All across the natural world, deep within the rainforests, over the sands of Afghanistan, throughout the mountains of Russia, living things all have one thing in common. They try to live until the day that death takes them.
Intentional suicides aside, a mostly human phenomena, death is rarely preferable over life.
Of course it's well known that come the twilight of life, cancer or other raging and cruel diseases can take over our living bodies to the point where escape from the pain is the choice.
So what's wrong with having doctors help that choice along a little bit?
I consider it an abomination but bear with me a minute. It's not an abomination, as I see it, to want to die when pain and a total lack of hope overtakes the normally undaunted spirit to live. By me, this is perfectly normal and given the superiority of the human brain over the rest of the animal kingdom, death can easily be achieved through peaceful but killing drugs or even violent weapons such as guns and knives. An animal caught hopelessly in a trap, left to slowly die of starvation and thirst all the while accompanied by excruciating pain, might too choose to die over living for days to an eventual and inevitable death. The animal does not have the power to overdose on a drug or pull the trigger on a gun pointed handily at its head.
So I am in no way lacking an understanding of death with dignity or our own normal natural urge to end the constant pain. In fact, if I should find my own self in such a circumstance I'd likely choose death over a slow, grueling march to an inevitable death that would sap my spirit and leave me but a ghost of the human being I once was.
I have no problem with death by our human hands when the time comes is what I'm saying here. Save those caught in a momentary life crisis who might take a permanent action not warranted or prudent, it seems such a final choice should be left to an individual with the government or society left out of it.
Thus I am totally against the recent Supreme Court decision that upheld Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law. Which law, unlike the Roe vs. Wade ruling, did not involve legislating from the bench? A state legislature had already made physician-assisted suicide legal. The Supreme Court merely affirmed the law, as state-legislated, was legal.
Article comments
1 - Bliffle
Perhaps you're right. Perhaps the poor patient, should he wish to die, should have the foresight to be taken ill in Texas rather than Oregon. In Texas, a bill signed into law a few years ago by GWB, allows the hospital to pull the plug on an indigent patient after 10 days. Indeed, this very action was taken in the last few weeks, on a terminally ill woman who was awaiting her mothers arrival at the hospital.
2 - Howard
Pat, you said, "It bothers me greatly that the "way" the state of Oregon and now the Supreme Court have chosen involves government intervention."
You've got it backwards. Prohibition of doctor assisted suicide is classic GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. We humanely "put down" a horse with a broken leg. We put our precious pets "to sleep" when their lives become unbearable. Why must we force a kind doctor to break the law to prescibe pills that will put an individual out of his pain?
Am I the only one in the country who chaffes under laws prohibiting the purchase of drugs of my choice without prescription? Why should the government intervene in what I put down my throat? The govenment has assumed many responsibilities to which it has no right.
Sure, I can use a 45 automatic to blow my brains out. Have you seen the mess that makes? Give me the right to buy drugs that will put me out of my misery. My death will not cause you harm.
3 - Nik
As a proud Oregonian who strongly supports this law, I have to say there's no "creating" a culture of death in the U.S. of A. It's been there as long as we have. It's our lives, and we should have the choice to do what we want with them. It's the government that's in the wrong for wanting to stamp out a voter-approved (twice!), rarely used (less than 200 times in the near-decade it's been in place here - and there are 4 million Oregonians) law that has multiple safeguards (two doctors, not one, required to sign off on your wishes). Funny how "state's rights" suddenly disappear as a conservative touchstone when the right collide with their own beliefs.
4 - bhw
Save those caught in a momentary life crisis who might take a permanent action not warranted or prudent, it seems such a final choice should be left to an individual with the government or society left out of it.
I agree. Let's let the patient decide and the doctor assist, as needed. So you must agree, then, that Oregon did a good thing by decriminalizing the very decision you say a patient should be able make. Right?
Perhaps you should complain to president Bush for sending former Attorney General Ashcroft to contest the Oregan law. Clinton and his brownshirts left the law alone, having decided it was best left at the state level. Bush and his holier-than-thou cronies decided to involve the federal government.
You want the government out of your personal life-and-death decisions? Me too. Unfortunately, we have the wrong president for that.
5 - KYS
My mother died in great pain due to bone cancer. I would have put her out of her agony a month before she died, if I had been able. It's a loving and humane act for our loved ones.
Beyond that, killing ones self nullifies any life insurance. I don't know how the Oregon law affects insurance.
We are a "life at any cost" culture thanks to Bushco. I don't know the solution but my experience and practical thought supports the right to die with dignity at a time when the patient is aware enough to make the choice.
6 - Pat Fish
On the matter of state's rights... If a state passes a law that makes it legal to murder a nagging wife, that does NOT mean it's okay.
But it's okay. Liberals get this confused all the time. It's because conservatives argue that abortion should be regulated by the states. Many, in fact, believe that abortion never should have been made legal at all.
Be that as it may, the very fact that the legalization of abortion came down from the Supreme Court, NOT, read my lips, from any state legislatures, took the entire matter out of the hands of any sort of law-making authority whatsoever.
So we now have babies ripped from their mothers' wombs at seven, eight, nine months terms, often for nothing more than an undesired sex. And no one elected can do a thing about it.
It's what happens when the courts legislate.
As for Oregon's suicide law, it WAS, indeed, legislated by a state. Read the first paragraph. This does not make it right. The Supreme Court merely affirmed it was a valid law.
What could happen with this suicide law, as could NEVER happen with the abortion law, is the rest of the country will witness the mess that will become of Oregon. The Pizza Huts, the death industry, the "exceptions".
It will prevent other states from starting their own death industries AND, in due course, it will be simple matter for Oregon to boom, simply removed the law. Assuming the citizens of Oregon so determine. The entire matter will NOT be left forever able to be changed or corrected by citizens.
I think Oregon was wrong to pass this law. But hey, the Supreme Court disagrees with me. By me, the Supreme Court should have ruled that the matter of death should not be controlled in any way by the government.
They didn't but it's still not written in stone. Like the abortion mess.
I predict someday the good people of Oregon will realize what a mess such a thing can become and vote to take it out.
Unlike the abortion thing, which can never be changed or regulated in any matter because nine unelected judges took it out of the hands of the voters.
That's how states' rights works.
7 - bhw
I gotta tell ya, Pat Fish, you're using the most bizarre, contradictory logic I've seen in a long time.
Be that as it may, the very fact that the legalization of abortion came down from the Supreme Court, NOT, read my lips, from any state legislatures,
Wrong. Abortion was legal (but regulated) in some states and illegal in others BEFORE Roe v. Wade, which challenged, specifically, the Texas anti-abortion laws. Pre-Roe, the states decided.
And let's not forget that abortion was generally legal across the country until the 19th century. It's not like abortion is a 20th century invention.
As for Oregon's suicide law, it WAS, indeed, legislated by a state. Read the first paragraph. This does not make it right. The Supreme Court merely affirmed it was a valid law.
It had to be legislated by the state because it was illegal! Doctors were not permitted to help patients die. If you're really a conservative, then you'd argue that assisted suicide -- or any kind of suicide -- should never have been outlawed in the first place. All the Oregon law did was give the right of self-determination BACK TO THE CITIZENS and their doctors. It stopped criminalizing a certain behavior, a behavior that you argue in your post should be left up to the individual.
So what exactly is the problem?
I think Oregon was wrong to pass this law. But hey, the Supreme Court disagrees with me. By me, the Supreme Court should have ruled that the matter of death should not be controlled in any way by the government.
Well, that was not the case in front of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was faced with a challenge to the existing Oregon law; the challenge was based on federal drug regulations (I guess it's okay for the government to tell my doctor which drugs she can and can't give me?), a technicality. The government didn't argue that Oregon shouldn't have the right to control how an individual dies. The government argued that Oregon shouldn't be allowed to let doctors prescribe lethal doses of medicine to terminally ill patients because that specific use is not considered an accepted use of the drugs, which is a stipulation in the drug laws.
As for you fairy tale about the culture of death that will spring from the Oregon law, where is it? The law has been in effect for many years in Oregon, and fewer than 200 people have actually ended their lives by doctor assisted suicide. I'd hardly call that a culture of death.
8 - Pat Fish
What is the problem?
I wrote about the problem in my essay. It's tacky. It'll get tackier. It's my prediction. Your mileage might vary.
I understand about the drug thing, the feds won't let the docs prescribe a killing dosage of drugs. Well maybe they should. Of course to allow such a thing in one state would be to allow it in all and heaven forbid someone might get it into their head to kill somebody ELSE beside themselves.
So Oregon comes up with assisted suicide and soon enough we'll have a death industry. Much like we have an abortion industry with proponents looking out for their bucks rather than the morals of it all.
I see problems, bhw. I've delineated my problems. I could be wrong. But I have eyeballs and I see what a road we opened once we made abortion a FEDERAL entitlement. No state can dare regulate against even late term abortion because there's always that "health of the mother" thing that gets in the way. Any doctor can sign a paper saying the mother will get "upset" by having a boy instead of a girl. I don't like the notion of using a knitting needle to kill an 8 month baby in utero and neither do most Americans. But it happens everyday.
I also think our country should cultivate a culture of life instead of death. Which does not mean I take away an individual's right to take their own life. What, they're gonna put you in jail if you commit suicide? I believe to expect the government to do it all nice and cozy is really giving the government too much power. And granting the bureaucrats a nobility they simply do not possess. They want to keep their jobs, they want to get re-elected, they want to make money.
It's tacky and like abortion, will grow to be a tackier and slippier slope than we cannot right now imagine.
I see a road frought with peril and bumps.
I don't have the answers. I have certainly seen both animals and family die in pain. It's not like I have not been there, done that and might not experience it someday myself.
Forgive my silliness, but allowing physicians, who take an oath to do no harm for God's sake, regulated by government, to do the deed, is NOT, as I see it, an answer.
At least, if it comes to that, the good citizens of Oregon will be able to change the law.
I predict they will. Some things are just tasteless and Americans know this.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I would like to agree with your logic. The idea that your country is sliding down a slipery slope of evil appeals to me greatly. But somehow, Pat, I don't think this quite does the job.
The doctors had already been writing lethal prescriptions for patients to help them die in Oregon and the feds came in to try to stop the practice. That is how I understand this. Two hundred people over nearly a decade does not equal a culture of death.
Now it may be true, that after this case, people will line up at the state border bringing the folks to be put down because of the attention this case has gotten in the media. But one should wait to see if this is true.
I have not forgotten the sight of my uncle suffering from brain cancer, asking my father, his brother, "take a hammer and kill me!"
I will never forget that sight and how the pain of watching my uncle change from a robust muscular man to a yellowed bag of bones took away my father's desire to live.
I can't say that giving my uncle a lethal does of something a few months before he actually passed to his reward would have spared my own father. But what I saw in that hospital room in Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital will haunt me as long as I live on this earth.
10 - bhw
So your big problem is that it's "tacky"?
I understand about the drug thing, the feds won't let the docs prescribe a killing dosage of drugs. Well maybe they should.
Now they do. 8-)
Of course to allow such a thing in one state would be to allow it in all and heaven forbid someone might get it into their head to kill somebody ELSE beside themselves.
Well, by definition, if the federal government allows it, it's allowed in ALL states if the states want to do it.
Now the Supreme Court has ruled that the particular argument the federal government used against Oregon can't be used to take the law off the books. So, as they have been all along, the other 49 states are free to create their own assisted suicide laws.
How many have done that? The Oregon law has been on the books for many years. How many of the other 49 states have their own assisted suicide laws? Where's the rush for states to enact these laws? Where's the rush for people to kill themselves? Where's the culture of death? If the Oregon law was such a dangerous thing, we'd have seen some of these ramifications you're afraid of by now. I see none.
I also think our country should cultivate a culture of life instead of death.
I think our country should cultivate a reasonable, rsepectful culture that understands an individual's right to determine when s/he's had enough of "life."
Which does not mean I take away an individual's right to take their own life. What, they're gonna put you in jail if you commit suicide?
You can go to jail if you fail in your effort to kill yourself! And anyone who helps you with the deed, successful or not, can also go to jail.
I believe to expect the government to do it all nice and cozy is really giving the government too much power.
The government isn't doing a THING except telling doctors they won't go to jail for helping their terminally ill patients end their lives peacefully. It's a private decision between a patient and his/her doctor.
If you don't want doctors to help patients slip off to permanent sleep -- on their own terms -- what's your proposed alternative to help these patients who are lingering in chronic pain? How are they supposed to kill themselves? Should they bring a loaded shotgun with them to the hospital?
Seriously, you don't like the assisted suicide law, but you think sick patients should be able to commit suicide. What's your solution if you don't want doctors involved? Exactly what do you propose as an alternative.
11 - Pat Fish
But one should wait to see if this is true.
==============
Why?
By what rule says I have to wait? I said I predicted it. But I think I have a valid argument and yes, I think it will come to pass.
Pundits predict such things every day.
And sad stories about watching someone die are a dime a dozen. We've all seen it, anyone with a relative or a pet has seen it.
If I knew I had brain cancer I'd be making plans for my death long before I'd be waiting for the damn government to do it. Brain cancer being a particularly heinous form of cancer.
As for a slippery slope, hey, anybody can kill themselves and no government can take away that ability. The slippery slope starts when you begin to require signed documents, change the entire concept of medical help from doing no harm to doing harm, regulate who and how can commit suicide.
As for the ten years thing with Oregon, everyone was waiting for the Supreme Court ruling.
Suicides in Oregeon will increase dramatically now.
It's a can or worms but I'll allow as only time will prove me right.
12 - bhw
If I knew I had brain cancer I'd be making plans for my death long before I'd be waiting for the damn government to do it.
I have no idea what you're talking about when you bring up what the government is doing. Please explain to me how the government in Oregon is now planning the deaths of its terminally ill citizens. Is the state making a list of sick people? Is it scheduling them to die? Are the citizens sitting there waiting for the state to come by, point to them, and say, "It's your turn"? You seem to be giving the state of Oregon more power than it has. It's not DOING anything but allowing doctors and patients to make some decisions.
As for a slippery slope, hey, anybody can kill themselves and no government can take away that ability.
But state governments have taken away the RIGHT to do it legally and to legally have help from someone else. With their laws, states make family members and doctors criminal accomplices. Isn't that stupid?
The slippery slope starts when you begin to require signed documents, change the entire concept of medical help from doing no harm to doing harm, regulate who and how can commit suicide.
"Doing harm" is a matter of perspective. I don't consider a doctor to be doing harm if s/he helps a patient die peacefully on the patient's own terms. I *do* consider it doing harm for a doctor to be prevented from helping patients end their misery when they have said they want to.
As for the ten years thing with Oregon, everyone was waiting for the Supreme Court ruling.
Not ten years, sorry. As I said earlier, the Clinton administration very publicly said they were leaving Oregon alone. That opened the door for any and all other interested states to adopt their own similar laws. It's possible that some states were waiting to see how things panned out in Oregon over the long-term, but ten years is a pretty long time to wait, especially when the law was unchallenged for the first five years.
The first challenge came from Ashcroft, and even with the challenge, no moratorium was put in place in Oregon. The law was still valid and being used by a few terminally ill Oregonians.
Suicides in Oregeon will increase dramatically now.
Why? By what logic? The law in Oregon has been on the books and actively used the entire time. Terminally ill patients have not been restricted from using the law's protections and provisions. Why in the world would a terminally ill patient -- one who is expected to die in 6 months or less -- wait for a court ruling? If you want to die and the law is active, which it was in Oregon, then WTF would you wait for, a post-mortem approval from the Supreme Court?
The floodgates in Oregon opened ten years ago, and only 200 people have passed through them. Your predictions are based on nothing and they defy common sense.
13 - Bliffle
PatFish "I also think our country should cultivate a culture of life instead of death. "
Wait a minute! Does that mean stepping in and stopping a states right to execute criminals?
14 - Bliffle
PatFish: "If I knew I had brain cancer I'd be making plans for my death long before I'd be waiting for the damn government to do it."
Yeah, me too. I've revised my plans. My old plan was to rob a liquor store, kill a clerk, kill a cop reporting to the scene, then either get killed by the cops or go to the chair. That way I wouldn't have to summon up the courage to pull the trigger on myself. Suicide by proxy.
The flaw is that some softheaded cop fails to blow me away and with all the appeals and everything it could be years before I get the chair, and vacillating legislatures may have renounced the death penalty in the meanwhile! There's historical precedent: look at the sad case of Manson, a suicide by proxy case if i ever saw one. Poor guy.
My new plan is to move to Texas with my cancer and not pay my hospital bill. Ten days later bingo bango bongo: suicide by syllogism!
15 - Nancy
I understand euthanasia is legal in Holland. So, since it was legalized, has there been a blizzard of euthanasia cases there? Are people flocking from around the world to legally end their lives? Have entire industries devoted to the suicidally inclined sprung up in Dutch towns? If so, we have reason to worry; if not, it would seem to me this is nothing more than the usual Dubya-style alarmist bombast more concerned with forcing everyone to live according to narrow religious or moral viewpoints.
So ... what's up in Holland?
16 - Winston Jen
So, Pat, what problem do you have with patients owning their own lives? If someone can commit suicide by having a life-sustaining respirator removed, why can't they choose a more merciful death by taking a lethal drug to die PAINLESSLY in a few minutes?
And don't think that euthanasia doesn't happen in palliative care. They just call it 'terminal sedatoin' and drug the patient into a coma for 3 weeks or so until they die. Either that, or they'll give them a lethal dose of morphine, but they'll hide under the 'double effect' doctrine - a load of bull. They KNOW that the drug will kill the patient, and yet they administer it anyway, so how can they claim that they don't intend to kill them?
The worst thing about such practices is that they occur without patient consent, or even discussion. I suggest you read some of the articles at www.dwd.org
17 - Ss
I do not believe that you have experienced watching someone die. If one has watched someone suffer on their journey to death, it is impossible to speak of it so lightly. I hope you will never have to experience that kind of pain that wrenches your insides as if someone is splitting you open and I am not talking about the pain the person feels that is dying. It is clear to me that one who speaks so lightly does not understand nor will until they experience it.