Gov. Booth Gardner Lets the Cat Out of the Assisted Suicide Bag
I have long maintained that assisted suicide legalization is not intended to be permanently limited to the "terminally ill for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering," (which is, in itself, a false premise). After all, as we have seen in the Netherlands and Switzerland, when "choice" is coupled with killing as an acceptable answer to human suffering, the actual health status of the person who wants to die is ultimately of little concern. (See my testimony last year in front of the California State Senate Judiciary Committee.)
Former Washington Governor Booth Gardner has, perhaps inadvertently, validated my point in this article in the Seattle PI. Gardner is disabled by Parkinson's disease, which has motivated him to promote the legalization of assisted suicide in a planned voter referendum next year. This matter is discussed in the paper, along with Oregon and the famous and meaningless propaganda statistics that are published each year, which the reporter swallows with not a hint of skepticism.
Be that as it may, Gardner--like most assisted suicide advocates--does not really want to limit the "option" of assisted suicide to the terminally ill. But, for the sake of political expediency, he is willing to--for now. From the story:
I will leave Gardner's cliche romanticizing of assisted suicide to another time. But it is clear from his attitude that he is following the assisted suicide game plan: Pass laws limiting legalized assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Once assisted suicide is deemed acceptable and becomes popularized, then expand the license--whether through further legislation, court action, lax enforcement, or all three--toward the ultimate goal of near death on demand.There, 292 residents in the last 10 years have used Oregon's Death With Dignity Act to end their lives. Each had to be diagnosed as terminally ill by two physicians and evaluated to ensure that the wish to die was not merely manifestations of depression. Most importantly, all had to administer the lethal dose themselves.
Too many hurdles for Gardner's taste--not to mention the fact that the rules would disqualify him, since Parkinson's, while debilitating, is not considered fatal. In his ideal world, the patriarch would be able to gather his family--two children, eight grandchildren and his first ex-wife (there are two)--at the Vashon Island home where Gardners have lived since 1898, and announce, "OK, it's going to be Friday. I want to go on Friday." Then he would contact a doctor, request a barbiturate and die as he has tried to live--with purpose and intent.
At the moment, however, that is illegal, and Gardner is willing to moderate his vision in the interest of passing any law that would allow what he calls "death with dignity."
Well, at least Gardner is candid about his ultimate goal. Can't say the same for some of his assisted suicide political bedfellows.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:42 PM
26 Comments
26 Comments:
You can't always cure psychological suffering. Do you think that quadraplegics should be treated for as long as it takes, even if it doesn't work? Well, I don't know many psychologists who are willing to treat someone for twenty or thirty years for free.
Two weeks is plenty of time to change one's mind. When someone chooses sedation and dehydration to end their life, there is no requirement for any "cooling off" period, and consent isn't required. So why is this more acceptable than assisted suicide?
Ah, proving my point that it is about death on demand. Merci.
This coming from someone who DEMANDS that everyone dies "naturally". When assisted suicide is not legal, people commit suicide early, while they are still physically able.
So who's the real pro-lifer here?
Do you have shares in a phamaceutical company that manufactures morphine, by any chance?
So, yes, you want death on demand. Fine. And that is what the debate should be about.
Your facts are wrong. Hospice shows that if people receive proper care and suicide prevention, most of those who express a desire for assisted suicide change their minds. Moreover, other studies show that terminally ill people who may want to die today, are often very glad a few weeks later that they are alive.
This isn't about being "pro life." It is about proper medical ethics, and proper public policy that protects the lives of all citizens equally.
But, as you have indicated, it isn't really about terminal illness. It isn't really about alleviating suffering. It is primarily about ideology.
Most change their mind? What about those that kill themselves because they don't trust hospices? Palliative care is not always acceptable TO THE PATIENT. Requiring that they submit to further palliative care is offensive.
"Protect" their lives. And yet, you don't support vitalism. Talk about double standards.
It's not about ideology. It's about autonomy. Do you own your own life, or not?
Of course it is about ideology; that of radical autonomy--as your posts on this issue repeatedly and vividly demonstrate.
Your life is your own, but that doesn't give you the right to force the society through its public policies to acquiesce in, and indeed cooperate with, anything you want to do with your life. The bigger picture matters, too. And our response to suicide desires should not be to hand out a bottle of pills. It should be prevention, care, and support.
Thanks for the exchange.
"Your life is your own, but that doesn't give you the right to force the society through its public policies to acquiesce in, and indeed cooperate with, anything you want to do with your life. The bigger picture matters, too. And our response to suicide desires should not be to hand out a bottle of pills. It should be prevention, care, and support."
Conversely, what gives YOU the right to demand people to live against their will? Quadraplegics who need a respirator to live can COMMIT SUICIDE by asking for the respirator to be unplugged. Do you actually think that those who do so do NOT require death?
If they're not that "lucky", and do not require a respirator, then sedation and dehydration are their only options for suicide.
And if all doctors can get easy access to peaceful suicide pills, why can't anyone else? If any group of people is at a higher risk for suicide, doctors are, because of the stressful nature of their jobs. Yet even though they CAN commit suicide on a whim, most do not.
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If you want to off yourself, you have every right to do it. Nobody is stopping you.
The rub is some of you want doctors involved in medical killing, allegedly to relieve "suffering," whatever that means. It all too often is a justification to save money or to have contempt for people who are more likely to need medical help, i.e., the disabled and the elderly. This is absolutely abhorrent and is nothing short of legalized murder.
Why are some people so big on death, anyway? And why are some people so arrogant as to assume people who are quads, brain damaged, and have other disabilities have lives not worth living and would rather be dead?
Who the hell are YOU to judge?
First, I made a typo in my previous post: "Do you actually think that those who do so do NOT require death?" should be "desire death".
(If you want to off yourself, you have every right to do it. Nobody is stopping you.)
Then why can't I have the right to do so painlessly with a method that doesn't fail? Failure to pull it off often lead to more suffering.
(The rub is some of you want doctors involved in medical killing, allegedly to relieve "suffering," whatever that means. It all too often is a justification to save money or to have contempt for people who are more likely to need medical help, i.e., the disabled and the elderly. This is absolutely abhorrent and is nothing short of legalized murder.)
Oh, please. If anyone has an interest in keeping patients alive, it's the pharmaceutical companies, so that they can make even more money. No one is demanding that anyone die.
(Why are some people so big on death, anyway? And why are some people so arrogant as to assume people who are quads, brain damaged, and have other disabilities have lives not worth living and would rather be dead?
Who the hell are YOU to judge?)
Who are YOU to judge that they don't deserve a choice? Why must they die naturally? If you really believe life is ALWAYS worth living, hook yourself up to machines that will keep your body alive until you are 120. Go do it now, and I'd have more respect for you. Why don't you lead by example?
Tony:
Since you seem pretty much ignorant of the history of euthanasia, and have no concept that it's bad to turn doctors into killers (never mind that doing so is a wholesale reversal of their proper role), you should try reading Robert Jay Lifton's "The Nazi Doctors." Then you can come back and take part in an informed discussion.
Yet another Godwin. People like you like to lump Michael Schiavo together with the likes of Hitler.
Death is death. And mercy killing by any other name is still murder.
I am not sure where you get off giving me a type, seeing as you know next to nothing about me. Ad hominem attacks only reveal the weakness of your arguments.
Tony: You are free to express your opinions here. But you are not free to use the "V" word for cognitively disabled people. It is demeaning, denigrating, and dehumanizing. I have removed your post for its use. If you wish to re-post using a non pejorative, feel free.
Fine. I guess you both think that consent is irrelevant, therefore when teenagers masturbate, they are raping themselves.
But you do seem to value people who were in Schiavo's condition more than those who can feel, think and act. The Schiavo case wasn't an example of "locked-in syndrome". She was gone and she wasn't coming back.
Tony: Your analogies are ridiculous, which is why no one is responding. I value Terri Schaivo equally to others without impairments.
No, you value Terri more than those who aren't cognitively impaired. If you valued them equally, you wouldn't fight for her rights before universal healthcare is in place.
An interesting moral equivalency, to say the least.
There are those of us who are convinced that socialized health care would usher in a system of rationing that would lead to even more deaths of disabled people. Thus you would replace a passive system of injustice -- that there are rich and poor at all -- with an active and a murderous one.
(An interesting moral equivalency, to say the least.
There are those of us who are convinced that socialized health care would usher in a system of rationing that would lead to even more deaths of disabled people. Thus you would replace a passive system of injustice -- that there are rich and poor at all -- with an active and a murderous one.)
Or we could simply reduce the US military budget by a few billion dollars annually.
And this is sad, but true - for the amount of money keeping Terri alive each year, one double lung transplant for someone with CF could have been performed.
And there is a flag on the field: We are getting off topic, which is assisted suicide. Thanks.
Hey Tony, I think you're misspelling your name here. The first name should start with "W", and the last name should be "Jen".
;-)
Anyway, there's a sad irony in the present situation (where sedation + dehydration are legal, but active VE and assisted suicide are not).
There is no waiting period for terminal sedation combined with dehydration. Therefore, the patient dies sooner than she would if voluntary euthanasia were legal. In Oregon, for example, there is a mandatory two-week waiting period to allow patients to change their mind. Not so with terminal sedation.
I don't know about anyone else, but if I was being counselled for "depression" in a hospice at the end of my life, I'd be inclined to agree with whatever they said just so they'd leave me alone. That's not an example of counselling being effective. That's an example of people giving up and accepting what they're told.
Tony: Terminal sedation is not the right term. It is palliative sedation, and it is not intended to kill but is supposed to be a 'last resort' measure if the patient cannot otherwise be made comfortable, usually due to extreme agitation, not pain. I have spoken with pain control expert physicians. It is rarely necessary, and when it is, it is done at the very end and the patient does not die of the sedation or dehydration, but the underlying disease.
Euthanasia types, ever willing to distort proper medical practice, now embrace it as a form of euthanasia. If it is used this way, it is being used in ways that are not palliative, and probably would not be necessary to keep the patient comfortable.
This is just one example how euthanasia advocacy is corrupting proper medical practice. Frankly, it makes me sick.
Believe what you want. The fact remains that sedation is often combined with dehydration, because that's the only legal way in which palliative care staff can help patients die.
The message being given is "Anything except a legal injection is OK."
And if sedation an dehydration is given to a quadraplegic, for example, death will occur faster than it would naturally.
It isn't a matter of belief. It is what the treatment is supposed to be. A depressed disabled man with quadriplegia should not be sedated. He/she should be given care and assistance. There are many suicidal people who wanted to die after becoming paralyzed who, upon receiving care, embraced life. It took a long time, but that was the truly compassionate approach.
Alas, there will always be some who will violate professional ethics. But that doesn't make it right.
Now, let's leave it at that, since we will not agree.
As you wish. But most would not agree with giving counsellors twenty years to "cure" depression in a quadraplegic. Anyone who takes that long doesn't deserve to be a suicide counsellor.
As I mentioned earlier, I know that I would probably say "yes" to anything just to stop people accusing me of "depression".
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