Published January 7, 2026
Kevin Díaz purports to correct the record on “medical aid in dying” (Letters, Dec. 27). The thrust of his argument: Anorexia can’t be a qualifying condition because it is illegal. If MAID deaths reportedly owed to “severe protein calorie malnutrition,” Mr. Díaz writes, it may simply be the case that the condition was “present for people dying from cancer or other terminal diseases.”
On the other hand: We have Oregon’s 2021 annual report on assisted suicide and correspondence with Colorado’s Vital Statistics Program, published in a 2024 peer-reviewed article by Chelsea Roff, which confirm that anorexia has been reported as the primary qualifying illness for assisted suicide. We also have a case study by Jennifer Gaudiani—an eating-disorder specialist and assisted-suicide clinician in Colorado—on two of her patients with eating disorders who were prescribed assisted suicide. The evidence abounds.
Mr. Díaz is free to contend that lawmakers didn’t intend for anorexic patients to die under MAID. But to suggest it isn’t happening is hopelessly naive.
Alexander Raikin is a Visiting Fellow in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His research focuses on the dignity of human life and end-of-life issues, especially on its impact on the field of medicine and broader ethical questions of social belonging.
