorder, anxiety disorder, personality disorder, substance abuse disorder, and chronic suicide ideation disorder, to name only a few.

In Canada, where Brosseau is advocating to relax the laws around assisted suicide, the Parliament passed a law allowing “eligible adults in Canada to request medical assistance in dying,” according to the country’s Department of Justice website. Historically, these individuals are those with terminal illness, and elderly, naturally coming to the end of their life.

Brosseau is physically healthy, according to the NYT. She is 49 years old. She says her desire to die is due to her ongoing mental health struggles.

For individuals to receive a physician-assisted suicide, the Canadian government said in 2019 that people must meet certain requirements. It also “would delay including them [people whose sole chronic condition is mental illness] for two years in order to draft special guidelines for assessing their eligibility. Of the nine countries that allow assisted death for people not at end of life, only Canada made this distinction for people with mental illness,” reported the Times.

In 2023, Brosseau planned to request to die, but her request keeps getting delayed. Now, Brosseau must wait until 2027 to make her request. She says she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to wait that long. The debate over assisted suicide has exploded across the world — in Europe, the U.K., even here in America. Churches, recognizing the threat to human dignity, have moved to solidify their objections, including some of the biggest denominations. On Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to pass a resolution against euthanasia, citing it as unbiblical for Christians to support. 

“The intentional ending of innocent human life, whether by oneself or with the assistance of another, is contrary to biblical teaching and undermines the dignity and worth of every human being,” it reads. 

David Closson, the director for the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, said that the rising crisis of physician-assisted suicide isn’t as visible amongst churchgoers as issues such as abortion of sexuality. But according to Closson, it needs to be.

The affirmed resolution, introduced by Closson, aims to “reaffirm our continued opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide in all its forms, including practices now described as ‘medical aid in dying’ and ‘death with dignity,’ which intentionally seek to end human life.”

Closson said that he is grateful the resolution passed and believes it is an important step forward in protecting the sanctity of life. 

“When our convention last addressed this issue in 2001, only one state had legalized physician-assisted suicide. Tragically, that number is expected to rise to 13 in a matter of weeks. As Christians, we believe that every person bears the image of God and therefore possesses inherent dignity and worth from conception until natural death. Our pro-life ethic compels us to defend vulnerable human life at every stage,” Closson told The Washington Stand.

“Scripture recognizes both the evil of personal suffering and the good of God’s redemptive purposes in it,” reads the resolution, citing scriptures including 2 Corinthians 1:9: “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Paul goes on to remind believers, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

As the SBC resolution points out, “Since the last annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, additional states, including some of the nation’s largest, have enacted or announced plans to enact such laws, demonstrating the accelerating normalization of assisted suicide.”

In the United States, euthanasia is legal in 11 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Times. “By September, nearly a third of Americans will live in states with legal aid in dying,” one Times headline read, referring to legislation passed in Illinois and New York that will allow for legal physician-assisted suicide effective in the coming months. There is currently no “mental illness eligibility” in the United States. 

“When personal autonomy becomes society’s highest good, every moral limit and every legal safeguard eventually comes under pressure,” Closson said in a speech Monday at the Danbury Institute in Orlando, Florida. “If autonomy justifies ending life when someone has six months to live, why not three years? Why not chronic pain? Why not severe depression? Why not dementia? Why not a teenager who believes they are depressed?” 

Closson hopes that the resolution will encourage Christians to think biblically about suffering, dignity, death, and the sanctity of life, he said.