To be honest, the letter from Katie Densley in the Spokesman-Review on Sunday didn’t surprise me at all. That is, the content of the letter didn’t surprise me. The fact that her letter was published did surprise me. I suspect there are more stories like hers in Washington – and even more in Oregon. But they don’t have the well-funded Public Relations department of C & C (Conflation & Con Jobs) working to get those stories to the public by way of the media.
Here’s the beginning of Densley’s letter, titled “Suicide Like Execution“:
It’s been a year since my uncle opted for assisted suicide. To me it’s an excruciating anniversary. He talked about this for a year before it became law. He’d had surgery for cancer which left him with a catheter. He was depressed at 94 but was home with assistance from friends and health givers. I thought this could never happen because he was just old and depressed.
When the law became reality, friends helped him with his quest. They took him to doctors that my uncle convinced this was what he wanted. His profession had been car salesman so he got the doctors to sign off on him. Friends who were his caretakers tried to talk him out of it, saying it wasn’t right because he wasn’t terminal.
The date was set for the final event. I loved him and wanted to be with him when he died. It felt like an execution.
And the execution went ahead as scheduled. Not terminal, but able to talk doctors into giving him a lethal prescription. Friends who didn’t like it, but just went along with it.
In case you’re wondering, there’s nothing that this niece could do in terms of complaining about the doctor who gave a prescription to someone who wasn’t terminally ill. Unlike the “safeguards” that allegedly restrict assisted suicide to the “terminally ill,” the physicians in question are protected against any sanctions as long as they acted “in good faith.”
What that means is that even if the physician violates any of the guidelines, they are protected from professional sanction, along with civil and criminal liability. All a physician needs to do is stick to the claim that they believed they were acting in accordance with the law. It would take something like a public email from the physician admitting they knew they were breaking the law to pierce the “good faith” liability armor.
Please go and read the rest of the letter and check out the comments. Right now, there aren’t many – just 2 at last count. That says something. What also indicates something about the Washington public is that both commentators ignore Densley’s assertion that her uncle wasn’t terminally ill. Ignoring that piece of her message makes it easier for them to urge her to respect her uncle’s values and get over it.
Why fuss over details? They just get in the way when you want to parrot platitudes about “death with dignity.”
–Stephen Drake