Within the next few months, we will know whether California will join Oregonand legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) for the terminally ill bypassing AB 651. The CBC believes that permitting doctors to perform PASon dying people would be wrong and a form of abandonment. As the NewYork Task Force on Life and the Law wrote in its seminal 1994 report When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context,”the vast majority of individuals who are terminally ill or facingsevere pain or disability are not suicidal. Moreover, terminally illpatients who do desire suicide or euthanasia often suffer from atreatable mental disorder, most commonly depression. When these patients receive appropriate treatment for depression, they usually abandon the wish to commit suicide.” Thus, the proper and truly compassionate approach to suicidal desire—whatever its cause—is prevention, not facilitation
Beyondthis basic point, legalizing assisted suicide for the dying wouldquickly expand to include many other categories of despairing people.This flows with the unremitting force of logic from the two fundamental intellectual principles—autonomy and the propriety of death as ananswer to human suffering—that underlie PAS advocacy. John Finnis, the2006 winner of the CBC’s Paul Ramsey Award summed it up well when testifying in the House of Lords against the recently defeated “JoffeBill” that would have legalized assisted suicide in the United Kingdom:
If autonomy is the principle or the main concern, why is the law fulkilling restricted to terminal illness and unbearable suffering? If suffering is the principle or concern, why is the lawful killing restricted to terminal illness?
Finnis’ point is that regardless of whatever restrictions might be placedinitially into a legalization law, once the two principle premises of assisted suicide advocacy became accepted by a broad swath of themedical professions and the public; there is little chance that those eligible for permitted suicide would long remain limited to the dying.
Within the next few months, we will know whether California will join Oregonand legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) for the terminally ill bypassing AB 651. The CBC believes that permitting doctors to perform PASon dying people would be wrong and a form of abandonment. As the NewYork Task Force on Life and the Law wrote in its seminal 1994 report When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context,”the vast majority of individuals who are terminally ill or facingsevere pain or disability are not suicidal. Moreover, terminally illpatients who do desire suicide or euthanasia often suffer from atreatable mental disorder, most commonly depression. When these patients receive appropriate treatment for depression, they usually abandon the wish to commit suicide.” Thus, the proper and trulycompassionate approach to suicidal desire—whatever its cause—is prevention, not facilitation
Beyond this basic point, legalizing assisted suicide for the dying wouldquickly expand to include many other categories of despairing people.This flows with the unremitting force of logic from the two fundamental intellectual principles—autonomy and the propriety of death as ananswer to human suffering—that underlie PAS advocacy. John Finnis, the2006 winner of the CBC’s Paul Ramsey Award summed it up well when testifying in the House of Lords against the recently defeated “JoffeBill” that would have legalized assisted suicide in the United Kingdom:
If autonomy is the principle or the main concern, why is the lawfulkilling restricted to terminal illness and unbearable suffering? If suffering is the principle or concern, why is the lawful killingrestricted to terminal illness?
Finnis’ point is that regardless of whatever restrictions might be placedinitially into a legalization law, once the two principle premises of assisted suicide advocacy became accepted by a broad swath of themedical professions and the public; there is little chance that thoseeligible for permitted suicide would long remain limited to the dying.
We need only look to the experience of the Netherlands to see thesocial forces unleashed by legalizing the euthanasia/assisted suicide.Since the Netherlands first permitted euthanasia in 1973, theparameters of medicalized killing in that country have expandedsteadily to include not just those with terminal illnesses, but alsopeople with chronic conditions, disabilities, and the debilitations ofage. Moreover, repeated Dutch government sponsored studies have found that doctors kill approximately 1,000 patients each year who have not asked to be killed. Euthanasia has also entered the pediatric wardswhere eugenic infanticide has become common. According to two studiespublished in the British medical journal The Lancet, approximately 8% of all Dutch infant deaths result from lethal injections.
Assisting the suicides of the depressed was approved explicitly by theDutch Supreme Court in the case of psychiatrist Boutdewijn Chabot, whofacilitated the suicide of his patient Hilly Boscher in 1991. Boscher wanted to die because her two sons were dead. Chabot never attempted totreat her. After interviewing her to determine her sincerity andmotivation, he assisted Boscher’s suicide. Tellingly, the Dutch SupremeCourt approved, ruling that it does not matter whether a patient’sdesire to die is caused by physical or emotional suffering.
The experience of the Netherlands illustrates why the CBC is socommitted to opposing assisted suicide. Not only has euthanasia clearlybecome a system of “legalized murder,” but even worse, the Dutchpeople—who would once have been appalled at their doctors killingdisabled babies and assisting the suicides of depressed patients—havebecome so desensitized to the wickedness in their midst that majoritiesnow support their country’s radical death policy.
Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a special consultant to the CBC. He will betestifying in favor of instituting federal policies against assisted suicide before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, & Property Rights later this month.
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