The first time I read about a physician helping patients with eating disorders end their lives, my breath caught. A colleague had sent me a study describing three individuals with “terminal anorexia” who had died – two by prescribed assisted suicide.

The article argued that their suffering was unbearable and that their malnourished, suicidal brains were somehow competent to choose death. I was devastated.

As someone who once struggled with anorexia myself, I know how distorted and hopeless the illness can make you feel. At 14, I was socially isolated, starving and depressed. There were days I didn’t want to live. But I got help. I’m now a psychologist, professor, wife and mother. Had assisted dying been offered to me at my lowest point, I might not be here.

This is why I was alarmed by

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