Bursting the Myth of Assisted Suicide Inevitability
We often hear that more than 60% of Americans favor assisted suicide. I have never believed it because the polls that count--elections--mostly show narrow disapproval of legalization (except Michigan where an assisted suicide legalization bill lost 71-29% in 1998, hardly narrow, and Oregon, which approved legalization in 1994, 51-49%).
This most recent public opinion poll (AP) indicates that Americans are closely divided on the issue. A non-whopping 48% supported assisted suicide and 44% opposed. What makes me even more cheered by this poll is that the media tends to write stories that are distinctly sympathetic to assisted suicide, and most major newspapers editorialize in its favor. And still, Americans are justifiably wary. I credit the disability rights movement for much of this, because they have effectively punctured the myth that only religious conservatives oppose euthanasia.
So, the debate rages on. And if we don't tire, we can preserve ethics in American medicine.
Labels: Assisted Suicide. Polls
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:34 AM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
So the current system, where only a handful of people - doctors, nurses, vets and their friends can have access to the drugs, is a good one?
Dear me. I'd enjoy skydiving more enjoyable at the end of life. Of course, I'd refuse to open my parachute. Desperate people do desperate things. It's a fact of life. In Australia last year, there was a story about a woman who was going to sell her house to raise money for her cancer treatment. Fortunately, people donated enough money so she wouldn't have to, but most people aren't that lucky, especially in capitalist America. Michael Moore's 'Sicko' is a stunning expose into the US 'Healthcare' Industry.
And here's an online poll strongly in favour of individual choice - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18923665/
Tony,
You forgot to mention the war in Iraq.
Don - are you referring to the opportunity to commit suicide by enlisting for the War in Iraq? Well, that would probably be the most affordable way to commit suicide.
Not really. Usually when people go off, they start talking about Iraq. You left it out. But your comeback was pretty good and better than expected. Good going.
I agree with Wesley that the disability group advocates have been pretty persuasive and helpful in preventing more PAS. They get it. They are targets-at least in the sense that their conditions are used to justify PAS-"no one should be forced to live like those people."
When you throw in the compassion argument-you lack compassion if you don't let people kill themselves with these conditions, it's telling disabled people that their lives aren't worth living and that we'd be doing anyone a favor by helping them kill themselves so they won't have to live like certain groups of disabled people.
That's intolerable and probably why a lot of people oppose assisted suicide.
Thanks for the compliment, Don.
However, there have been many cases of paraplegics and quadraplegics who have taken their own life (Ramon Sampedro, for example). Just because some of them want to live doesn't mean they should all be forced to. The 'disability rights' groups are ignoring the issue by bringing up spectres of the Holocaust.
And no, I don't believe that 'depression counselling' is something I woul want. After a year or even six months of such 'treatment', I'd consider it to be torture, not treatment, and I'd find myself agreeing with whatever they wanted me to say just so they'd leave me alone. That's probably why some studies have shown that quadraplegics are 'happier' after their accident.
I guess that post of mine made it after all. I posted it last night and it don't show up this morning. It was probably Bush's fault:)
I think the government has to oppose PAS with all means available even if people think it violates their autonomy. The only way we can justify cooperating in suicides is by saying we think that people like that (whole classes of people) have lives that aren't worth living. We have many programs to prevent suicide because we think their (or certain people's)lives have tremendous value and to kill themselves would be doing something horrible-an infinite loss to themselves and to us.
With PAS, the government would be involved in a terrible bigotry. It would be working its tail off to save certain people but telling others they'll help make it possible because after all people like them do not have lives worth living. That would be intolerable do.
I'm not arguing that there aren't some people who at the end of the day after all the counseling want to kill themselves. I would think the law of large numbers (I think there is one) would include people like that. I don't have any numbers on how at my fingertips on how many do. But we (society/the government) can't cooperate with them because doing so says people with their conditions have lives not worth living. That's wrong in and of itself, but once we do that, then it's a short step to euthanasia and thinking we are doing certain classes of people a favor by ending their lives that we think causes suffering to themselves merely by existing.
So I'm glad that the public is not embracing PAS. And I'm hoping that the US government will be successful in OR and stopping the use of narcotics for killing-a non medical purpose. We'll see.
Don, the reason why assisted suicide is necessary is because people are forced to commit suicide violently when it is not available: jumping in front of a train, off a building, shooting themselves, cutting their wrists, bringing a toaster into the bath, or a combination of these methods, among many others.
Now, they certainly can't tell their family or friends about their plans, because that could leave them open to charges: 'Why didn't you stop them?' And when they come back and see their loved one with a plastic bag over their head, or blood all over the room, they are shocked and scarred, possibly for life. And on top of this, they couldn't even *be* with their loved one during their final moments.
Tony, I don't see how anyone is forced to commit suicide. They don't have to do it. But I think you are really saying that we are keeping them from getting help in doing so.
Would you try to stop anyone from killing him or herself? And if you would, why? Why this one and not the others?
Two points - I believe I have a right to convince people not to commit suicide, but not a right to forcibly stop them. I certainly don't have the right to label them as 'depressed' and lock them in Alcatraz and subject them to years of therapy against their will.
Secondly, since suicide is not illegal, they have the right to do so in any way they choose, so long as they don't hurt anyone, and they have a right to succeed, which would prevent botched attempts which can occur if one jumps in front of a train (especially one that wasn't properly funded and can't go faster than 60km/h).
Would you say that an 18 year old-old enough to go to war and to vote, but probably not to drink, or even a 15 year old-old enough to commit a crime and be held responsible and sent to the pen for his actions-should be able to request PAS over what most of us would deem temporal problems that seem eternal to him or her and make life not worth living, like a broken relationship, failure to get into the college of choice, being rejected by the army and etc? If not, why this instance and not others?
The reaction of the disability community demonstrates that allowing PAS or merely arguing for it, deeply hurts far more people than could ever be hurt by the actions of a few people splattering themselves on a speeding train. The only way to justify PAS is to say certain people have lives not worth living, otherwise almost all of us will say no. If we say yes, we are telling those people their lives are so pathetic and lacking in value that we can understand why they'd rather be dead than alive and we won't get in their way or we'll lend a hand terminating their existence. That is a horrible hurt.
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