Assisted suicide

Friday, Mar. 04, 2016

I am both pleased and frightened by that fact that the assisted suicide bill in front of the Utah Legislature was blocked this year. 

Pleased, because I oppose the bill; frightened, because it was sent to interim study, so it might return next year.

I’m appalled that this concept of assisted suicide has gained such a foothold in our state, our country and our world, not only because it goes against the Catholic teaching of sanctity of life but because of the temerity of those who believe we need a law that will allow humans to play God by choosing who can live and who should die.

The bill’s intent is compassionate: to ease the suffering of people facing painful death from terminal illness. However, rather than helping them find ways to live with dignity, such as better palliative care or insurance that doesn’t burden them with devastating medical bills, the bill offers only self-inflicted death.  

So I object to calling it “Death with Dignity” or “End-of-Life Options.” It is nothing other than assisted suicide: A doctor prescribes a dose of lethal medication that is otherwise unobtainable, with the sole intent for the person receiving it to kill him- or herself.

If someone were to give a loaded gun to another person, knowing that he or she would use it to commit suicide, the one providing the firearm would be brought up on charges. I see no difference between this scenario and that of a doctor giving a lethal dosage, but the bill specifically exempts the medical profession from liability in providing the deadly drugs. 

The bill carries the deceit further by insisting that the cause of death for the person taking the deadly dose be listed as the terminal illness, not suicide – tacit acknowledgment that taking your own life is morally repugnant to our society, even if a doctor has determined that you have only months to live.

I attended the legislative meeting at which the bill was heard. Several proponents said that the lethal dosage would be taken at most a few weeks before the patient would die naturally – something they can’t in any way guarantee. It certainly wasn’t the case with Brittany Maynard, the California woman with a brain tumor who made headlines in 2014 when she drank poison on a day that she specifically chose. According to news reports, chemotherapy and radiation could have given her more months to live, but she declined those treatments and drank a potion she knew would kill her.

Other testimony that frightened me was the doctor who praised the Netherlands as an example.

If you’re going to cite the Netherlands, don’t neglect to mention that under that country’s laws, 650 babies were put to death in 2013 because they were judged to be in pain, or that between 2011 and 2014 110 Dutch people were euthanized for mental disorders.

Some will say that the Utah bill permits lethal doses only for mentally competent adults who request it, but once we start choosing who should live and who can die, we end up valuing some lives more than others; and if it is acceptable for a terminally ill adult, then why not for a terminally ill child or an incompetent person whose parent or guardian deems it appropriate?

One woman who testified in favor of Utah’s assisted suicide bill pointed out that dogs are euthanized, and people should have that option as well. 

The difficulty with this analogy is that pets legally can be put down even if they are perfectly healthy. Surely we can afford our fellow human beings more dignified treatment than that given to an animal.