RBM
CAGiversary!
In a nutshell:
1.) In 1997, The Supreme Court ruled that dying patients have no constitutional right to assisted suicide. This decision did not explicitely drive nor discourage states passing their own laws, as Oregon voters soon did. Oregon is the only state to have passed such a law.
2.) In 1998, the state of Oregon passed a law enabling physician-assisted suicide--with multiple constraints--and to date, more than 200 people have chosen to make use of this Death with Dignity Act. The citizens of Oregon would vote to keep this state law twice, in the coming years.
3.) In 1999, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted of murder for assisting in the suicides of people in Michigan. He has since appealed this conviction, unsuccessfully.
4.) On the week of October 5, 2005, the Bush administration went to the Supreme Court to challenge Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law.
*****
Now. What is NOT not on the table: removal of medical treatment. Therefore, cases involving the removal of respirators or feeding tubes (such as the Schiavo case) would *not* be effected. Oregon's Death With Dignity Act allows physicians to actively assist suicides by prescribing lethal doses of narcotics, so this active form of suicide assistance is what is at stake.
Opponents to physician-assisted suicide: Medical technology is here to preserve life and not to end it prematurely. Doing so de-values life and supports the idea that suicide is a valid way of dealing with the troubles and travails of life. Furthermore, if this practice is allowed, then life-saving measures will be at the mercy of market pressures, and HMO's will have even more brutal ways to factor the survival of select patients/demographics against profit margins. Generally speaking, hospice care is preferred, in desperate cases.
Proponents for physician-assisted suicide: the willingness to endure pain, loss of personal freedom and/or dignity (e.g. due to loss of control over one's bodily functions,) and the infliction of financial burdens upon loved ones is something which varies from case to case. However, when these factors lead to a person's desire to hasten his own impendending death, his physician should be able to help ease the pain of doing so. Oregon's law is designed to stave off people with depression, those who are not in the late stages of terminal illness, and those without access to multiple physician's opinions. Furthermore, they cite the absence of any escalation in the incidence of suicide over the past 8 years, and also cite the preponderence of upper-middle class people with medical insurance who have used physician-assisted suicide (as opposed to destitute people without health insurance)...thus indicating that this Act has not been used to target the poor (quite the opposite, in fact.)
*******
I think the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon was drafted with great care, and I don't relish the idea of DEA narcs prosecuting physicians who cross the line from "treating pain" to "facilitating suicide" in cases with terminally ill patients in a great deal of constant pain. (This NPR program provides some interesting input from both sides of the issue) Furthermore, since the Supreme Court has not set forth a federal law to explicitely ban or condone physician-assisted suicide, I would prefer that individual states choose their own legislation in this matter, as Oregon has done, without some half-assed measure like attempts to use the DEA to hamstring a key step of the process.
[edit: more than 200 people, Zion (#2.) That's about 1 in every 800 deaths in Oregon. Average age of such patients has been 69, diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although some have been as young as 25.]
1.) In 1997, The Supreme Court ruled that dying patients have no constitutional right to assisted suicide. This decision did not explicitely drive nor discourage states passing their own laws, as Oregon voters soon did. Oregon is the only state to have passed such a law.
2.) In 1998, the state of Oregon passed a law enabling physician-assisted suicide--with multiple constraints--and to date, more than 200 people have chosen to make use of this Death with Dignity Act. The citizens of Oregon would vote to keep this state law twice, in the coming years.
3.) In 1999, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted of murder for assisting in the suicides of people in Michigan. He has since appealed this conviction, unsuccessfully.
4.) On the week of October 5, 2005, the Bush administration went to the Supreme Court to challenge Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law.
*****
Now. What is NOT not on the table: removal of medical treatment. Therefore, cases involving the removal of respirators or feeding tubes (such as the Schiavo case) would *not* be effected. Oregon's Death With Dignity Act allows physicians to actively assist suicides by prescribing lethal doses of narcotics, so this active form of suicide assistance is what is at stake.
Opponents to physician-assisted suicide: Medical technology is here to preserve life and not to end it prematurely. Doing so de-values life and supports the idea that suicide is a valid way of dealing with the troubles and travails of life. Furthermore, if this practice is allowed, then life-saving measures will be at the mercy of market pressures, and HMO's will have even more brutal ways to factor the survival of select patients/demographics against profit margins. Generally speaking, hospice care is preferred, in desperate cases.
Proponents for physician-assisted suicide: the willingness to endure pain, loss of personal freedom and/or dignity (e.g. due to loss of control over one's bodily functions,) and the infliction of financial burdens upon loved ones is something which varies from case to case. However, when these factors lead to a person's desire to hasten his own impendending death, his physician should be able to help ease the pain of doing so. Oregon's law is designed to stave off people with depression, those who are not in the late stages of terminal illness, and those without access to multiple physician's opinions. Furthermore, they cite the absence of any escalation in the incidence of suicide over the past 8 years, and also cite the preponderence of upper-middle class people with medical insurance who have used physician-assisted suicide (as opposed to destitute people without health insurance)...thus indicating that this Act has not been used to target the poor (quite the opposite, in fact.)
*******
I think the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon was drafted with great care, and I don't relish the idea of DEA narcs prosecuting physicians who cross the line from "treating pain" to "facilitating suicide" in cases with terminally ill patients in a great deal of constant pain. (This NPR program provides some interesting input from both sides of the issue) Furthermore, since the Supreme Court has not set forth a federal law to explicitely ban or condone physician-assisted suicide, I would prefer that individual states choose their own legislation in this matter, as Oregon has done, without some half-assed measure like attempts to use the DEA to hamstring a key step of the process.
[edit: more than 200 people, Zion (#2.) That's about 1 in every 800 deaths in Oregon. Average age of such patients has been 69, diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although some have been as young as 25.]
