Disability Rights Activists Against A.B. 374

Marilyn Golden is a disability rights activists who I have worked with over the years in opposing assisted suicide. She is smart, effective, and understands the stakes in this debate for her community and indeed, for each of us.

In this column, she writes cogently about why we should reject assisted suicide. Here are a few highlights: “Supporters of assisted suicide often talk superficially about choice and self-determination. It is crucial to look deeper. We need to think about how assisted suicide would actually function in our medical system and our society…

“One major reason for the diverse opposition [to A.B. 374] is the deadly mix between assisted suicide and profit-driven managed health care. The cost of the lethal prescription generally used for assisted suicide is about $100. That’s far cheaper than the cost of treatment for most prolonged illnesses. The incentive to save money by denying treatment already poses a significant danger. Again and again, HMOs and managed care bureaucrats have overruled doctors’ treatment decisions, sometimes hastening patients’ deaths. This danger would be far greater if assisted suicide were legal. Denying patients access to life-sustaining treatments while offering them the ‘choice’ of assisted suicide would subtly but coercively steer them toward death…

Assisted suicide advocates tout the example of Oregon, which legalized the practice in 1997. But Oregon shines only if you don’t look too closely. Each year, Oregon publishes a statistical report that leaves out more than it reveals. In fact, several of these reports have admitted, ‘We cannot determine whether assisted suicide is being practiced outside the framework of the law.’ The reports provide only general statistics, no details of individual cases. The statute gives the state neither the resources nor the authority to investigate violations. All of the information comes from doctors who prescribed the lethal drugs. Yet doctors who fail to report face no penalty. Autopsies are not required, so there’s no way to ascertain the person was terminally ill. The state has never reported on several prominent cases at variance with the law — these cases came to light only via the Oregon news media. Moreover, the state destroys the paperwork after each annual report, so it’s impossible to independently verify the conclusions.”

Assisted suicide is bad medicine and even worse public policy