Massachusetts - Vote No on Question 2

The Bay State Banner took an editorial position supporting the No side on Question 2, the assisted suicide question, on the November ballot in Massachusetts. The following editorial published on October 4, 2012 are the reasons the Bay State Banner chose for opposing Question 2. Link to the article.

Americans are free to terminate their lives without special legal consequences. However, anyone else they might involve in the enterprise will have to answer to the criminal law for their own conduct.

Question 2 on the November ballot wants to change that. Anyone who is diagnosed by a doctor with a terminal illness and is determined to have only six months to live may then obtain a prescription for medication that will end his or her life. The doctor will suffer no legal consequences.

It is customary for citizens of the Bay State to want more freedoms rather than greater restrictions, but Question 2 is potentially harmful for several reasons, including:

1. It is not uncommon to be misdiagnosed as having a terminal illness, and patients often survive well beyond the projected six months;
2. There is no more distressing time than to be informed of one’s imminent death, and Question 2 provides inadequate protections against a bad decision; and
3. Question 2 would enable a doctor to violate restrictions of the Hippocratic Oath, which has established medical ethics relied on by doctors for centuries.

While every individual indeed has the right to terminate his or her life, Question 2 fails to provide adequate precautionary provisions to permit the legally sanctioned involvement of others. Citizens should vote “no” on Question 2.