Assisted Suicide

Everyone wants freedom of choice.  It has been a rallying cry for nearly four decades.  If only those who cry the loudest about choice actually cared about making sure people have choices.

First, it was the freedom for women to choose abortion.  It is their bodies, they should decide.  But making it legal to "choose" was not enough.  Now millions of Americans who believe that abortion is a great evil have no choice but to support it with their tax dollars. 

Then it was the freedom of scientists to choose destroy human embryos for medical research.  Science needs to have choices if it is going to progress after all.  But legally allowing scientist to choose what kinds of stem cells they want to work on is not enough.  Now millions of Americans who believe that destroying human life for research is a great evil  have no choice but to support it with their tax dollars. 

A guest opinion piece in my local paper yesterday really solidified the hypocrisy of those who cry "choice" loudest. In "Death with Dignity a law, but unavailable," Leah Bean describes the recent death of her 76 year-old grandfather. Bean's grandfather wanted to die using Washington's new assisted suicide law but was unable to find a doctor willing to write the lethal prescription and he died in his home of cancer. 

Ms. Bean urges us to contact our legislators so that that we cannot be "denied" assisted suicide like her grandfather.  She writes, "If we let this law get swept under the rug, what law is next to be pushed out of reach? At stake is not only the right to die peacefully but the right to our freedom of choice."

It is not enough that her grandfather was legally given the choice to choose assisted suicide.  Ms. Bean implies that government needs to coerce or even force doctors to participate in assisted suicide.  Washington's assisted suicide law was sold as giving the terminally ill freedom to end their own lives. The pro-assisted suicide lobby argued that is was not right to impose someone else's ethics on the terminally ill. But forcing doctors to participate in assisted suicide would impose the patient's ethics on physicians and hospitals.  Washington's law explicitly provides for doctor non-participation.  Doctors and hospitals could choose to assist or not.  It was a selling point.  Now that health care providers have chosen not to join in, it sounds as though assisted suicide advocates would like to force them to participate.

What about a doctor's freedom of choice?  I shudder at the idea of government forcing doctors to prescribe lethal overdoses to patients when it is against the physician's better judgment and ethical values.  Health care providers have rights as well. At least they used to.

"Pro-choicers" should stand up and take notice of this "support my choice or you will be forced to" trend.  Not only is it terrifying, but it is in direct conflict with the very ideals that they supposedly fight for.  Or are "pro-choicers" only for choice when the "choice" is something they agree with.

Like with eugenic abortion and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, assisted suicide offers death as a solution; a medical treatment that does not eliminate disease, just the patient who has it.

The slippery slope here is very slippery.  Most do not realize the implications of legalized assisted suicide.  Washington state surely did not understand the slide it stepped on when it passed I-1000 on Tuesday.  Initiative 1000 allows doctors to write lethal prescriptions for patients who are considered terminally ill with 6 months left to live.

It sounds nice until you realize that the "right-to-die" movement will not stop pushing assisted suicide as a "solution" until every adult in the United States can kill themselves by asking a doctor for a lethal prescription.  It sounds extreme, but within days of passing I-1000, Final Exit Network released this statement which clearly says that I-1000 did not go far enough:

November 5, 2008

Olympia, WA

Although the supporters of Initiative I-1000 are delighted that Washington becomes the second state to pass a “Death with Dignity Act”, there is much more to be done. Ted Goodwin, President of Final Exit Network, said, “We congratulate all those who worked so hard to achieve this important right for Washington’s citizens, and we applaud the citizens of Washington State for making the right choice. “Final Exit Network and its members supported passage of this landmark initiative by donating to the advocacy effort spearheaded by Washington Death with Dignity and former Governor Booth Gardner. However, the job is not finished”.

Although, like Oregon’s “Death with Dignity Act,” I-1000 gives doctors the authority to prescribe a lethal dose of medications to terminally ill individuals under strict controls, it condemns to continued suffering as many as 40% of those who desperately want to end their life because of intolerable suffering but cannot under the law because their illness is not diagnosed as “terminal”.

“Unfortunately,” said Goodwin, “many patients do not meet I-1000’s strict criteria. Individuals with neurological illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) and Alzheimer's disease often lose the reason and will to live long before their disease qualifies as ‘terminal’.” Goodwin adds, “For these individuals, neither I-1000 nor the Oregon law go far enough. “That is why Final Exit Network pledges, until laws protect the right of every adult to a peaceful, dignified death, Final Exit Network will be there to support those who need relief from their suffering today!” [my emphasis]

Let me repeat.  Death is not a solution.  Nor is it "medical treatment."  Real medical treatment relieves the suffering.  It does not eliminate the patient. 

Final Exit Network really wants all of us to be able throw ourselves out with the bath water. Some "solution."

I recently blogged about Barbara Wagner who was told by the Oregon State Health Plan that they would pay for assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy her doctor recommends. Anyone who has followed assisted suicide around the world knows this is one of the many consequences of offering death instead of care and compassion.

Why do I think this is relevant on a blog about biotechnology? Interestingly, it was the big-bad-for-profit-biotech company Genentech that offered Barbara the drugs for free. It was the government-run health insurance that told Barbara that they would pay for her to die and not for her to live.

Washington State will vote this November on I-1000, an initiative, like the one in Oregon, that would allow physicians to write a lethal prescription for terminally ill patients. It's supporters say is about compassion and choice for those who suffer from a terminal illness. Look closer and one sees that it is the insurance companies that will have the "choice" to offer the much cheaper assisted suicide instead of the more expensive medical treatment and pain control. Those who are the least able to pay, will be the most effected.

Martin Sheen, who everyone knows is no conservative talking head, agrees. From the NO on I-1000 website:

For his part, Sheen was eager to make a statement against assisted suicide.

"I try to work when I'm not on the screen to help improve conditions for the most vulnerable people in our country -- low wage workers, immigrants, the disabled and the poor," Sheen said. "We have a health care system where the more money you have, the better medical care you receive. Initiative 1000 is a dangerous idea -- because so many people do not have the money necessary to get the care they need. When I heard about Initiative 1000, I wanted to help stop it before it harms people who are at risk."

You can hear his radio ad here.

For those of you who live in Washington state take notice. If you want your insurance plan to write you a letter like the one Barbara received when you have a terminal illness, then vote for I-1000. If you would rather have your insurance pay for the expensive doctor-recommended treatment instead of the cheap over-dose that will kill you early, then vote NO on I-1000.

I have said many times that we abandon the human embryo to the whims of researchers at our own peril. By protecting the human embryo, we protect all of us that are of the same species.

The uproar in Oregon about the state offering coverage for assisted suicide but not life-extending chemotherapy continues. Barbara Wagner was not the only one that was told that Oregon would pay for her to die, but not for her to live. Randy Stroup also received that same message.

So what does the Oregon assisted suicide debacle have to do with the protection of the human embryo? Well, I cannot lace it together better than Cal Thomas in his piece ,"The Price is (not) Right" in the Jamestown Sun:

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the cultural tsunami that has devalued human life. Did it begin with the subjugation of women? Did it begin with slavery? The Nazis made their contribution with the Holocaust and Josef Mengele’s hideous human experiments. Surely unrestricted abortion added to the growing list of inhumanities.

Now we have the next wave. Randy Stroup is a 53-year-old Oregon man who has prostate cancer, but no insurance to cover his medical treatment. The state pays for treatment in some cases, but it has denied help to Stroup. State officials have determined that chemotherapy would be too expensive and so they have offered him an alternative: death...

How much is a human life worth? Body parts and bone marrow can fetch some pretty high prices, but a human life is more than the sum of its body parts. The reason this is important is that the federal government is now placing a price tag on individual lives and if government ever gets to run health care from Washington, bureaucrats will start making decisions similar to the one made for Randy Stroup.

"Body parts and bone marrow can fetch some pretty high prices" indeed. Once we start seeing one member of the human species as a valuable commodity that can be priced and torn apart for parts, we all look that way. Especially to the government:

According to The Washington Post, several federal agencies have come up with figures for the dollar value of a human life to analyze the costs and benefits of new programs they believe will save lives.

Saving lives is the announced intention, but if government gains the power to determine when a life is no longer “worth” saving and orders the plug to be pulled or the death pill to be administered, then what? This is the future of the socialized medicine that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party wish to impose on us.

Lets us never forget that it was the Oregon state-sponsored health care that told Barbara Wagner that she wasn't worth the price of the medication she needed and it was the private Big Pharma company Genentech that came to her aid by giving Barbara her chemo drugs at no charge.

Thomas leaves us with the same message I have been screaming at the top of my lungs for nearly 3 years:

When pro-lifers warned about the “slippery slope” more than three decades ago, they were dismissed as alarmists. Not anymore. Their prophecy is now being fulfilled.

Please! Let us put a stop to the out of control slide and see the human embryo as what it is: a member of the human species that has no price tag and cannot be destroyed for parts.

That is the message that Barbara Wagner got from her letter from the Oregon State plan that stated it would not cover the chemotherapy her doctor prescribed, but would cover the cost of physician-assisted suicide.

Please watch this piece by KVAL news, where Barbara is rightly outraged. Interestingly enough, it is the pharmaceutical company Genentech that has come to Barbara's rescue by providing her chemo drugs for free. So much for those super-evil Big Pharma companies and the benevolent state-sponsored health care.

For those of you who live in Washington state take notice. You will be voting on an Oregon-like assisted suicide initiative in November. If you want your insurance plan to write you a similar letter when you get a life-threatening disease, then vote for I-1000. If you would rather have your insurance pay for the expensive doctor-recommended treatment instead of the cheap over-dose that will kill you early, then vote NO on I-1000.

The slogan for the I-1000 campaign is "It's my decision!" Looks to me like, if you choose to live, it is really up to your insurance company.