Diocesan Resources
Assisted Suicide: Death by Choice? by Rita L. Marker (2009)
Assisted Suicide: Death by Choice? by Rita L. Marker
Across the country assisted suicide is being promoted as a “choice” that should be available – only for adults, only in “hard cases,” and only under supposedly careful guidelines. This promotion, The real agenda behind assisted suicide: with the “increasing cost of health care in an aging society, ... economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice.” —Derek Humphry, founder of The Hemlock Society however, is just the first step of a strategy developed by assisted-suicide advocates to achieve their goal of death on demand. Unfortunately, assisted suicide often receives very little attention, and many people who deeply respect human life are unaware of the threat of assisted suicide.
Assisted suicide means deliberately and intentionally providing an individual with the means to commit suicide. It means that doctors would provide lethal overdoses of drugs to patients so they can end their lives.
In 1994 Oregon voters approved the “Death with Dignity Act,” transforming the crime of assisted suicide into a “medical treatment.” In the years that followed, similar laws were proposed in more than twenty states. Each and every one failed until November 2008, when Washington State voters adopted a law virtually identical to that in Oregon. Deceptively soothing phrases like “death with dignity” and “aid in dying” gave some people the impression that they were voting for compassionate care, for better pain control, and for the right to forego medical treatment that was overly burdensome and unwanted. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Rita L. Marker is an attorney and executive director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.