…id her terminal diagnosis led to her insurance recommending to her lethal drugs to perform assisted suicide would be much cheaper than life-saving treatments. While they eventually agreed to cover her treatment, she echoed McMullin Powell’s concerns that governments shouldn’t be setting such black-and-white legislation when that’s not how businesses like health insurance work, and are instead focused on financial savings. “It’s this uncontrollable…
…ted suicide laws have pushed for public acceptance based on a generalized trust that medical providers are both willing and able to protect very ill individuals from medical mistakes as well as coercion and abuse. But that trust is, in many cases, misplaced and, in all cases, unrealistic. Claims that there have been no abuses are patently false, but more cases would surface if these laws were not designed to hide them. Assisted suicide laws must b…
…l demeans them and burdens caregivers and society. This repudiation of our human connection and responsibility to each another lies at the core of these bills, which contain the seeds of abuse, neglect and coercion. To deny this and to dismissively state that we are “fighting a battle we don’t need to fight” is insulting and belittles the lived experiences of those who have been forced to constantly struggle against the medical system to get neede…
…ana declined to find a state constitutional right to assisted suicide, but ruled that physicians may raise the defense of a victim’s consent if they are prosecuted for homicide in an assisted suicide case[3]. While we disagree with much of the Baxter court’s decision, it’s approach has the benefit of denying to those involved in the death of an old, ill or disabled person the blanket legal immunity that is characteristic of the four state statutes…
…ld learn what the end results were. HeLa cells, the first line of immortal human cells, were taken from the body of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951, without the knowledge or consent of her or her family. Those cells are still being used in medical research today. Now, there is COVID-19, also known as coronavirus. What started as an outbreak has turned into a worldwide pandemic, with over one million Americans dea…
