I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on how good my life is right now. It’s been spring in Central Texas since February, and the program I teach at has had classes outside, like next to a turtle pond and a running creek.
I‘ve found myself thinking of how wonderful it is to see the fish swimming in the stream, to see the turtles sunning themselves on the rocks, to feel the sun and the breeze on my face, to smell the Texas Mountain Laurel bushes with flowers that smell like grape candy, to have a job where I help others, to have long-desired writing and speaking opportunities, to work in an intellectually stimulating environment, to live in a lovely apartment with my sweet, cuddly cat, to have close friends and kind coworkers and to be able to share that happiness with my family.
So, I’m glad that a doctor didn’t help me kill myself when I was a clinically depressed autistic teenager, as one poor Netherlands adolescent experienced in 2023.
He’s not the only clinically depressed autistic person to die by euthanasia in the Netherlands. In addition to the 2026 news story about his death, there was a similar story in the news in 2023. According to a recent article in the Atlantic, psychiatric euthanasia for Dutch teenagers with “terminal” mental illnesses is a “thing.”
In his interview for the National Post’s story on the issue, Canadian psychiatrist and mental health expert Sonu Gaind asserted, “To say, ‘this is now a terminal psychiatric condition’ has no scientific basis. The whole concept is nebulous.”
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Sonu Gaind is right. I am not sure what would make a psychiatrist decide that a teenager whose brain is still developing is “terminally” mentally ill. Then again, there is widespread ableism in mental healthcare; that’s why American disability rights advocates spearheaded an X hashtag campaign called #MyAbleistTherapist. For instance, a therapist once announced to me that my depression and neurological disabilities were so severe that I would never work. Did this teenager’s providers give him a similar message, except they went a step further and suggested that he be killed?
As I’ve noted, this diagnosis of “terminal” psychiatric illness is generally opposed by disability justice advocates, disability studies scholars, etc. For instance, journalist Steve Silberman, whose book Neurotribes is viewed as the definitive history of the neurodiversity movement, remarked on a 2023 report about euthanasia for autism by asserting, “Horrific. #Autistic adults in the Netherlands are choosing medically assisted suicide because they can no longer stand the pain of loneliness.” In a 2015 editorial opposing Washington D.C.’s “MAiD” bill, internationally recognized disability justice advocate Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown notes:
“Our world is dominated by public discourse that considers disabled lives inherently defective, burdensome, suffering, and not worth living.”
“MAiD” programs and other forms of violence that spring from this attitude are an injustice to disabled people of all ages. But declaring an autistic teenager’s mental illness “terminal” and euthanizing him takes that attitude to a ridiculous extreme. Even though I know that some “MAiD” advocates are fine with euthanizing children, I can’t help but be reflexively surprised that even the most vociferous “MAiD” acolyte wouldn’t think that euthanizing an autistic teenager is absurd.
But perhaps this is what happens when powerful people decide that “MAiD” is no different than any other “medical procedure.” For instance, in an article in the Canadian Journal of Bioethics called “What’s so Special About Medically Assisted Dying?,” bioethicist Wayne Sumner asserts:
If more awareness, more providers, and more support are good things for these other services, why are they a bad thing for MAiD? Why should we think differently about MAiD than we do about other medical procedures? What’s so special about MAiD?”
I guess if you think that death is no big deal, then you won’t mind snuffing out the life of an disabled teenager.
This cultural climate is one of the reasons that so many disability justice advocates oppose any “MAiD.” I think disability justice “MAiD” opponents generally understand that many Oregon model “MAiD” proponents would never think of euthanizing an autistic teenager. But the general consensus is that some “MAiD” proponents have no such compunction, so it’s best to nip the US “MAiD” movement in the bud, before it gets out of control.
Author Note: For a description of the kind of future that disabled adolescents deserve, view the 2024 PSA for World Down Syndrome Day called “Assume That I Can.”
