The deadly advocacy of assisted suicide in Washington DC

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr G Kevin Donovan 

The Washington Times published an excellent analysis of the assisted suicide legislation in Washington DC by G. Kevin Donovan, a physician and director of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics and professor at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Donovan is responding to public service announcements in Washington DC promoting assisted suicide. Donovan states:

It is no wonder that the assisted-suicide lobby has resorted to such tactics — this dangerous public policy is so unpopular here that in the first year after the District of Columbia enacted a law to allow assisted suicide, not one person killed themselves with a doctor’s help, as the new law sanctions. In fact, during that time only two out of nearly 11,000 licensed D.C. physicians were willing to participate, and just one hospital cleared doctors to be involved.

People in Washington DC clearly do not want assisted suicide. Donovan then explains how legalizing assisted suicide leads to discrimination for people in vulnerable conditions.

Despite so-called safeguards, the D.C. assisted-suicide bill fails to adequately protect the most vulnerable in society. The poor, people of advanced years, persons with disabilities, both physical and developmental, and people who experience depression all find themselves at a much higher risk of being placed, even against their will, in that “second class” of people who do not receive the equal protection of suicide prevention. 

This type of discrimination is a reality in places where assisted suicide is legal. We know because in Oregon (oregon.gov), where assisted suicide was legalized 20 years ago, feeling like a burden is among the top end-of-life concerns of people who asked for lethal drugs. Making suicide available to people who require significant care and resources conveys that dependency and the need for care is burdensome, perhaps even revolting.

Donovan continues by outlining the other negative effects associated with assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide also breaks down the patient-physician relationship. With these laws, a doctor is legally forbidden from listing suicide as the cause of death on the death certificate. Not only does that require a falsehood, it makes oversight nearly impossible and accurate disease data a thing of the past. These laws do precious little for patients, but they do ensure that doctors cannot be sued or subjected to criminal penalties when acting “in good faith” within this law. 

For centuries, a physician’s primary focus has been to cure and comfort. Assisted suicide is an aberration that distorts that focus, medicalizing suicide. The result is a breach of trust between physician and patient — and the real risk that normalizing suicide will lead to “suicide contagion” in others. There is no mystery behind why physicians in Washington are not lining up to participate: It undermines their credibility and runs contrary to their role as healer. And physicians should be wary of promoting suicide for any reason among their patients. More doctors themselves die of suicide than in any other profession.

Donovan concludes by challenging the suicide lobby from promoting assisted suicide rather than suicide prevention, patient's rights and protection of the vulnerable.

• NO DC assisted suicide deaths in the first year after legalization. DC doctors don't support assisted suicide.