What does appropriate end-of-life care look like?

What with his multi-pronged arguments, from being wary of depressed individuals making life-changing decisions to the slippery slope of safeguards being worn down by interested lobbyists, and the frightening scenario of settled legislation meant for adults reaching down to and affecting even children, I thought Bryan Just’s piece in the March 31 opinion section was the most cogent I had heard in years on a subject

... until I reminded myself the subject was medical-aid-in-dying and not gun legislation (as well as a host of other issues one could name).

Otherwise, this letter might be offering kudos to Mr. Just for illuminating the “language game” employed by cynics who use the words “God-given-American-right” in place of “Second Amendment aid in dying.” Or, right on for the recognition that people suffering mentally should probably receive more scrutiny, if not an outright denial, attempting to exercise this particular right.

But given his obfuscation (just what does Mr. Just consider appropriate end-of-life care?) and a not-so-thinly-veiled faith-based approach (under the aegis of the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity), I would only like to make a plea that Mr. Just demonstrate his beliefs by having faith that the God who gave us science and medicine also had the ability to create well-informed, non-one-issue-voting, sentient beings who could judge for themselves how and when, at the end of their lives or facing a terminal illness, they would like to go and meet Him.

It is too bad Mr. Just does not have the courage, demonstrated by so many who are left with that final decision, to direct his well-stated arguments to areas where they might do some good in preserving dignity for those who live, still, in trying times.

Jim Koppensteiner, Niles