The following article was written by Donna Scott lives in North Ferrisburgh Vermont. This letter was published on April 2, 2013 in the Burlington Free Press.
Donna Scott, Burlington Free Press, April 2, 2013.
Physician Assisted Suicide (Bill S.77) is a like Trojan horse,
quite alluring on the outside, but filled with dangerous and deadly contents
that will not be apparent until it’s too late.
This bill is not about the individual’s right to die; but rather
about giving doctors the right to kill. It is the physician who must determine
whether or not the patient “qualifies” for assisted suicide. If one doctor
won’t support it, patients and/or families may continue to doctor-shop until
they find someone who is willing to write the deadly prescription. It will
destroy the trust between doctor and patient.
Suicide is not illegal now, but by legitimizing suicide as a
“legal medical treatment,” it will allow insurance companies to withdraw
payments for legitimate medical treatment and palliative care in favor of
providing death by doctor prescription. Oregon has already documented instances
of this happening.
As health care coverage becomes more and more expensive, and as
our state tries to implement the single-payer system, the decision to cut costs
by rationing health care will become the rule rather than the exception.
Furthermore, it will discourage the funding of other health care services such
as hospice and Visiting Nurse Association and thereby eliminate the “right to
choose” for those who do not want to end their lives prematurely.
Assisted suicide is not “health care.” It will put a terrible
additional burden on patients who have just received a terminal diagnosis. They
will now have to try to justify their desire to live, knowing what a financial
and emotional burden it will be to their families if the insurance company
withdraws medical coverage (except for paying the $75 for a lethal prescription.)
It will certainly limit the options available.
Physician-assisted suicide is not necessary. With the amazing
strides in palliative care, we and our loved ones do not have to suffer as
people might have in the past. According to an article by Carl Zimmer in the
June 2011 issue of Discover Magazine, scientists
have traced chronic pain to a defect in a single region of the brain and a drug
has already been developed to neutralize the brain activity that makes pain
possible. The drug has already been tested successfully on animals and there
are “no obvious side effects ... NB001 represents a milestone. It shows that
scientists fighting pain now know where chronic pain lives.”
The state will be falsifying their own their records regarding
assisted suicide because the death certificate “shall list the underlying
disease as the cause of death.” Won’t it make tracking assisted suicide more
difficult, and/or make it easier for doctors to prescribe the drugs knowing
that they will never be held accountable to anyone for prescribing them?
Doctors make mistakes every day, and no one can predict with certainty how long
someone has to live. There are many such stories about patients who were given
six months to live, but went on to defy the experts by living quite comfortably
for many years after their diagnosis.
The state of Massachusetts recently voted against
physician-assisted suicide in a statewide referendum. Although the bill was
originally expected to pass, as the voters learned more and more about the
inherent dangers of such legislation, they turned away from it. It does make
you wonder why the Vermont Legislature is trying to railroad this bill through
again before it has the chance to be carefully researched and considered. What
we need at the end of our lives is excellent palliative care and the support of
those who love us. Lethal Compassion”)
Please deluge your senators and representatives with phone calls
and emails asking them to vote against this evil. This could be our last chance
to do the right thing.
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