Health Plan and Assisted Suicide. Letters to the editor in response.
Unpublished Letter to the Editor (The Seattle Times), September 9th, 2009
Dear Editor:
I am writing regarding the article ("28 Have Sought Life-Ending Prescriptions" 9-9-2009) concerning the people who have died from assisted suicide.
It was a great sales piece for Compassion and Choices, who funded the assisted suicide bill campaign for I-1000. It was so upbeat and chirpy for such a tragic subject that one might think the writer, Maureen O'Hagan, worked for that organization rather than an "unbiased" newspaper.
Apparently, O'Hagan believes that there is no downside to the reality that some individuals feel so desperate from pain, or the thought of suffering, that they believe their only option is to kill themselves.
I am not even sure this qualifies as a bonafide news article in that it barely shows another side to the issue. O'Hagan offered all of two sentences from Eileen Geller, who is, by the way, a practicing hospice nurse of many years-something O'Hagan failed to mention.
There were also no quotes from people who choose not to die in this way, finding the notion of killing oneself an appalling departure from our values as a civilization, and an attack on our country's founding documents, respecting and protecting human life.
Is this "journalism" or free advertising?
-Elenor K. Schoen