State Assembly Bill 654, the
“California Compassionate Choice Act,” would allow doctors to
prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturates to terminally ill, mentally
competent patients.
State Assembly Bill 654, the “California Compassionate Choice Act,” would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturates to terminally ill, mentally competent patients.
Modeled on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Bill, AB 654 passed the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee this week by one vote. Among those in favor was John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, whose district includes Morgan Hill and San Martin.
Like all California, indeed, all America, this newspaper’s editorial board is deeply divided on this issue of life and death. We are opposed to the measure.
Proponents of assisted suicide argue that compassion dictates that a terminally ill patient must have the right to end his pain. They hold that an individual has a right to control the time and manner of his death, a right to a death with dignity.
But in Oregon, more than 87 percent of the 171 patients who have chosen assisted suicide cite as their reason, not pain, nor even fear of pain, but fear of loss of autonomy and worry that they might become less able to engage in enjoyable activities. That comes from a report entitled “Legalized Physician-Assisted Suicide in Oregon – The First Year’s Experience” published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Moreover, patients already have the right to refuse extraordinary life-prolonging treatments such as ventilators and artificial feeding. Patients have the right to choose to die at home or in a hospice rather than in a hospital.
Finally, there is a very real danger that an assisted suicide law could be extended. As Dr. Herbert Hendin testified before Congress: “Over the past two decades, the Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia.
“Once the Dutch accepted assisted suicide it was not possible legally or morally to deny more active medical (assistance to die), i.e. euthanasia, to those who could not effect their own deaths. Nor could they deny assisted suicide or euthanasia to the chronically ill who have longer to suffer than the terminally ill or to those who have psychological pain not associated with physical disease. To do so would be a form of discrimination. Involuntary euthanasia has been justified as necessitated by the need to make decisions for patients not competent to choose for themselves.”
In other words, Dutch doctors have assisted patients to die without the formality of the patient’s consent.
Because of the tremendous potential for abuse, assisted suicide is opposed by advocates for the disabled and for the poor. Because of professional ethics, it is opposed by the American Medical Association.
As a society, we should provide the truly compassionate choice for the dying: To alleviate pain with medication, and to alleviate fear and worry with loving care.
