Author Warns of New Legislative Push
for Doctor-Assisted Suicide
By Danielle Gillespie
CNSNews.com Correspondent
June 18, 2003
(CNSNews.com) - With advocates for doctor-assisted suicide pushing for
legislative passage in Hawaii and Vermont, the author of an updated book on the
subject has issued a bleak warning. Wesley J. Smith writes that physician-aided
suicide could evolve into a widespread practice of doctors refusing to treat
certain patients because they are too old or too sick.
Eight years after its original publication, the revised edition of Forced
Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder will be
in stores next month.
"The overall picture (Smith) paints is very discouraging," said Mitch Muncy,
editor of Spence Publishing. "On the legislative front, things are deteriorating
slowly because this is becoming an issue in more and more states. Even though
it's opposed in a lot of places, the general tendency is for there to be more
and more legal space for this to occur."
Oregon is the only state to have legalized physician-assisted suicide, although
the U.S. Justice Department under the direction of Attorney General John
Ashcroft is trying to overturn the law. Ashcroft has appealed to the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to rule in the next couple of
months.
Attempts to legalize the procedure have already failed in Maine, Michigan,
Alaska, New York, Florida and Hawaii. But some Hawaii lawmakers are trying
again, as are certain legislators in Vermont and Wisconsin, according to Jane
Neimeyer, executive director of Death with Dignity.
"I think that legislatures in states including Hawaii and Vermont will think
it's time to have dignity at the end of life," Neimeyer said. "There are many
people who are tired of waiting."
Opponents of doctor-assisted suicide agree - the campaign for legalizing the
procedure has intensified.
"Assisted suicide folks are pouring more effort and energy into campaigning
right now," said Rita Marker, executive director of the International Task Force
on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. "It's a dangerous time."
In his book, Smith, who is a consultant of the International Task Force on
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, argued that if physician-assisted suicide were
legalized nationwide, it would lead to involuntary euthanasia.
In addition to legislative updates on the issue, Smith dedicated a chapter of
his book to the Netherlands, which legalized euthanasia in 2000.
"There has been research that now shows (Smith's) predictions of what would
happen in the Netherlands, has come to pass," Muncy said. "It's no longer denied
that there is a lot of involuntary euthanasia going on there."
While acknowledging that involuntary euthanasia has taken place in the
Netherlands, Neimeyer said Oregon is a much more relevant example for people
living in the United States.
"The Netherlands is an incredibly different place, and the citizens of that
country have a very different culture and set of values," she said. "We know
that the people of Oregon are much like the folks in the rest of the country and
we look to them to provide us an example."
In Oregon, some patients are choosing to die, and it's not the physicians making
that decision for them, Neimeyer said.
In Forced Exit, Smith also introduced a new concept called the futile
care theory, which he argued was an example of how medical care in the United
States was already headed in the direction of involuntary euthanasia, Muncy
said.
The futile care theory involves a physician who refuses to grant a person
certain medical treatments out of the belief that the patient will die anyway.
An elderly person's request for brain cancer surgery might be rejected because
the physician thinks the person is too old and the surgery too risky.
Smith argued this is just one example of how hospital committees are gaining
more control of end-of-life decisions, and proof that if physician-assisted
suicide was further legalized, physicians might abuse the process, Muncy added.
Neimeyer said she does not see any correlation between physician-assisted
suicide and futile care because Oregon physicians, she said, do allow patients
to choose their end-of-life care. "As an advocate for the legislation of aid in
dying, I am also concerned about the element of futile care," she said.
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