By William Gallerizzo
Sign the petition: Reject Massachusetts Assisted Suicide bill S.1208/H.1926 (Link).
There has been an amended assisted suicide bill introduced in Massachusetts. S.2745 / S.1208.
The Death With Dignity lobby blatantly refuses to accept or to discuss documented evidence from other states and countries showing how legalizing assisted suicide has jeopardized inherent rights of so many others, all in the name of Freedom of Choice. The data that they do present is either nonfactual or inaccurate; as the past and current laws condone inaccuracy and falsification of death certificates. Mathematically data under those conditions cannot be validated. Likewise, they have condoned and supported using social media and other means to slander opponents and silence the truth, in crude and similar fashion to the tactics used by deficient national leadership.
Isn’t this what America is essentially marching about in the streets right now: transparency in government and laws, that no one’s life needs to be jeopardized; that all lives matter without regard to racial difference, religious difference, disability, socio-economic level, or any other man-made political divide. The value of lives should not concern how much money someone has, their status, or how much influence they peddle. Truthfully, the fallacy counter to this fact has existed for some time; but the past three years have seen it to a greater degree during the COVID-19 pandemic.
My own research and that of others have shown at least 8 major issues that make this legislation abusive to the public interest of social justice. Others exist, but these are the most highly impacting. All of these contentions are documented from reliable sources, but DWD considers them insignificant or will not address.
1. The outcome of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide is to kill other human beings whose lives are not fit to live. The whole basis of eugenics, whether ancient or the present age, is that some people do not deserve to live for no other reason than their very existence.
2. Safeguards are to protect physicians, but offer no safety valves or control for the vulnerable. Even in Netherlands and Oregon where euthanasia has been legal for decades, those most adversely affected and abused are people of color, the disabled, the economically challenged, and the elderly.
3. Assisted suicide is incompatible with the physician’s role as healer. The physician is put in the position of being an executioner, a promoter of death, not a sustainer of health.
4. Advancements in medical technology, elder care, advanced medical care are deemed no longer as necessary. The State of Oregon, once the national leader in hospice and palliative care, now ranks as the 7th worst in the nation.
5. Assisted suicide laws create cultural pressure on doctors who in turn pressure patients, especially when a viable treatment is not locally available. Current laws in Canada prevent conscientious objection on the part of medical personnel and force them to give in to euthanasia and assisted suicide as a standard not an option.
6. Doctors are fallible human beings. Misdiagnosis and faulty analysis for any number of reasons can result in patient premature death. My own disabilities occurred from misdiagnosed injuries, and my own life was saved by a very conscientious and observant physician. Assisted suicide laws increase the probability of unintended mistakes significantly. The end result, more often than not, is premature and needless death.
7. The vocabulary that is often used by advocates of euthanasia uses altered meanings from its common forms. This adds to confusion among the public about the meaning of what these words mean. Although most people have no problem agreeing that they want a peaceful and tranquil death, most find it abhorrent that what they are agreeing to involves a doctor or someone else killing a patient. By definition, compassionate action does not involve acts of overt or covert violence. When patients are influenced, options are reduced. Hence, what they propose is not congruent with reality conditions surrounding end-of-life care. Therefore, what C&C/DWD promote are lies and inaccurate vocabulary which cloud reality from public view.
8. There are no drugs effective to do what advocates claim. Several independent studies in both United States and Great Britain examining all drugs and cocktails used for either Euthanasia and/or Capital Punishment have shown that all have significant failure rates ranging from about 24% to just under 75%. Failure can range from painfully long lingering for hours or even days, to convulsions and severe vomiting. The drugs usually promoted by DWD, secobarbital and pentobarbital, are deemed unsuitable for capital punishment due to excessive and painful failure. More so, it has been shown that dosages of drugs used in anesthesiology require enormously high dosages if used for euthanasia and have significantly higher failure rates above their usual norm in anesthesia. It has also been shown that the use of morphine as pain relief goes through a titration of dosage tolerance in the body, and although it may require increasing dosages to relieve pain, the pain relief is significant and the risk of death caused by the morphine is lower than other drugs. Thus current use of morphine for pain relief does exactly what it is supposed to do; it enables a more pain free and peaceful death from the disease, not an induced death, and little failure leading to prolonged agony.
Sign the petition: Reject Massachusetts Assisted Suicide bill S.1208/H.1926. (Link).
William Orazio Gallerizzo taught Sciences for over 35 years and holds advanced degrees in Education and Natural Sciences (University of Maryland, College Park, MD) and Bioethics (Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum, Rome, Italy). Specialized in educational multi-disciplinary integration and critical thinking processes, he has conducted interactive instructional research projects both in the United States and Italy. His primary research work in Bioethics is titled, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Trends in the United States.
There are many reasons to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide (also known as assisted death). Here we focus on five key reasons.
(Link to a printable PDF version of this article)
1. Assisted death should be opposed because it involves causing a person’s death (killing).
Laws permitting assisted death give doctors (and nurse practitioners in Canada) the right to cause a person’s death. Society should never allow one person to legally kill another.
In Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, assisted death is done by euthanasia.
Euthanasia is intentionally injecting a person with a combination of lethal drugs. In most countries euthanasia is prohibited under murder or homicide laws.
In the United States and Switzerland, assisted death is done by assisting a person’s suicide. This is when a doctor prescribes a combination of lethal drugs that the person self-ingests.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide involve another person, usually a doctor, who directly kills or is involved with causing the death of another person.
Those who promote assisted death focus on the difficult life conditions that pressure someone to request to die. They argue from a situational ethics’ standpoint to justify killing, an act which is normally considered to be universally wrong.
Assisted death is sold as healthcare. In an interview, psychiatrist and ethicist Mark Komrad said:
“If you were just to replace the image of the needle or the pill with a gun, I think that would make a much more vivid picture of something that would be transculturally wrong.”(1)
People go through difficult physical or psychological conditions, but these human experiences must not be exploited to justify killing. Providing proper care and support is the appropriate response.
2. Assisted death should be opposed because “safeguards” only protect the physician; they do not protect vulnerable people.
Assisted death laws are designed to protect the physician (or another) who is willing to participate. These laws do not provide effective oversight and protection for the person who is being killed. These “safeguards” are designed to sell the legalization of assisted death to politicians who have concerns about killing, but they include exceptions that are wide enough to drive a hearse through.
The State of Oregon was the first jurisdiction to legalize assisted death in 1997.(2) The assisted suicide lobby did not challenge the safeguards in the law because they wanted to convince other jurisdictions that there is no “slippery slope”. However, in 2019, the assisted suicide lobby announced that the problem with assisted suicide laws is the restrictions. That year the Oregon legislature removed the 15-day waiting period.(3)
The euthanasia lobby alleges that the Netherlands have not changed their euthanasia law since it was passed in 2002. This is inaccurate: the language of the Netherlands’ euthanasia law has not changed but the interpretation of the law has. The most recent example is the extension of euthanasia to include incompetent people with dementia.(4)
Canada is a prime example of a country where safeguards lack effective definition or meaning. For instance, Canada’s euthanasia law required that a person’s “natural death be reasonably foreseeable”. However, the meaning of this phrase was not defined(5) and, consequently, the application of the law varied. In September 2019, a Québec Superior Court decision struck this phrase from the law.(6)
Canada is also a prime example of how a euthanasia law can incrementally expand. Canada passed its assisted death law in June 2016. In February 2020, Parliament introduced Bill C-7 to expand the law by eliminating the waiting period, permitting euthanasia of an incompetent person who requested an assisted death in advance, and eliminating the terminal illness requirement.(7)
Safeguards in assisted death laws are designed to politically sell killing. These laws protect physicians who are willing to kill; they do not protect those who die from the lethal drugs.
3. Assisted death should be opposed because it is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.
The American Medical Association Code of Ethics Opinion 5.7 (Physician-Assisted Suicide) states that:
…permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good.
Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.
Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.(8)
Assisted death laws are designed to protect physicians who are willing to cause the death of a patient, usually upon request. When the role of a physician changes from healer to killer, it fundamentally changes the physician.
In August 2016, 25-year-old Candice Lewis, who had several medical conditions, was pressured by a doctor to “request” an assisted death while she was in the hospital. Candice’s mother Sheila Elson stated in a CBC News story:
“His words were ‘assisted suicide death was legal in Canada,’” she told CBC. “I was shocked, and said, ‘Well, I’m not really interested,’ and he told me I was being selfish.”
According to Elson, Lewis was within earshot when the doctor made the comment – which she said was quite traumatic for her daughter to hear.(9)
Sheila said the following in the film Fatal Flaws:
Not once did Candice say to them, “I want to end my life.” The doctor came in the next day after he told me about assisted suicide, stuck his face down in Candice’s and said, “Do you know how sick you are?” When I got his eye contact, we went out in the hallway and I told him, “Don’t you ever pull something like that again.”(10)
The fact that Candice was a person with disabilities should not change the value of her life. How many people are pressured by a medical professional and, unlike Candice, die by assisted death?
4. Assisted death should be opposed because doctors are fallible; they can make medical errors and misdiagnose conditions.
In his article, “Why Getting Medically Misdiagnosed Is More Common Than You May Think,” Brian Mastroianni states that 12 million Americans are affected by medical diagnostic errors each year and an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 people die annually from complications related to misdiagnoses, with a similar number of people experiencing a permanent disability related to misdiagnosis.(11)
In April 2013, Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria, Italy, died by assisted suicide at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic. His autopsy revealed that he had been medically misdiagnosed.(12)
Assisted death is a permanent decision often done when a person fears a painful or difficult death or is experiencing depression or feelings of hopelessness. Once they are dead, it is too late to learn that they were misdiagnosed or living with a treatable condition.
5. Assisted death laws should be opposed because legalization pressures physicians who then pressure patients.
What begins as a choice to kill or a choice to die becomes a pressure to kill and a pressure to die.
During the debate to legalize euthanasia in Canada, the euthanasia lobby argued that the issue was about choice. The “freedom of choice”: to die by euthanasia, and for a doctor or nurse practitioner to participate.
Sadly, Candice Lewis’ story may not be rare.
In February 2018, less than two years after Canada legalized assisted death, the Delta Hospice Society (DHS), an independent charitable organization in British Columbia (BC), was ordered by the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) to provide euthanasia.(13) The DHS resisted and continued its good work. In December 2019, the FHA ordered them to provide euthanasia or lose their government funding.(14) The DHS refused to comply with the government’s edict saying that,
“MAiD is not compatible with the DHS’s purposes stated in the society’s constitution, and therefore, will not be performed at the Irene Thomas Hospice.”(15)
The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association and the Canadian Society of Palliative Physicians sent the BC Minister of Health a joint statement saying,
“…MAiD is not part of hospice palliative care; it is not an ‘extension’ of palliative care nor is it one of the tools ‘in the palliative care basket’”(16)
The BC Minister of Health responded by ordering the DHS to comply or be taken over by the province in February 2021.(17)
Some recent assisted suicide bills in the United States have included a “do or refer” provision.(18) This means that if assisted suicide is legalized, a doctor would not have to prescribe assisted suicide drugs; however, if they received a request for assisted suicide, they would be required to refer the patient to someone who will write the prescription.
In Canada, doctors in Ontario have been ordered by the College of Physicians and Surgeons to do an “effective referral”. This means that the College can punish doctors who refuse to kill and refuse to refer their patients to a doctor who will kill.(19)
Advocates of assisted death use the term “freedom of choice” to promote their ideology. This campaign slogan has resulted in medically condoned killing. This ideology has led to a persuasive pressure to die or an edict to kill and is the central part of a cultural campaign to normalize killing.
Society must maintain and build on its commitment to caring, not killing.
(Link to a printable PDF version of this article)
Endnotes
1. Dunn, K. (Director). (2018). Fatal Flaws: Legalizing Assisted Death. DunnMedia & Entertainment. [Trailer]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89YQubAyRrI (Dr. Komrad’s statements start at 0:27)
2. Norman-Eady, S. (2002). Office of Legislative Research (OLR) Research Report: Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law (Report No. 2002-R-0077). Connecticut General Assembly. https://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/rpt/2002-r-0077.htm
3. Callinan, K. (2019, January 1). End-of-Life option laws should avoid needless red tape. McKnight’s LTC News. https://www.mcknights.com/blogs/guest-columns/end-of-life-option-laws-need-compassion/
4. Pieters, J. (2020, April 21). Euthanasia Allowed for Dementia Patients Who Gave Prior Consent: Supreme Court. Netherlands Times. https://nltimes.nl/2020/04/21/euthanasia-allowed-dementia-patients-gave-prior-consent-supremecourt
5. Schadenberg, A. (2016, June 17). Canadian Senate passes euthanasia bill in time for summer break. Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Blog. https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2016/06/canadas-senate-passes-euthanasia-bill.html
6. Marin, S. (2019, September 11). A Quebec court has invalidated parts of the medical aid in dying laws. The Canadian Press. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/a-quebec-court-has-invalidated-parts-of-the-medical-aid-in-dying-laws-1.4588622
7. Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), First Session, Forty-third Parliament, 68-69 Elizabeth II, 2019-2020. https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-7/first-reading
8. Chapter 5: Opinions on Caring for Patients at the End of Life. American Medical Association (AMA) Code of Medical Ethics. https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2019-06/code-of-medical-ethics-chapter-5.pdf
9. Bartlett, G. (2017, July 24). Mother says doctor brought up assisted suicide option as sick daughter was within earshot. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/doctor-suggested-assisted-suicide-daughter-mother-elson-1.4218669
10. Dunn, K. (Director). (2018). Fatal Flaws Film Clip: “They wanted me to do an assisted suicide death on her.” [Video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6zt43iCs8
11. Mastroianni, B. (2020, February 22). Why Getting Medically Misdiagnosed Is More Common Than You May Think. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/healthnews/many-people-experience-getting-misdiagnosed
12. Aided suicide in question after botched diagnosis. (2013, July 11). The Local. https://www.thelocal.ch/20130711/assisted-suicide-in-question-after-botched-diagnosis
13. Fayerman, P. (2018, February 6). Delta hospice rebels against Fraser Health’s mandate to provide medical assistance in dying. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.co/news/local-news/delta-hospice-rebels-against-fraser-healths-mandate-to-provide-medical-assistance-in-dying/
14. Gyarmati, S. (2019, December 7). Fraser Health gives Delta Hospice ‘formal notice of concerns’. Delta Optimist. https://www.delta-optimist.com/news/fraser-health-gives-delta-hospice-formal-notice-of-concerns-1.24029942
15. New Delta Hospice Society board reverses MAiD position. (2019, December 2). Delta Optimist. https://www.deltaoptimist.com/news/new-delta-hospice-society-board-reverses-maid-position-1.24024999
16. Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) and Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP) Joint Call to Action. (2019, November 27). https://www.chpca.ca/news/chpca-and-cspcp-joint-call-to-action/
17. Gyarmati, S. (2019, December 24). Here’s the deadline given to Delta Hospice. Delta Optimist. https://www.delta-optimist.com/news/here-s-the-deadline-given-to-delta-hospice-1.24041440
18. Murphy, S. (Administrator). (2020, January 14). Indiana assisted suicide bill fails to protect objecting practitioners: Assisted suicide evolves from “assistance” to “medical care”. Protection of Conscience Project. https://www. consciencelaws.org/law/commentary/legal102.aspx
19. Advice to the Profession: Professional Obligations and Human Rights. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). https://www.cpso.on.ca/Physicians/Policies-Guidance/Policies/Professional-Obligations-and-Human-Rights/Advice-to-the-Profession-Professional-Obligations
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
*Sign the petition: Healthcare regulations must not permit assisted suicide approvals by telehealth (Link).
On March 20 I reported that the assisted suicide lobby was using the Covid-19 crisis to promote approving assisted suicide by telehealth.
This is not a new plan. The 2019 New Mexico assisted suicide bill included a telehealth provision and the recent bill to expand assisted suicide in Hawaii included a telehealth provision.
On March 26 I reported that the association of death doctors were also using the Covid-19 crisis to promote "aid-in-dying" by telehealth.
On March 26, the assisted suicide lobby group that urged governments to allow assisted suicide by telehealth thanked Congressional leaders for expanding access to telehealth during the Coronavirus crisis.
I understand the need to expand telehealth services during the Covid-19 crisis but assisted suicide is not medical treatment.
The online medical dictionary defines treatment as: the management and care of a patient, the combating of a disease or disorder. Assisted suicide does not manage or combat a disease or disorder and it is not about providing care.
Let's think this through.
A person with difficult health issues who feels like a burden on
others, or is experiencing depression or existential distress, could be
assessed, approved and prescribed a lethal drug cocktail for suicide by
telehealth.
Further to that, if you consider the amount of medical misdiagnosis, is it reasonable to give a physician the right to prescribe a lethal drug cocktail without examining the patient to confirm the medical diagnosis?
Let's examine this further.
According to Brian Mastroianni who was published by healthline.com on February 22, medical misdiagnosis is more common than you think. According to the data:
 |
| Mya DeRyan |
In October 2016 Mya DeRyan survived a suicide attempt. While recovering DeRyan learned that the terminal diagnosis that she was trying to escape from was in fact a wrong diagnosis.
In
April 2013, Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria
Italy, died by assisted suicide at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic. His autopsy
found that he was misdiagnosed.
Considering the data, it is irresponsible for a physician to prescribe a lethal drug cocktail, upon request, without examining the person and ensuring that the person has an accurate diagnosis.
It is unlikely that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) realizes that the assisted suicide lobby took advantage of the Covid-19 crisis to gain approval for assisted suicide by telehealth.
I urge you to contact Alex M Azar II, the HHS Secretary at: Secretary@HHS.gov or call his office at: 202-690-7000
Tell Secretary Azar that assisted suicide is not medical treatment or a form of healthcare and regulations must not permit assisted suicide approvals by telehealth.
*Sign the petition: Healthcare regulations must not permit assisted suicide approvals by telehealth (Link).
This article was published by Not Dead Yet on October 9, 2019
The National Council on Disability (NCD) has issued the second in a series of reports on Bioethics and Disability. NCD’s release on the report today focuses on “a federal examination of the country’s assisted suicide laws and their effect on people with disabilities, finding the laws’ safeguards are ineffective and oversight of abuses and mistakes is absent.”
The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), which worked in partnership with NCD on the series of reports, summarizes this groundbreaking work:
Despite the growing consensus that disability is a normal part of the human experience, the lives of people with disabilities are routinely devalued in medical decision-making. Negative biases and inaccurate assumptions about disabled people persist. In medical situations, these biases can have serious and even deadly consequences.
Beginning on September 25, the National Council on Disability (NCD) is releasing a series of reports on bioethics and disability. The five reports were developed through a cooperative agreement with the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), which appreciates and acknowledges the valued work of our partners, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and Not Dead Yet, in creating the series.
Each report examines the status and future of how a variety of key issue areas – including organ donation, assisted suicide laws, genetic testing, systems such as Quality Adjusted Life Years, and assumptions about medical futility – are developing due to technological and scientific advances as well as legal changes and healthcare delivery. A combination of original research, stakeholder and scholar interviews, literature reviews, reviews of media reports, and legal analysis is used to examine each topic. Each report includes findings and makes recommendations to lawmakers and policymakers that we hope will ensure that the lives of people with disabilities are valued on an equal and nondiscriminatory basis with all others.
Not Dead Yet specifically consulted on the topics of organ donation, assisted suicide and medical futility.
NCD’s release on today’s assisted suicide report includes the following details, and an example of a seriously mistaken cancer prognosis personally experienced by the NCD Chairman, Neil Romano:
Despite the belief that pain relief is the primary motivation for seeking assisted suicide, in Assisted Suicide Laws and their Danger to People with Disabilities, NCD found that the most prevalent reasons offered by someone requesting assisted suicide are directly related to unmet service and support needs, which NCD urges policy makers respond to through legislative changes and funding.
“Assisted suicide laws are premised on the notion of additional choice for people at the end of their lives, however in practice, they often remove choices when the low-cost option is ending one’s life versus providing treatments to lengthen it or services and supports to improve it,” said NCD Chairman Neil Romano.
Closely examining the experience in Oregon, where the practice has been legal for 20 years, NCD found that the list of conditions eligible for assisted suicide has expanded considerably over time, including many disabilities that, when properly treated, do not result in death, including arthritis, diabetes, and kidney failure.
Assisted Suicide Laws and their Danger to People with Disabilities also notes suicide contagion in states where assisted suicide is legal; as well as a loosening of existing safeguards both in states with legalized assisted suicide and states considering bills to legalize.
In the report, NCD details limitations of purported safeguards of assisted suicide laws, finding:
- Insurers have denied expensive, life-sustaining medical treatment, but offered to subsidize lethal drugs, potentially leading patients to hasten their own deaths;
- Misdiagnoses of terminal disease can cause frightened patients to hasten their deaths;
- Though fear and depression often drive requests for assisted suicide, referral for psychological evaluation is extremely rare prior to doctors writing lethal prescriptions;
- Financial and emotional pressures can distort patient choice;
- Patients may “doctor shop” limitlessly to find a physician who will obtain a colleague’s concurrence and prescribe a lethal dose
“As someone who has battled cancer and been given weeks to live and am still thriving years later, I know firsthand that well-intending doctors are often wrong,” said Mr. Romano. “If assisted suicide is legal, lives will be lost due to mistakes, abuse, lack of information, or a lack of better options; no current or proposed safeguards can change that.”
NCD concludes its research with recommendations, including highlighting the need for:
- Federal research on disability-related risk factors in suicide prevention, as well as on people with disabilities who request assisted suicide and euthanasia;
- Federal regulation requiring non-discrimination in suicide prevention services; and
- Greater federal investment in long-term services and supports.
The NCD report is online at The Danger of Assisted Suicide Laws. The release dates for the other reports in the series are here, with links to the full reports as they become available.
Press Conference opposing Massachusetts assisted suicide bill.
At least seven disability rights advocates were prepared to testify on one of two panels. The following are links to three of those testimonies with short excerpts from each.
 |
| John Kelly |
John Kelly’s Testimony
Like most progressives, I strongly oppose capital punishment. We simply can’t stomach the fact that at least 4% of people sentenced to die are not guilty. We know that when there is a mistake, there’s no remedy.
H.1926 would in effect sentence to death non-dying people. Doctors misdiagnose all the time, and it’s estimated that 12 to-15% of people will outlive their six-month terminal diagnosis. . . .
And when more than half of suicide deaths in Oregon last year were reported to feel like a burden on others, we can see evidence of bullying, shame, and loss of options. When you read the title of the bill with different emphasis, it doesn’t mean options for the end-of-life but “the end [pause] of life-options.”
Ruthie Poole’s Testimony
Those of us in M-POWER know that depression is insidious in how it affects thinking. Against the new provision, we know that depression does impair judgment. As a therapist once told me, depression does not cause black and white thinking; it causes black and blacker thinking. Absolute hopelessness and seeing no way out are common feelings for those of us who have experienced severe depression. Personally, as someone who has been suicidal in the past, I can relate to the desire for “a painless and easy way out.” However, depression is treatable and reversible. Suicide is not.
We applaud the Joint Committee on Public Health and other members of the Legislature who have worked hard to expand funding for suicide prevention efforts. Passing this bill would be a slap in the face of those efforts. Suicide contagion is real. Any assisted suicide program will send the message to people in mental distress – old, young, physically ill or not – that suicide is a reasonable answer to life’s problems.
 |
| Anita Cameron |
Anita Cameron’s Testimony Although assisted suicide requests in Oregon (which this
bill and others are modeled on) are lower among Blacks and people of
color, that doesn’t mean that this won’t change in more diverse areas,
especially as healthcare support lessens and assisted suicide becomes
more acceptable due to the efforts of groups like Compassion and
Choices. . . . Further, doctors often make mistakes about whether a
person is terminal or not. In June, 2009, while living in Washington
state, my mother was determined to be in the final stages of Chronic
Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and placed in hospice. Two months later, I
was told that her body had begun the process of dying. My mother wanted
to go home to Colorado to die, so the arrangements were made. A funny
thing happened, though. Once she got there, her health began to improve!
Ten years later, she is still alive, lives in her own home in the
community and is reasonably active.
Dear Senators & Representatives,
 |
| Nancy Elliott |
Please reject identical bills S.1208 and H.1926, the “End -Of-Life Options Act”. I know there are some that believe we have a right to die. Anyone can kill themselves. What Assisted Suicide laws do is give rights to doctors to make you dead. They are also giving rights to the government to decide who has the right to live and who is deserving of death. Governments should not be trusted with this power.
Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia are at their heart eugenist. They seek to eliminate the weak, sick and elderly among us, while promoting what they call autonomy, which is only valuing individuals who are healthy and productive. They seek to morph Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" into, only the fittest are allowed to survive. This thinking was gaining traction in the US until the Nazi's tried their human experiment and Americans were repulsed.
Proponents say the new Euthanasia is not like the earlier form. They claim it is entirely voluntary. While some may think they chose this, how many were actually steered? Steering is the elephant in the room. I was at a hearing for Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts a few years back where a doctor stated that Assisted Suicide laws were something he was in favor of. He continued with his points and ended by saying that He felt it was the responsibility for a good doctor “to guide people to make the right choice”. I do not think he intended to say that but is there any doubt that this pro suicide doctor would try to persuade his patients to follow his wishes, concerning their Assisted Suicide.
Then there is steering done by family and “so called” friends. It is easy to persuade people that they should give up. Perhaps they are tired of caring for a person or are looking to inherit. We see the most egregious example in the Dutch woman, whose doctor had the family hold her down while she fought and was euthanized against her will. Our opponents call this compassionate, caring and choice.[1]
Seniors are at risk and easily fall victim to coercion as the process is open to that. In most states, heirs can be there for the request and even speak. Anyone can pick up the lethal dose. Once in the house all oversight is gone, there is no witness required at the death. Even if they struggled who would know.
Eligible people are not necessarily dying. Think of John Norton who testified to this committee in the past. Diagnosed as a young man with ALS. He stated that had assisted suicide been legal he would have done it. A few years in, the progression of the disease just stopped. He was in his 70’s the last time I heard him testify. He had a grandchild and was happy to be alive. His life would have been wasted. What about new cures that could come up and save a person’s life? Why rush into death? You will always have another opportunity.
What about the 5% of incorrect medical diagnosis? With Assisted Suicide on the table these mistakes are deadly.
This is about disability. If you have a disability you are encouraged to commit suicide. If, on the other hand, you are young and healthy, you are given suicide counselling. This is discrimination. This law is a “special” carve out, for the sick, elderly and disabled.
Follow the money. There are people and entities that stand to make a profit if "expensive" individuals are euthanized at the earliest moment. Winners would include, insurers, nursing homes, hospitals, government entities and people who are heavily invested in these areas.
Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia are not in the public interest. Please keep this bill from passing as it is dangerous to the people of Massachusetts.
Sincerely,
Nancy Elliott
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA
