Last week, this blog devoted some space to the oral arguments held at the Montana Supreme Court over a lower court’s finding of a “constitutional right” to assisted suicide for “terminally ill” people.
Since then, there has been surprisingly little discussion about the decision being awaited in Montana. Nevertheless, some people have been moved to write on the topic and I want to highlight them here today.
William Peace at Bad Cripple wrote about it in “Montana, Suicide and Disability“:
(excerpt)
If you accept the premise that more people prefer death to a life with disability then Montana is not a place to live. Here I refer to anyone who has a disability or lacks human dignity. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other national news outlets are reporting about the Bill Baxter case. For those unfamiliar with Baxter he died of cancer and fought not to live but die with the help of his doctor. Montana’s highest court will decide this week if Mr. Baxter’s claim a doctor’s refusal to help him die violated his rights under the Montana’s State Constitution. This would be an interesting legal question if lives were not at stake. If Baxter’s position is upheld Montana would become the first state to declare an assisted death to be a constitutional right. Montana’s constitution holds that “the dignity of the human being is inviolable”. I can only assume not all humans are perceived in the same light. Among those that come to mind are those with a chronic illness, the elderly and people with a disability. I suppose the court like the rest of society sees some people as not fully human and thereby lack dignity. Much of course depends upon on what defines us as human and dignified. I consider myself to be fully human. I would also like to believe I have a certain amount of dignity. Much to my chagrin, many strangers that see me go by do not consider me fully human and certainly not dignified. A few have told me directly “I would rather be dead than in a wheelchair”.
Michael Kirsch, M.D. at MD Whistleblower shared his thoughts in “Physician-assisted Suicide: Constitutional Right or Just Plain Wrong?:
(excerpt)
Physician-assisted suicide is wrong and no court decision can make it right.
I expect some to claim that my categorical view against this practice is callous and dogmatic. I reject these arguments. There are some moral lines that simply must not be violated. The medical profession is sworn to relieve suffering and to comfort those who cannot be healed. This is our mission. Our patients trust us with preserving and protecting their lives. If we were to hasten or cause death, regardless of the motive, we squander this trust and sacrifice the essence of what it means to be doctors. It would change how we physicians view our own profession and would certainly change how society view us. Euthanasia would conspire with overzealous organ procurement in intensive care units and nursing homes as forces that distort how we view these human beings. If physician-assisted suicide were to become accepted, then it will inevitably enter the minds of physicians, nurses and family members who are caring for dying, or even chronically ill patients. Once this becomes an option, then it becomes legitimatized. It’s easy and frightening to extrapolate where this could lead us. The medical profession must remain guardians of life, not expediters of death. We need to keep our mission pure.
Finally, Kevin Yuill shared some of his own analysis on Spiked Online in “Assisted suicide: the real slippery slope“:
(excerpt)
In some ways, what happens in this state will have little impact beyond its borders. Just one million people live in this huge territory, which is nearly one-and-a-half times the size of the British Isles. But the implications of the outcome of this case, of course, do not end with Montana. If successful, which both sides admit looks likely, the plea for a right to a death with dignity will make the restrictions contained in the Oregon, Washington and the proposed British legislation – that the recipient of a physician-assisted suicide must suffer from a terminal illness and have less than six months to live – irrelevant.
These three individuals come from distinct perspectives. Bill Peace is a disability activist and anthropologist. Michael Kirsch is a practicing physician with some significant fears about some of the directions that medicine may be heading. Kevin Yuill is a professed liberal who teaches American studies in the UK.
For all their differences, there is significant overlap in their respective analyses – I hope people go read what these individuals have to say. –Stephen Drake
Related. I heard the author of the
research piece done by an author, from ProPublica website, and the NYTimes, in which it was published, on the killing of patients in Memorial Medical Center in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The author was interviewed on DemocracyNow.
(I wrote DemocracyNow that Not Dead Yet should have been on the show.)
I was not able to see my comment posted on ProPublica, nor have I yet
received a reply from the site moderator whether I messed up my posting below the article(which is possible) or it was rejected.
In my comment, I mentioned that NotDeadYet was not interviewed for the article, which I read on ProPublica, not the NYTimes Sun. Magazine of a week ago. I was very critical based on: who will speak for the dead? The article was very kind to the doctor accused of killing patients, mistakenly labelled “euthanasia”.
No indictment was made by the grand jury.
The points of view of the disabled, the old, the ill and the dead (well, who will speak for the dead if not us?) once again, have been left out of discussion.
I’ve never understood the using of specific cases to make a decision because there are always specific cases in the other direction as well. Here, there are people who wish to be put out of their misery and others who don’t. How the heck can this be put into a nice neat package?
The only reason of course for the debate is to validate the medical profession. These kinds of debates always include doctors and give the impression that we can’t do anything without them.
This debate should take place without the inclusion of the medical profession. It would serve as a way to unclutter the question for one thing. Doctors are just one way to deal with illness and death. There are so many other ways. Think of a desert island. What would you do there? In a funny way this really simplifies things.
What’s needed here isn’t an answer but rather a way to debate this. In my mind the issue for debate is: Be it resolved that the medical profession’s fear of lawsuits impedes the individual’s desire to do things the way he or she wants to.
Out of this angle will come the fact that the medical profession comes first. What oh what does this mean?
And why oh why, even on blogs that decry what the profession does, is the starting point always that they are immoveable?
It’s the medical equipment that exists. Those who dispense it are merely optional. We could go home with medical equipment, instructions and bide our time on our terms.
I urge blogs such as this not to validate medical people where it is the equipment that fundamentally matters.
On a desert island much can be done with a stick if this is all one has. On a desert island much can be done without the fear of making a doctor jealous because one can actually make decisions and incisions oneself.