Assisted Suicide, And The Lie Of The ‘Right To Die’
Jack Kevorkian. He used his medical expertise to kill over one hundred people.
I recently argued in this space that legalizing Doctor-assisted suicide based upon the claim that there is a “right to die” lacks logical rigor. (Leave the lack of ethical rigor aside for a moment.) As I put it, “Legalizing assisted suicide has the effect of bureaucratizing what would otherwise be a personal, private choice. In sum, rather than increase the scope of personal liberty, legalizing assisted suicide actually shrinks it.” All that remains true. But the recent efforts of a doctor here in Portland to open an assisted suicide clinic bring to mind another way in the which the “right to die” argument is pure sophistry.
Even though suicide is technically illegal in many jurisdictions, there exists no way to enforce this law. If a person wants to kill himself, alas, he shall succeed. There is even a formal lobby that supports this so-called right: the Guardian has reported on an organization called the Hemlock Society, which supports peoples’ rights to shoot, poison, and stab themselves. Thus, the codification of a formal “right to die” hardly prescribes the way society operates: it merely describes it.
Assisted suicide laws do not, therefore, guarantee a right to die. Rather, they create a new right through legislation: the right of doctors to kill their patients. The only party whose rights are expanded by assisted suicide laws are those of physicians who wish to terminate their patients’ lives.
Given that American physicians are held to the Hippocratic Oath – that of, “Do No Harm,” – it is increasingly clear that Doctor-assisted suicide is philosophically and logically untenable. “Harm” is injury, and death is the gravest harm of all. Let’s euthanize assisted suicide laws before they do any more harm.
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Screw your right to die laws, screw your ‘logic’ which appears to be at best, flimsy, if I decide (ME) to die on my OWN TERMS there is not another person on the planet that can stop me..
regardless of what you say…
As I put it, “Legalizing assisted suicide has the effect of bureaucratizing what would otherwise be a personal, private choice. In sum, rather than increase the scope of personal liberty, legalizing assisted suicide actually shrinks it.” All that remains true.
Oh! “All that remains true”, does it? Good thing you never even read the comments in that other thread, otherwise you might be expected to respond to the obvious flaws in your logic. But “all that remains true”; we know so, because Ethan Epstein Has Spoken!
Remember, kiddies, “freedom” means the freedom to only do the things Ethan Epstein wants you to do.
“The only party whose rights are expanded by assisted suicide laws are those of physicians who wish to terminate their patients’ lives.”
Um, Dr. Kevorkian was not running around the country “terminating” random patients all willy-nilly.
Dude, have you seen the videos of Jack Kevorkians’ patients, you know, the videos where the people with prolific cancer/Alzheimer’s/NAME YOUR TERRIBLE, PAINFUL DISEASE beg Dr. Kevorkian for help?
Furthermore, Kevorkian didn’t “wish” to “terminate” anybody, quite the contrary! People came to him and said, “Yo, I am in terrible pain. I do not want to live anymore, because I am in so much dreadful pain. Can you please help me?”
Seriously man, I just don’t understand why you object to this?
You confuse me.
Sincerely yours,
Riley
Seriously man, I just don’t understand why you object to this?
Riley,
because he’s retarded.
Sincerly,
In response to another comment. See in context »Justin
I have to agree with Riley.
What greater freedom is there than the decision of whether or not to end your own life?
If these clinics were legalized and open to more than terminally ill patients I wonder how many lives would actually be saved? I would think there would be mandatory waiting periods, counseling and plenty of help for a suicidal person before assistance was given.
I think it is a much crueler fate to force a terminally ill person to live with dire pain than to let them choose the manner of their end. How is it merciful to keep someone in excruciating pain for the rest of their life?
Laws that make suicide illegal are among the most ridiculous laws we have in this country. I wasn’t arrested, tried and convicted after my own PTSD related attempt. How does it help a suicidal person to put them in prison if these laws were enforced?
The right to die should be a fundamental right in a society that prizes personal freedom over all else.
On a lighter note, it makes me think of the $0.50 Suicide Booths from Futurama. “You have selected slow and horrible.”
I think you have, again, badly missed the mark. Assisted suicide is properly invoked when the patient feels the greatest harm would be the perpetuation of a miserable, painful life, not its termination. This is the point of physician assisted suicide in the first place. In this way physician assisted suicide is completely consistent with Hippocratic Oath.
As to what you describe as the right of doctors to kill their patients, one hardly knows where to begin. You phrase your piece as if doctors can hardly wait to exercise this new right, and will do so smilingly and without professional responsibility. Perhaps the best reply to this “reasoning” is in the from of a question: Can you possibly be serious?
We interpret laws over time in ways that meet current accepted practice. Just as we amend our Constitution to expand the notions originally intended by the framers, so too should the Hippocratic Oath of “do no harm” be expanded. Don’t you think that in today’s world where people have longer life expectancies and the means to mitigate pain the Hippocratic Oath could also be broadly interpreted as “cause no suffering”? We certainly give our beloved pets this courtesy, why not our beloved mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, or children? It makes complete sense to me that there is something other than hospice care for those who are too sick to live, but not sick enough to die mercifully.
We certainly give our beloved pets this courtesy,
I have gone thru that twice now, and in some ways it was harder to deal with than letting go of my mother — she had Alzheimer’s, and had no idea where she was or even how to do much more than breathe. She didn’t have a DNR order, or a living will so we had no choice but to make her as comfortable as possible and simply wait — in my opinion THAT was the truly harmful part of ‘do[ing] no harm.’
[...] these pages, my colleague Ethan Epstein explains his opposition to the right to die via assisted suicide. Assisted suicide laws do not, therefore, guarantee a [...]
http://trueslant.com/sahilkapur/2010/07/11/red-herring-arguments-against-the-right-to-die/
Ethan,
Forgive me because I know my comments are going to sound condescending, but that is not my intention. You are, obviously, young — very young. Perhaps, you have not had to witness the slow, painful death of a loved one to this point in your life. If you had, as I did with both my mother and mother-in-law, you would understand why many of us favor assisted suicide. Truthfully, what I oppose is the use of the word “suicide,” which always conjures up the vision of an individual too cowardly to face lives trials and tribulation. Euthanasia is somewhat better in that it refers to “a good death,” but the word still invokes visions of pet owners sparing their pseudo-children unneeded pain.
There needs to be a way of referring to the compassionate release from unbearable and unending pain and suffering that so many people are subjected to while they wait for the inevitable. As human beings, we are entitled, I believe, to a long life. However, when the quality of that life diminishes to a mere existence, then, as human beings, we should be allowed to book our voyage to the hereafter at a time of our own choosing.
Your statement, “Rather, they create a new right through legislation: the right of doctors to kill their patients,” is misguided and naive. You are entitled to express your views, but statements such as this, without having walked the walk — without having known both emotional and physical pain yourself — clearly point to your lack of intimate experience with the issue.
Why can’t we recieve asst. suicide? Why does anyone have the right to tell someone how they should live? or not? We should be able to tell the goverment what WE want, and not the other way around. The goverment should fear the people, not the other way around.