The deadly and dangerous practice of assisted
suicide is now legal in five states (Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, Colorado) and the District of Columbia, our
nation’s capital. With new momentum and lots of money, assisted suicide
proponents are pursuing an aggressive national campaign to advance their agenda through legislation, ballot measures, litigation,
and public advertising, targeting states they see as most susceptible to their message.
Some polls indicate that the public is receptive to
the general concept of assisted suicide. But the same polls show that when
the public learns about the dangers of assisted suicide, especially for those who are poor, elderly, disabled, or without
access to good medical care, their view shifts against the practice. The
following dangers are among the top reasons to oppose assisted suicide.
A Deadly Mix with Our Profit-Driven Health Care System:
Some patients in Oregon and California have received
word that their health insurance will pay for assisted suicide but will not pay for treatment that may sustain their lives.
Puts Vulnerable Persons at Risk of Abuse and
Coercion:
Once lethal
drugs have been prescribed, assisted suicide laws have no requirements for assessing the patient’s consent, competency,
or voluntariness. Who would know if the drugs are freely taken since there
is no supervision or tracking of the drugs once they leave the pharmacy and no witnesses are required at the time of death?
Despite a reporting system designed to conceal rather than detect abuses,
reports of undue influence have nonetheless surfaced in Oregon.
Elder abuse is considered a major health problem in the United States, with federal estimates that one in ten older
persons is abused. Placing lethal drugs into the hands of abusers generates
an additional major risk to elder persons.
Assisted suicide laws typically appear to limit eligibility to terminally ill patients who are expected to die within
six months but don’t distinguish between persons who will die within six months with treatment and those who will die
within six months without treatment. This means that patients with treatable
diseases (like diabetes or chronic respiratory or cardiac disease) and patients with disabilities requiring ventilator support
are all eligible for lethal drugs because they would die within six months without treatment they would normally receive.
Pain Not the Primary Issue
Untreated pain is not among the top reasons for taking
lethal drugs. Per official state reports, in 2016, 90% of Oregon patients
seeking lethal drugs said they were doing so because they were “less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable”
and were “losing autonomy,” and 49% cited being a “burden” on family, friends, or caregivers. And
in Washington, 52% cited being a “burden” as a reason, while only 35% cited a concern about pain.
No Psychiatric Evaluation or Treatment Required
Despite medical literature showing that nearly 95% of
those who commit suicide had a diagnosable psychiatric illness (usually treatable depression) in the months preceding suicide,
the prescribing doctor and the doctor he or she selects to give a second opinion are both free to decide whether to refer
suicidal patients for any psychological counseling. Per Oregon’s official
annual report, from 2013-2016, less than 4% of patients who died under its assisted suicide law had been referred for counseling
to check for “impaired judgment.”
If counseling is provided to patients seeking assisted suicide, its goal isn’t to treat the underlying disorder
or depression; it’s to determine whether the disorder or depression is “causing impaired judgment [emphasis added].”
The doctors or counselor can decide that, since depression is “a completely
normal response” to terminal illness, the depressed patient’s judgment is not impaired.”
Threatens Improvement of Palliative Care:
There is compelling evidence that legalizing assisted
suicide undermines efforts to maintain and improve good care for patients nearing the end of life, including patients who
never wanted assisted suicide.
Fosters
Discrimination:
Assisted
suicide creates two classes of people: those whose suicides we spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to prevent
and those whose suicides we assist and treat as a positive good. We remove
weapons and drugs that can cause harm to one group, while handing deadly drugs to the other, setting up yet another kind of
life-threatening discrimination.
There are many more reasons why legalizing assisted suicide is a bad and dangerous
idea. For further information visit www.usccb.org/toliveeachday and www.patientsrightsaction.org.
