In our society there continues to be a controversy about the right of an individual to end their own life when living becomes emotionally and physically unbearable for them. This may be the case when a medical problem leads a person to lose everything they feel necessary to continue a dignified, meaningful life.
It is not uncommon for people in the end stages of catastrophically disabling neurological illnesses, such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Huntington's Disease, to desire a controlled and painless end to their existence. In other cases, loss of function coupled with unbearable disfiguration due to cancer, trauma, neurofibromatosis, or other conditions leads a person to feel that no form of meaningful, acceptable existence is possible. For others, it is never ending, intractable, excruciating pain that makes existence unbearable. For too long we have forced human beings to suffer under the primitive religious notion that it is "God's" decision and not our own to end life.
The subtext of the notion that it is "God's" decision to end life tormented by suffering has always been that suffering is meaningful, and that God has a purpose for it. Few would argue against the common understanding that adversity ennobles the mind. Loss, disappointment, pain, defeat, and failure are the great teachers of humanity. They lead us to seek the comfort and guidance of others. We experience consolation, and we learn to give such consolation to others. We learn that to persevere through pain and defeat can bring rewards far sweeter than they might have been had they been more easily and less painfully achieved. Pain and adversity teaches us patience, humility, empathy , grace, courage, and hope. It teaches us what it means to be one among other human beings. Indeed, it may be the basis if not the prerequisite for love in its most mature form. However, on what basis do we force an individual to continue to suffer an excruciatingly painful existence in which there is no longer any hope, comfort, or meaning?
Some argue that to allow people the right to end their life when and as they choose is the first step down a road to nihilism and wholesale suicide. However, experience shows that this is not the case. Where physician assisted suicide is legal, such as in my own home state of Oregon, those who have successfully pursued access to medications to end their life most often choose to go on living. The sense of control and choice they experience gives them the courage and peace of mind to see it out a little longer. There is also an unfounded concern that allowing an individual to take their life under such circumstances is a slippery slope to encouraging or compelling people to take their own lives. However, aside from being unfounded, this concern easily resolved. We must simply prohibit encouragement and compulsion!
There are some who argue against assisted suicide because they are under the impression that modern medical science is capable of treating and relieving all forms of physical pain. This, unfortunately, is untrue. There are forms of physical pain that do not respond to medication. People who suffer pain resistant to medication are sometimes helped by pumping pain medication directly around their spinal cord. Others are helped by surgery that cuts pain pathways in their brain, or by implantation of electrodes that alter brain function. But for some people not even those extreme measures bring relief from pain. No matter what is done, some human beings continue to suffer unrelenting, unbearable pain. They should not be forced to endure it.
A final and perhaps more complex question is on what basis would we establish criteria to define the conditions and forms of suffering that might justify suicide. Clearly, there is a possibility that people might choose suicide due to frivolous, temporary, or easily resolved problems. Safeguards are written into the Oregon law to prevent an individual who is psychiatrically ill from making an ill-conceived and irrational decision to end their life. There is also a waiting period to prevent rash or precipitous actions. Common sense dictates that we rule out conditions that are likely to be reversed by treatment.
The current law in Oregon is based on the confirmation of a terminal illness, and not necessarily for intractable pain or loss of meaningful existence. I believe the law would be more humane by allowing for individual variation and personal choice. Whereas Stephen Hawking, through his magnificent life of the mind, has found a means to live a meaningful and productive life with ALS, not everyone with the illness can do so. Nonetheless, Oregon's law is a good one and, for most states, allowing an individual with unmitigated suffering in the context of an terminal illness to seek a physician's help to end their life would be a major step forward.
The argument against physician assisted suicide and the right to die is almost entirely a religious one. There are many reasonable religious individuals who see that a just and loving God would forgive any mere human being for finding a peaceful, painless way out of unmitigated misery. I applaud them. On the other hand, for those of us who do not believe in a sugar-coated God that makes all things right in the end, the notion that one should be forced to persist in a painful, unbearable existence, without respite or hope of remedy is cruel, barbaric, and pathological. It is time that our society grows up and grants the right to die.
Jeanne Fitzpatrick, M.D.: End Of Life Treatment And Natural Death
Jacob M. Appel: "Mercy Killing": When Love & Law Conflict
Jacob M. Appel: Next: Assisted Suicide for Healthy People
Bernie Bulkin: Government Assisted Suicide? GM Goes Bankrupt
Assisted suicide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Assisted Suicide Group "Glad" for Trial - CBS News
At Least 36 Died in Washington State in 2009 Under New Assisted Suicide Law
Britain to consider motive in deciding prosecution for assisted suicide
Countless families are pressured into "removing their loved ones from life support".
Of course what is really happening is that a simple feeding tube is pulled out of the nose or assisted breathing removed while lethal doses of morphine are injected killing the patient.
"Right to Die" is code for forcing and shaming the poor and the weak into committing suicide. It's done to save money and to preserve inheritance.
This article was posted a day after the healthcare bill passed. Americans apparently can't be trusted with choosing their own health insurance, or whether they want to forgo it altogether. But they can be trusted when they want to end their life. Is this the "cost-control" we've been promised?
I admit to engaging in some hyperbole, but this is still creepy...
Introducing a policy such as you recommend into a system which will almost certainly see price controls in the future will establish a perverse economic incentive. (Gov. Patrick is already starting down the price-control road in MA.) Yes we can "simply prohibit encouragement and compulsion" but there are many examples in other fields where prohibition is at best partially effective when the underlying incentives are strong enough. A hospital adminstrator is bound to think of all manner of cost-cutting if their reimbursement rates are capped and their profit & loss is in the red.
Most wouldn't succumb to the temptation, I'm sure, but your proposed policy would still set up a perverse, in my opinion creepy, incentive given the likely price controls that we'll see in a decade or two.
Thank you for the article though. You do make some very good points and you got me to thinking.
placing all the blame on "primitive religious" beliefs.
When informed about the prospects of how long my mother had to
live with treatment--approximately six months, and how long she had
without treatment of her cancer--approximately six months to a year,
it was the doctor I had to fight for her right to withhold treatment
should she so decide.
With treatment, she lived an additional six months. Incompetence
and indifference are the only attributes I can ascribe to her doctor.
I tried mightily to get her to change to the doctor who subbed when
her own doctor had a heart attack. She wouldn't. She knew where
it was all leading just as so many in her family knew when they
were visiting the doctor and being admitted into the hospital for the
last time, that it was for the last time. And in retrospect, I knew too.
"We are as dead now as we will ever be." When one does finally
cross over, they will understand that statement.
Two months later, the neighbor informed me of that death and asked the exact same question. My jaw must have dropped on that one. I did not hold back with the answer, staying polite, but firm, “Blame it on your religion and its leaders.†Filled her in on the whole “have to suffer for Jesus†routine and how stupid the whole situation was. My initial statement shocked her, but as I continued she lowered her head and half nodded in agreement.
Months later, my cousin asked the question again. This time, I told her the truth. She did not like it, but seemed to accept it. I asked both these women that if given the option would their husbands have asked for a pill, shot, whatever, to end their suffering in a quick, dignified manner. Neither responded. Just looked confused. The thought of death with dignity had never occurred to them. That is not a topic spoken in these here parts.
If I ever suffered from a painful medical condition or a debilitating disease, I would want the option of having a physician help me end my life.
I will be looking into Oregon and maybe when I reach my older years, I might move to Oregon.
I wish more states were as progressive as Oregon when it comes to this issue.
As the current healthcare debate has illustrated, it is not a given that my insurance benefits will last throughout my illness. If my insurance ends, the pace of my illness will increase and present me with end of life decisions sooner if I am able to try various treatments. But, no matter what they try, eventually they all will fail.
Eventually, my choice of how long I will live will change - it will not be up to any official or law. People are out there to help me die with as much dignity as possible. It is kind of like back room abortions or the underground railroad, there are always good folks out there to help ease the pain.
I firmly believe that the vast majority of people will come to the right conclusion, and that with advice and counsel, and a suitable waiting period, should have their wishes carried out.
Nobody would choose to remain hopelessly incapacitated forever. To refuse people the right to die is to condemn them interminably to a form of hell I wouldn't wish on any living creature. It is torture, barbaric, unconscionable. We should all have the right to end our lives with dignity, when we choose, not the government, not our doctors, not our family and not our friends. It should be our decision.
People deserve that same right.
The big issue I see is the freedom of choice. If a person has the option for Physician assisted death, that doesn't mean they will choose that option. It is about having another viable option on the table.
There are many reasons why religious and non-religious people alike would be uneasy about assisted suicide. Suicides tend to occur in clusters, i.e. people who might not otherwise have chosen suicide do so because someone else chose it. Also, people who may have been able to move past their grief or pain might take their life too early because when you're despondent, it can be virtually impossible to imagine a brighter day; yet, most of the time, a better day does arrive.
From a different angle, what should the parameters be, i.e. qualifications and limitations? On what basis? How can you justify excluding anyone?
Society's resistance to offering a program that helps you die provides a much-needed positive commentary on the value of the individual's life. Take away that societal commentary and the consequences could be devastating. Having a handful of states offer such a program is simply not the same as having our entire nation supporting it. To equate the two is naïve at best.
Bottom line, it is a complex issue with serious ramifications. It is best if we hear from every side of the argument, religious, non-religious, and everything in between.
If choice and freedom are the determining factors for valuing life, then why shouldn't everyone have access to assisted suicide? At a summer camp I attended, an eight-year-old boy tried to commit suicide. Why stop him? He was truly distraught. Who are we to say he didn't really understand what he was doing? Who determines who is miserable enough to qualify for assisted suicide?
What about the boy's choice and freedom? Does his lack of choice in this matter make him less or more valuable?
If eight is too young, what is the "right" cutoff age? Twenty-one? Thirty? Is it only the old with a debilitating disease that qualify? If so, why - and how do you define "old" and "debilitating? Why doesn't just hating life qualify?
Society's collective belief that an individual's life is worth continuing helps many people get through some truly painful and miserable times, so it does in fact play a critical role that should not be discarded prematurely or carelessly.
This old Heretic stopped “giving it a rest†years ago. The only pleasure I get out of life these days is annoying the delusional and religious control freaks. They get scared and angry fast when they realize I know more about their Holy Book and history of the Middle East and the US than they do. Their nervousness sets in when they can not answer religious questions nor able to respond to historical facts I put to them. The conversation always ends within minutes with them physically running away, always very angry. The conversations they want is always “believe what I say, or elseâ€. I stay away from ad hominems except for the very worst cases. It is not totally their fault, they were raised to be that way.