The Danger of Assisted Suicide Laws
CNN 14 October 2014
My heart goes out to Brittany Maynard, who is dying of brain cancer and who wrote last week about her desire for what is often referred to as “death with dignity.” Yet while I have every sympathy for her situation, it is important to remember that for every case such as this, there are hundreds — or thousands — more people who could be significantly harmed if assisted suicide is legal.
The legalization of
assisted suicide always appears acceptable when the focus is solely on
an individual. But it is important to remember that doing so would have
repercussions across all of society, and would put many people at risk
of immense harm. After all, not every terminal prognosis is correct, and
not everyone has a loving husband, family or support system.
As an advocate working on
behalf of disability rights for 37 years, and as someone who uses a
wheelchair, I am all too familiar with the explicit and implicit
pressures faced by people living with chronic or serious disability or
disease. But the reality is that legalizing assisted suicide is a deadly
mix with the broken, profit-driven health care system we have in the
United States.
At less than $300,
assisted suicide is, to put it bluntly, the cheapest treatment for a
terminal illness. This means that in places where assisted suicide is
legal, coercion is not even necessary. If life-sustaining expensive
treatment is denied or even merely delayed, patients will be steered
toward assisted suicide, where it is legal.
This problem applies to government-funded health care as well.
In 2008, came the story
that Barbara Wagner, a Springfield, Oregon, woman diagnosed with lung
cancer and prescribed a chemotherapy drug by her personal physician, had
reportedly received a letter
from the Oregon Health Plan stating that her chemotherapy treatment
would not be covered. She said she was told that instead, they would pay
for, among other things, her assisted suicide. “To say to someone: “We’ll pay for you to die, but not for you to live” — it’s cruel,” she said.
Another Oregon resident, 53-year-old Randy Stroup, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Like Wagner, Stroup was reportedly denied approval of his prescribed chemotherapy treatment and instead offered coverage for assisted suicide.
Meanwhile, where
assisted suicide is legal, an heir or abusive caregiver may steer
someone towards assisted suicide, witness the request, pick up the
lethal dose, and even give the drug — no witnesses are required at the
death, so who would know? This can occur despite the fact that diagnoses
of terminal illness are often wrong, leading people to give up on
treatment and lose good years of their lives.
True, “safeguards” have
been put in place where assisted suicide is legal. But in practical
terms, they provide no protection. For example, people with a history of
depression and suicide attempts have received the lethal drugs. Michael
Freeland of Oregon reportedly had a 40-year history of significant depression, yet he received lethal drugs in Oregon.
These risks are simply not worth the price of assisted suicide.
Available data suggests
that pain is rarely the reason why people choose assisted suicide.
Instead, most people do so because they fear burdening their families or
becoming disabled or dependent. Anyone dying in
discomfort that is not otherwise relievable, may legally today, in all
50 states, receive palliative sedation, wherein the patient is sedated
to the point at which the discomfort is relieved while the dying process
takes place peacefully. This means that today there is a legal solution
to painful and uncomfortable deaths, one that does not raise the very
serious problems of legalizing assisted suicide.
The debate about
assisted suicide is not new, but voters and elected officials grow very
wary of it when they learn the facts. Just this year alone, assisted
suicide bills were rejected in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Connecticut, and stalled in New Jersey, due to bipartisan, grassroots
opposition from a broad coalition of groups spanning the political
spectrum from left to right, including disability rights organizations,
medical professionals and associations, palliative care specialists,
hospice workers and faith-based organizations. Assisted suicide is a
unique issue that breaks down ideological boundaries and requires us to
consider those potentially most vulnerable in our society.
All this means that we
should, as a society, strive for better options to address the fear and
uncertainty articulated by Brittany Maynard. But if assisted suicide is
legal, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through
mistakes and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted or proposed
that can properly prevent this outcome, one that can never be undone.
Ultimately, when looking
at the bigger picture, and not just individual cases, one thing becomes
clear: Any benefits from assisted suicide are simply not worth the real
and significant risks of this dangerous public policy.
Editor’s note: Marilyn Golden is a senior policy
analyst with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. The
views expressed are her own.http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/13/opinion/golden-assisted-suicide/index.html
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