Opinion: Students Take Sides on Assisted Suicide

In early April, Hawaii joined five other states and Washington, D.C., in legalizing physician-assisted suicide. More recently, Alfie Evans, a 23-month-old toddler living in England was taken off life support and died April 28.

At least 10 other states currently have legislation being considered on this issue. Physician-assisted suicide will continue to generate headlines for the foreseeable future.

The legal, moral and ethical implications of this legislation will be debated and argued by doctors, politicians, religious institutions and by those considering this option.

As physician-assisted suicide continues to make national and international headlines, two writers for the Liberty Champion explained the arguments on each side of the debate.

 

Pro

Chad Wylie

The controversy surrounding medically assisted suicide fundamentally hinges on a difference in perspectives and priorities. Some call it a premature end of life, others see it as appropriate end-of-life care.

Physician-assisted suicide provides a viable option to ease suffering during the worst time in the life of a victim, their family and their friends. The standards set forth by several state laws should be allowed across all states.

In early April, Hawaii became the seventh state to allow for physician-assisted suicide. These states include conditions and precautions to ensure that nobody is abusing this option to end their life.

In California, the person requesting the prescription must be evaluated by two doctors with the consensus that the person has less than six months to live. They must then submit two oral requests at least 15 days apart, along with a written request. After these steps, a doctor may prescribe the person death-inducing medication.

No doctor is required to prescribe the medication, but they have that choice. No patient is required to take the medication, but they have that choice. Physician-assisted suicide, this idea of “death with dignity,” provides comfort, safety and peace during a time of suffering.

Brittany Maynard, an outspoken advocate for death with dignity, explained this freedom of choice.

“Who has the right to tell me that I don’t deserve this choice? That I deserve to suffer for weeks or months in tremendous amounts of physical and emotional pain? Why should anyone have the right to make that choice for me?” Maynard said in an opinion piece for CNN in November 2014.

Maynard spoke to a personal issue with implications to her own life. At age 29, she received a terminal cancer diagnosis. After extensive research and conversation with her loved ones, Maynard decided to receive medication that would allow her to end her life.

She received the medication, knowing that there was no cure for her cancer. She saved the prescription for a time when her condition would become worse, when her suffering would become debilitating and unbearable.

“I am not suicidal,” Maynard said. “If I were, I would have consumed that medication long ago. I do not want to die. But I am dying. And I want to die on my own terms.”

What physician-assisted death gives to patients is the peace and comfort of knowing that they can choose when they die. They can surround themselves with their loved ones during those final moments, and they have a way to avoid the suffering of a prolonged death.

Medically assisted suicide is not ending the life of a living person, it is ending the suffering of a dying person. Death is not easy — it is a time of pain and grief. It is a small comfort to know that a loved one will not suffer and that he or she can leave this world with the dignity that life deserves.

In November 2014, Brittany Maynard passed from this world. She woke up that morning and expressed her thoughts on Facebook.

“Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love,” Maynard said. “Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness — this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me but would have taken so much more.”

God controls life and death. Every human’s days are numbered, and he knows every moment. Physician-assisted suicide does not rob God of his power or give doctors or patients the ability to play God. In this world of pain and suffering, not every condition will have a cure.

What this opportunity offers is not a cure to a disease, but a refuge from the suffering of terminal illnesses. Proper end-of-life care can and should include medication that will bring that pain to an end. When the greatest scientific minds cannot find a cure, physician assisted suicide is the only ethical option, giving the choice to the victim.

“Simply having the choice provides people a sense of peace in the face of uncertainty and fear that their suffering might be unbearable,” Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing end-of-life care, explained on its website. “It allows people the freedom to die in control, with dignity.”

Con

John Vence

 

 

She was a Dutch woman in her 70s, and she did not want to die.

She fought the effects of the tranquilizer in her coffee as she made lunch plans with visiting relatives.

It was not until the physician returned with thiopental — a drug often used in executions that induces muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest — that the patient grew fearful and struggled. Family members were ordered to hold her down, and she was killed.

Many might call her reaction a fight for life. The administering doctor simply called it “cold feet.”

The patient’s name was never disclosed in the National Catholic Register report, but she serves as a posterchild for the devastating effects of legalizing assisted suicide — an epidemic currently sweeping across state legislations.

Hawaii is the seventh state to approve physician-assisted suicide, reported the Economist, and 24 other states are contemplating similar laws.

Mercy killing the terminally ill who would otherwise face months or years of tortuous suffering is a nice thought. But it’s not always the case.

It’s a slippery slope sliding right down to ethical problems, like pressuring patients into accepting death.

Nancy Pearcey writes in her book, “Love Thy Body,” that some patients reported feeling pressured to end their lives in states where it is legal. In the Netherlands — the first country in the world to approve the practice in 2002 — one in five patients who choose euthanasia were pressured by family circumstances.

From a utilitarian standpoint, it’s a no-brainer: why spend thousands of dollars a month on sustaining a doomed life, when the drugs needed to instantly do the trick are as cheap as $35, according to ABC News. It’s an instant solution to cutting down on healthcare costs.

In the near future, medically assisted suicide could eventually occur without patient volition entirely.

The National Catholic Register reports Netherlander guidelines on assisted suicide have relaxed so that “a doctor may carry out euthanasia, even if the patient cannot make this clear by word or gesture.” The woman at the beginning of this article is one of a dozen cases reported in the Netherlands in which physicians wrongfully deemed patient’s life not worth continuing.

Should we continue to head into this direction, time will most definitely blur the criteria for euthanasia eligibility.

With the bracket of those “deserving to die” in the Netherlands growing broader, geriatric sufferers are no longer the sole demographic of those receiving euthanasia.

Recent controversial cases reported by The Independent in a series of online stories involve a 41-year-old alcoholic, a woman with “incurable” sexual-abuse-induced PTSD and a 39-year-old gay man unable to deal with his attraction to men.

Next door, Belgian physicians euthanized two identical twin brothers in their 40s who were diagnosed with a condition that would eventually lead to blindness, according to NC Report.

What a horrifying social norm — for death to be an acceptable response to mental illness, sexuality and addiction.

In these parts of the world, dying to avoid any kind of suffering is encouraged — as a result, the very same country that claimed 7,000 deaths via euthanasia is one of the last countries in palliative care development.

It is an insult to those who are disabled. To those with a mental illness. To those who wish they had longer time to spend with loved ones.

It smears the sanctity of human life with death in a syringe, available to all and any who are simply tired of the way things are.

How long before that mentality is injected into our society?