Assisted suicide: Vulnerable to abuse

The following letter by John Kelly was published in the Cape Cod Times on November 28.

To the Editor: 

John Kelly

Proponents of legalization like Elias Lieberman (My View, 11/16) present assisted suicide as a fairytale in which doctors can predict the future and everyone wants the best for you. 

In the real world, legalized assisted suicide inevitably leads to the tragic deaths of innocent people, through mistakes and abuse. 

Every year nationally, thousands of people prove doctors wrong by outliving their mistaken terminal diagnosis. Every year in Oregon and Washington, doctors prescribe suicide for people who are not terminally ill. You may have months, years, or decades of life left, but with assisted suicide it takes just one mistaken doctor and their colleague to put you in the ground. 

One out of every 10 older adults is abused every year, mostly by adult children and caregivers. Someone in line to inherit your estate can help sign you up, pick up the prescription, and then take action against you. No witness is required at the death, so who would know? 

Insurers always cover assisted suicide because it’s the cheapest “treatment.” Meanwhile, they routinely deny seriously-ill people medical treatment prescribed by their doctors. 

Let’s protect innocent people like ourselves from a law that could send us to our early deaths. 

John B. KellyDirectorSecond Thoughts MA: Disability Rights Advocates against Assisted Suicide

Link to previous articles by John B Kelly.