December 5, 2011 | 3:14 PM |

Major Battle Over Assisted Suicide Brewing In Mass.

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Politics, dignity 2012, massachusetts medical society, physician-assisted suicide

A London hospice patient

Mark my words: There’s a great big battle brewing in Massachusetts over helping terminally ill patients commit suicide.

That’s not an original thought; in fact, a post last month on the New Old Age blog at nytimes.com was headlined “The Next Death-With-Dignity Battleground” and described energetic efforts to put the issue on next year’s Massachusetts ballot.

But the signs are multiplying that the battle is indeed on its way. The group behind the ballot initiative, Dignity 2012, gathered nearly 80,000 residents’ signatures, which seems to be a comfortable margin over the 70,000 or so needed to put a measure on the ballot. And this weekend, delegates at a major meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society voted to reaffirm their opposition to physician-assisted suicide, according to a society press release. It begins:

The Massachusetts Medical Society, the statewide association of physicians with more than 23,000 members, today voted to reaffirm its opposition to physician-assisted suicide, with its House of Delegates voting by a wide margin to maintain a policy the Society has had in effect since 1996.

Opposition to physician-assisted suicide was part of a larger policy statement that includes recognition of patient dignity at the end of life and the physician’s role in caring for terminally-ill patients. The policy was approved by more than 75 percent of the Society’s delegates.

Lynda Young, M.D., president of the Society, said that “Physicians of our Society have clearly declared that physician-assisted suicide is inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer and health care provider. At the same time we recognize the importance of patient dignity and the critical role that physicians have in end-of-life care.”

Stephen Crawford, spokesman for Dignity 2012, responds that the measure as proposed — the full language is here — is not about “physician-assisted suicide.”

“What this question will allow under Massachusetts law,” he said, “is for terminally ill patients to ask their doctor to prescribe life-ending medicine. That is not physician-assisted suicide in the sense we traditionally think of it. These are self-administered drugs.”

And, he said, “This is not suicide in the traditional sense. These are people who are dying, not people who wish to take their own lives because they find themselves in despair or a state of depression. Many of these people would love to live for many more years, but their disease is killing them. And the Dignity 2012 ballot question will give everyone greater dignity and control at the end of their lives.”

One more point: “Our ballot question specifically says that any doctor who, on moral or ethical grounds, chooses not to prescribe this medication — they can. This is not to compel a physician to do anything — a physician or an institution.”

I wouldn’t care to hazard a guess as to which side will win, but I do dare to predict an ugly fight. When we posted an earlier item on this ballot question, I had to delete more nasty comments than any other post of ours has drawn so far. They even included an ad-hominem insult directed at a recently bereaved father. This just seems to be one of those issues that draws on-line trolls out of their lairs.

But it also has official arguments on both sides, and there are interesting track records to be mined from Oregon and Washington state, which have both already approved similar measures. Here’s a foretaste of the possible array of forces from Paula Span on The New Old Age blog:

In the states where assisted suicide has won voter approval (Oregon in 1994 and again in 1997, and Washington in 2008) or has failed to win it (Michigan in 1998, Maine in 2000), advocates for people with disabilities, anti-abortion organizations, religious groups and others have battled it. But “the Catholic Church and its political arms provided the lion’s share of the campaign contributions to the opposition,” said Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, an end-of-life advocacy group. “These are big budgets.” In Washington State, Ms. Coombs Lee said, the campaign cost close to $7 million.

  • http://twitter.com/aliyaleigh Aliya Leigh

    Is the show “Mercy Me” fiction or fact?
    By Aliya Leigh

    The web show “Mercy Me” based on assisted suicide also known as euthanasia is a suicide facilitated by another person, especially a physician, who organizes the logistics of the suicide, by providing the necessary quantities of a poison.

    In the book, “Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Killing or Caring?, 1998”, states, “The ancients stressed the voluntary nature of the dying, provided that it was done for the right reason; for example, to end the suffering of a terminal illness. Indeed, in classical Athens, the city magistrates kept a supply of poison for anyone who wished to die.” 

    In the book, “A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America, 2003”, states “There was a remarkable continuity in Church medical ethics regarding suicide and euthanasia between the dawn of Christianity and the late Middle Ages. Medieval references to voluntary death were rare, suggesting that the actual practice of euthanasia had tapered off dramatically since the fall of Rome. Laws in some parts of Europe dictated that a suicide’s corpse be dragged through the streets or nailed to a barrel and left the drift downriver. The medieval ethos was distinctly uncongenial to any kind of self-murder. 

    Enlightenment toleration of suicide proved to be temporary. Under the leadership of evangelicals…a vigorous religious counterattack gained momentum as the late eighteenth century drew to a close. The various waves of religious revivalism, starting with the Great Awakening of the mid-1700s, prevented secularists and agnostics on either side of the Atlantic Ocean from generating popular support for taking one’s life. These events dovetailed with the Second Great Awakening of intense evangelical fervor in the first years of the nineteenth century and strengthened the condemnation of suicide and euthanasia that stretched back to the earliest days of colonial America.

    The rejection of suicide and euthanasia remained firm, even after many of the new states decriminalized suicide in the wake of the Revolutionary War. The majority of Americans rejected suicide’s common-law punishment…but no matter how sympathetic they were toward the suicide’s family, most Americans stopped far short of condoning self-murder. As late as the antebellum period there existed in the United States a firm consensus…against suicide and mercy killing.”

    It seems that religious leaders have been a part of our lives. Instead of turning to God and read the Bible for ourselves, we as people have followed the steps of men. Why? Is it easier to follow a human person with fault then a spirit being? Is it practical for us to worship something we can see, instead of something we cannot see? Why do we believe in what I man has to say instead of what the Bible has to say? 

    In the ancient Greek and Romans, they practiced the art of euthanasia, but when religion leaders got involved and then euthanasia was a sin. Why?
    It is fine to kill a murder through the death penalty law, but when we as humans need to die with dignity; it’s a sin. Why? 

    On a side note, my cat of 10 years named Sheba was sick and I needed to put her down. Sheba mind was fading away. She would get angry over the smallest things and she forgot how to use the litter box. 

    When I told my good-byes to Sheba, I cried. I knew, I was doing the right thing because I did not want her to suffer. She was the longest relationship I had in my life and I knew I was going to miss her. She will always be in my heart. 

    We as humans were not made to suffer, but to live wonderful and healthy lives. There does come a time when you are terminally ill and suffering in pain. Why can’t we have rights to end our own lives? If we have rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms and the freedom to gather together; I want my freedom to die. Make sense, right? 

    In the United States in America, each state approaches the matter of assisted suicide. For information about the state laws regarding assisted suicide, please go to: Patients Right Councilhttp://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/assisted-suicide-state-laws/. This site provides information about the laws of each state, health care decisions and facts about artificial feeding. For more about Patients Right Council, please call (740) 282-3810. 

    When to consider assisted suicide? It should never be up to church, religious leaders or doctors; only the individual who is suffering. 

    What is “Mercy Me” web show? 

    “Mercy Me”, is about a doctor named Mercy Bachachille, who has an unconventional practice of assisting suicide, for a price. Realizing that she has serious reflections on her own moral conflicts, she begins to change into a more nurturing doctor to her patients. With support from unlikely characters in her life, Dr. Mercy begins to reshape her moral framework, and balance out her life. You can see the pilot episode here,http://www.aliyaleigh.com/Mercy_Me.html .

    Why did I create and produced the show? I believe in assisted suicide. I believe it’s my right to end my life with dignity, if I am terminally ill with no hope of recovering. I do not want to deteriorate into nothing. I want the right to end my life because it is my right to make. 

    http://tl.gd/eiesfo