AID IN DYING
Don’t put your values on my life
UPON READING (the Jan. 23) article in the Journal, “Doctors speak against assisted-suicide bill,” I was stunned yet again by the relentless efforts of any particular group to overlay its values and choices upon others who do not share those same values and choices. Why should anyone have the right to impose their personal views over someone else’s right to free will and subjugate the personal choices of others?
First a few facts: Physician-assisted death, or “aid in dying,” is already legal in eight jurisdictions in our country, and 26 more states — more than half of our country — are considering passing similar laws. In 2017, a Gallup poll showed a solid majority of Americans, 73 percent, support laws that allow patients to seek the assistance of physicians to end their life to alleviate pain and suffering. Other countries, such as our good neighbor to the north, Canada, plus Finland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg, have legalized such laws. Even where such laws exist, not all patients who acquire appropriate prescriptions choose to use them. Just having the medications available if and when things turn really bad is often comfort enough. In states where death with dignity laws have been passed, usually less than one quarter of one percent of all deaths in those states occur as the result of physician-assisted death.
The argument that the process can be abused by relatives or others for financial gain holds little weight or basis in fact. For example, Oregon was the first state to enact physician aid in dying. Yet in 2016, after 20 years of experience, it was reported “there is little evidence (the law) has been abused.”
Physicians who oppose this option often quote the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. Is it, then, not hypocrisy to permit pain and suffering when a peaceful exit is also an option that could be available? Palliative care is not a pleasant ending, despite what is professed. Does not each of us deserve the same right to a peaceful end that we provide a dog or any other animal whose suffering we are perfectly ready to relieve? Are we not on at least an equal plane? Doctors can afford to be judgmental on this issue because they know that if they are faced with pain and suffering from some terrible terminal disease, they will at least have access to medications such as phenobarbitol, nembutol or seconal to make an end-of-life choice. Without laws that provide others a dignity to die option, those not in the medical field face potentially helpless and painful endings.
Please, those of you against a commonsense law that provides comfort and choice at the end of one’s path of suffering, please stop trying to overlay your values on me and others who might opt for a peaceful end. Whether your motives are religious in nature, political or personal, you should have absolutely no right to tell others how they want their final destinies to unfold. In short, what is it to you what my personal decision should be as long as what I choose affects only me? Where do you get the right to impose yourself into my life and my personal choices? Stop it!
MORTON GOULD Albuquerque