Death with Dignity: What do we advise our clients? Letters to the editor in response.
WSBA,July, 2009 Source
To the Editor:
I was glad to see Margaret Dore's article about Washington's new physician-assisted suicide law ("What Do We Advise Our Clients?" May 2009). One problem very personal to me is that legalizing assisted suicide encourages people diagnosed with terminal illnesses to give up hope and to give up on life prematurely, to say the least.
In November of 2005, I was diagnosed with a rare form of endocrine characinoid cancer and in cases where the generating tumor cannot be located, as was my case, some 80% of such patients are dead within six months. In March of 2006, the "tracker" in my blood stream was off the charts at 742 when normal is 0 to 40. This, along with having earlier contracted Parkinson's disease, has made for a challenging life. Like most people who receive such a diagnosis, I sought a second opinion from the premier institution in the nation that treats my form of cancer, M.D. Anderson, in Houston. However, they refused to even see me, indicating they thought it was hopeless. Obviously they were wrong.
Proponents say assisted suicide is just an "option." A patient hearing this "option" from a doctor, who they view as an authority figure, may just hear he or she has an obligation to end their life. This is pure tragedy and the state has no business incentivizing people to give up hope and prematurely end their life.
-David "Chris" Carlson
Gallatin Public Affairs
Spokane
Editor's Note: As indicated by Mr. Carlson, he served as the voluntary statewide chair of the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, the major organization that campaigned against the adoption of Initiative 1000.
To the Editor:
I am 53 years old and a U.K. citizen who uses a wheelchair full time. My spine is collapsing, trapping nerves and causing extreme pain as it does so. I write to support Margaret Dore's article, which criticizes Washington's new Death with Dignity Act (May 2009).
Twenty-some years ago, my doctors believed that I did not have long to live. I also wanted to die. Several times I took active steps to end my life. I was saved only because friends intervened and had me taken to the hospital, where I was treated against my will. If your new act had been in place, I would have been a victim of "aid-in-dying" and would not be writing you now.
I was saved because my friends refused to accept my view that my life had no value. What I needed, and what they gave, was the reassurance that my life did have dignity even though I could do little for myself.
Since the passage of Washington's act, the death movement has been intensifying its efforts in North America and Europe. I can only hope that this trend can be reversed to protect suffering people who deserve the same support that I had.
What they desperately do not need is to be told they are right to want to die, and should be dispatched. I urge you to do what you can to reverse this trend.
-Alison Davis
National Coordinator
No Less Human
Dorset, England
To the Editor:
I am the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and chair for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, International. I agree with Margaret Dore's article criticizing Washington's new Death with Dignity Act. Her analysis is correct that while the law is promoted as providing "choice," the reality is something else.
The Washington act uses words in a deceptive way to mislead readers as to the act's true intent. Ms. Dore noted the defined term "self-administer," which seems to require administration of the lethal dose by the patient, but doesn't actually do so. "Death with dignity" laws in Washington and Oregon, in fact, empower other people to make the choice for the patient.
-Alex Schadenberg
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
London, Ont., Canada
To the Editor:
Was it a coincidence that Margaret Dore's sobering article on Washington's new assisted-suicide law appeared in the same issue as "The Case of the Defrauded Elder" and "Violent Crime Stats Raise Alarm: Elderly Women Most Vulnerable?" Each article describes the vulnerability of the elderly and ill and the difficulty of protecting even the wealthy and powerful from abuse. Ms. Dore's article exposes the lack of safeguards in the so-called Death with Dignity Act, which provides a new mechanism for the worst form of abuse by those whose financial interests neatly dovetail with the expedited death of a loved one.
Sadly, Ms. Dore's analysis is accurate. The strategic vagueness of the language in the statute has been largely ignored. With no requirement that the death be witnessed, or that the patient himself/herself administer the lethal dose, or even that the patient be competent at the time of ingesting the lethal dose, the dignified death promised by the statute's title may be anything but.
-Theresa Schrempp
Sonkin & Schrempp, PLLC
To the Editor:
I am a doctor in Oregon where physician-assisted suicide has been legal for 11 years. I agree with Margaret Dore that legal assisted suicide "enables people to pressure others to an early death or even cause it."
The safeguards in Oregon's law have proved to be a sieve. Although "only the patient" is supposed to take the lethal dose, there are documented cases of family members feeding it to the patient. Family members often have their own agendas and also financial interests that dovetail with a patient's death.
What we know from the scant information provided by the "official" Oregon statistics is that the majority of patients who have died via Oregon's law have been "well educated" with private health insurance. (http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/docs/year11.pdf) People with these characteristics are typically those with money. Thus, was it really their "choice?"
Hopefully, Washington residents will have a better experience with so-called "death with dignity" than we have. At the same time, this seems unlikely given that your new law is based on our law.
-William L Toffler, M.D.
Professor of Family Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland
To the Editor:
Kudos to Margaret Dore for her article on the Death with Dignity Act in the May Bar Bulletin. We need to focus more on protecting our elderly and keeping them well informed of the consequences of their choices (talk about role reversal!). They are our mothers, our fathers, our grandparents. They gave us life.
-Kareen Torgerson
Bellevue