Some agreement on ‘aid in dying’ bill

As a lifelong advocate for peace and justice and an opponent of S.B. 88, the current bill pending in the Connecticut state legislature to allow doctors to prescribe lethal drugs for their patients, I agree with 85 percent of what Dr. Frank Mongillo writes in “It's not ‘aid in dying'— it's homicide,” including the title.

The remaining 15 percent is not minor, however:

This legislation is largely sponsored not by the “far left,” but by a privileged group of white liberals who mistakenly (and bizarrely) refuse to see it as the deadly form of discrimination it is.

Mask mandates and vaccine requirements are for the greater good. They save lives. Like many supporters of assisted suicide, anti-maskers think only of their own convenience. In fact, the slogan of “Compassion and Choices” (the national group pushing Assisted Suicide legislation) was used at one pro-Trump, anti-mask rally: “My life, my death, my choice.” Me.

In an ideal society, abortion would be rare, because women would not be raped, men would share responsibility for birth control, and all children born would be assured the resources needed to survive and flourish. We don't live in that world, unfortunately. Abortion bans pushed by right-wing Republicans will primarily hurt poor women, just as poor, elderly, disabled and Black and brown people will be the victims of medical assisted suicide when insurance companies, doctors and hospital administrators decide their lives aren't worth living but can be cheaply and conveniently ended.

To Dr. Mongillo and to the pushers of Medical Assisted Suicide (or, as Mongillo aptly names it, Homicide): stop confusing the issues. Instead, stand behind the “leftist” ideas that contribute to the public good, including mask mandates and reproductive rights and firmly against medical assisted suicide, which does just the opposite.

Joan Cavanagh Progressives Against Medical Assisted

Suicide New Haven