This Blog considers assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, biotechnology, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation. My views expressed here, as in my books and other writings, reflect my understanding that the philosophy of human exceptionalism is the bedrock of universal human rights. Or, to put it another way: human life matters. (The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Oregon, I have a piece in today's San Francisco Chronicle addressing the context in which assisted suicide would be conducted. Context can be everything, and in a regime of legalized assisted suicide, it would be deadly.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:58 AM
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I am a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the author of 12 books, including A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, which is relevant to the issues considered by this blog.
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2 Comments:
Why do you think the physicians who you do not think honorable enough to deliver assisted suicide drugs are honorable enough to provide care for a longer period of time? Why does the automatic second opinion not provide the safeguards against murder that you fear, and what safeguards are there on preventing such murder, or any other abuse, during long term care?
In Oregon, most doctors refuse to commit assisted suicide. Thus, a great many suicidal patients who do obtain lethal prescriptions receive their poison from doctors who they have not met, except for the request to die. In a word: Kevorkianism. Second opinions, as in the Netherlands, are often by assisted suicide friendly doctors. There is no requirement for counseling, palliation, or any attempt to dissuade.
Besides, these safeguards, such as they are, are irrelevant. The proper medical response to a request for suicide, whether the person is dying or not, is prevention--which is part of the hospice philosophy.
Killing or hastening death is not a medical act. Providing long term care is. But given that we have had distinct troubles in this sector, what makes you think that assisted suicide would not make the already too often abandonment of the elderly, worse?
Thanks for writing.
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