John B. Kelly
SecondThoughtsKelly@Gmail.com
June 25, 2019
Joint Committee On Public Health
In Opposition to H.1926/S.1208
“End of Life Options Act”
My name is John Kelly and I am the director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts. We have been fighting bills like this since the 2012 referendum.
The end-of-life options act may sound good, with its ideal of a person in control choosing when to end their suffering, but in reality for far too many people, it functions like the death penalty.
Like most progressives, I strongly oppose capital punishment. We simply can’t stomach the fact that at least 4% of people sentenced to die are not guilty. We know that when there is a mistake, there’s no remedy.
H.1926 would in effect sentence to death non-dying people. Doctors misdiagnose all the time, and it’s estimated that 12 to-15% of people will outlive their six-month terminal diagnosis. That’s 3 to 4 times the percentage of mistaken death sentences.
People live months, years, even decades longer than predicted. Oregonian Jeanette Hall wrote the Globe in 2011 that when she was diagnosed terminal, she sought the overdose drugs. Her new Dr. persuaded her to try more treatment, and she is alive 19 years later, urging Massachusetts not to repeat Oregon’s mistake.
A 2nd group would lose their life for financial reasons, whether by insurance denial or medical bankruptcy. People have been denied traditional but expensive treatment, and offered assisted suicide instead. Profit-making insurance companies see every claim as a loss, and are skilled at their game of deny and delay.
And then there is a third group, people who are bullied, coerced, or worse. One in 10 adults over the age of 60 are abused every year. The state has no involvement after the drugs are dispensed. Someone in line to inherit can help sign a person up, serve as a witness, pick up the drugs, and administer the drugs to the patient, and who would know? Since everyone involved is immunized by a “good faith” standard, there’s no possibility of investigation.
And when more than half of suicide deaths in Oregon last year were reported to feel like a burden on others, we can see evidence of bullying, shame, and loss of options. When you read the title of the bill with different emphasis, it doesn’t mean options for the end-of-life but “the end [pause] of life-options.”
We say, do a forensic investigation of people not dying well. Because that’s inexcusable when we have the most advanced palliative care ever. So that people don’t feel like a burden, everyone should have funded homecare. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Stick to your progressive principles and reject this bill. Let’s make sure that Massachusetts is done sentencing people to die.