I am appearing next Wednesday night as part of a town hall about end of life care, sponsored by the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Would love it if some local SHSers turned out an introduced yourselves.
In advance of said panel discussion and audience Q and A session, I have a piece in the Santa Barbara Noozhawk, exploring a bit of a different angle than I usually bring up in opposing the doctor prescribed death agenda. From “Assisted Suicide is the Euthanasia of Hope:”
How are we to best care for the dying? This crucial issue impacts us at our core, not only in light of our own eventual demises, but because we all want the best for those we love. Happily, hospice and advances in pain control allow for truly compassionate care. Unlike much of human history, today patients can die peacefully at home, without significant pain, in the loving presence of their families.
But some assert this isn’t enough, that doctors should be allowed to prescribe suicide for terminally ill patients who want to die. These advocates even go so far as to call assisted suicide the “ultimate civil liberty.” But peel away the veneer of “choice” and we can see that assisted suicide abandons people — who might eventually regain the desire to live — to a premature death.
Hall and Bob convey an important message we don’t hear often enough in the debates about end-of-life care: If we legalize assisted suicide, some patients will die instead of ultimately regaining their joy in living. For some reason, this message doesn’t resonate as vividly as the siren song of doctor-prescribed death. But know this: If we are seduced into legalizing assisted suicide, we will cheat at least some people out of the universe’s most precious and irreplaceable commodity: Time.
Assisted suicide isn’t “choice;” it is the end of all choices. Doctor prescribed death is not “death with dignity;” it is really the euthanasia of hope.
Hope to see some of you next Wednesday night in SB.
October 14th, 2011 | 11:32 am
I almost always agree with everything you write and I certainly agree that legalizing assisted suicide would cheat many more of “time” which is even more precious at the end of life.
But, haven’t the POLST and the MOLST initiatives and Advanced Directives already legalized “assisted suicide” in that human beings are electing not to have intervening life-saving/life-extending procedures out of context so to speak —and isn’t this premeditated suicide?
I agree that Hospice and the drugs available under Hospice do ease the horror and pain of death for the patient and the caretakers—-but, in the future, most middle-class patients will die on Hospice or in residential nursing homes or in Assisted Care Facilities.
The mandated primary “caregiver” in the Hospice Scenario will become a problem for many in our culture of divorce and family disintegration. The State will increasingly become the primary “caregiver” and will be picking up the bill for the middle class who will die on the “dole” after their small estates are exhausted.
The for-profit hospices now exceed in number the not-for-profit hospices and “death” becomes big business to be managed for profit.
Obviously, the “status quo” wants assisted suicide to be legalized for fiscal reasons and because this will make “informed consent” for palliative care even less of an issue. Nothing would really change but it would make it even more unlikely that the “informed consent” for outpatient palliative care would have to be addresed by government and the courts.
October 14th, 2011 | 2:21 pm
There is a difference from accepting an inevitble death, and actually killing one’s self.
You do see that don’t you?
October 14th, 2011 | 5:14 pm
Yes, of course, and that’s where “choice” which is “legal” must continue to be protected under the law.
Who defines “inevitable” and who defines “time” in which the premise of “Medical Futility” and “Fiscal Futility” are brought to bear on each individual situation?
If the “terminally ill” patient freely chooses to leave this world earlier rather than later, this is his/her right under the law. But, if the patient wants to continue to live to fight the terminal illness, this right is also protected under the law.
The slippery slope, of course, is that the “earlier” and “Final Exit” of the patient is expedient for the insurers and the government. They pay the bill if and when the patient elects to have an intervening life-saving and life-extending procedure — that is, to stick around a little longer —maybe a week –maybe a month —maybe a year –or maybe the elderly patient doesn’t even survive the intervening procedure..
As the law stands now, (my understanding) patients have the right to “fiscally futile” procedures and “medical futility” decisions to shorten life are only legal with the permission of the patient or the patient’s legal surrogate.
Is this kind of “shortening” of life a kind of suicide that has already been sanctioned under the law? I think so! But, perhaps “suicide” is not the best choice of words .
The whole idea of Hospice and Palliative Care is to encourage patients to take advantage of their right to die earlier rather than later, with less pain, and not in a hospital ICU.
Apparently, however, the concept of hospice and palliative care which is paid for by Medicare has not reduced “end of life costs” for the elderly as much as had been anticipated.
Reimbursement policies concerning errors and omissions made by hospitals mean that hospitals often have to eat the costs of so-called “futile procedures” and therefore the law of “Choice” is often circumvented to protect the bottom lines of hospitals. This, of course, is very dangerous for the elderly!
October 14th, 2011 | 6:44 pm
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
October 15th, 2011 | 5:42 pm
All this culture of death stuff. including the phrase “end of life,” the travesty of a “field” called “bioethics” and “ethics,” assisted suicide, “living wills,” doctors without logic or proper values, and all the rest of it, came in about the same time that split infinitives became prevalent. PLEASE do NOT split infinitives!!! IT MATTERS!!!
October 16th, 2011 | 8:36 pm
“If we legalize assisted suicide, some patients will die instead of ultimately regaining their joy in living.”
My oh my, that’s a mighty big assumption — that someone in the terminal stages of a painful death may suddenly become oh-so-happy to continue in intractable pain or, in the alternative, be sedated into total stupefaction. I mean, gosh, wouldn’t it be absolutely horrific if assisted suicide “cheated” someone out of either of those most edifying experiences? Oh, the tragedy!
Why not let people make their own decisions without engaging in the strained rationalizations and insufferable presumptuousness of “I know better than you do what’s good for you?” Big boys and girls don’t need Nanny Wesley and his minions to hold their hands and instruct them in the arcana of Christian forbearance. It’s awfully generous that you folks offer to interfere, but then you shouldn’t be too shocked, or whine about “the culture of death” when some people tell you to take a hike. There ARE other opinions out there, you know.
HW
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact