New efforts to pass the California Compassionate Choices Act
have fueled my concerns and renewed my opposition to legalizing
physician assisted suicide in our state.
New efforts to pass the California Compassionate Choices Act have fueled my concerns and renewed my opposition to legalizing physician assisted suicide in our state.
First, let me point out that the recent Supreme court ruling did NOT rule on the morality of supervised suicide as some are claiming! The ruling focused on the separation of power between a state and the federal government. The case they decided just happened to involve Oregon’s physician assisted suicide law.
Nor am I arguing that this is a domino or slippery slope issue. Oregon has allowed terminally ill patients to end life unnaturally for nine years and just over 200 have used that legal option. True, that’s 200 too many as far as I’m concerned, but based on percentages, the response continues to be comparatively lower than anticipated.
I base my views on 10 years of hospice experience, my perception of healthy relationships and my belief system.
Hospice care is a viable, meaningful and accessible way to spend one’s last days. Their programs are designed to address a wide spectrum of very difficult end-stage issues: pain management, hygiene assistance, spiritual support and counseling. In addition to an interdisciplinary team of medical professionals, nationally accredited programs always have a small army of volunteers available to fill specific needs for patients and their families.
In all the years that I’ve been a respite caregiver and a biographer of terminally ill individuals, I’ve only encountered one woman who may have sought a medically assisted death. Let’s call her Alice.
Alice was an elderly woman with no family members nearby who made it perfectly clear that she wanted “out of here.” Not for lack of care or unmanaged pain, but because she felt that her life no longer served a purpose.
During my second visit with this witty, outspoken woman, I noticed and commented on the cardboard boxes piled next to her bed. When she told me that the dusty boxes were filled with her unpublished manuscripts, it just seemed natural to ask if I could read them. Delighted with the request, she gave permission.
Each week, I’d take a manuscript home, read it and when I returned, we’d discuss descriptive narratives, literary techniques or the story itself. I learned a lot from my accidental, no-nonsense tutor.
Four months after our first meeting, I finished her last novella. The next visit was spent sitting helplessly at her side while she wrestled through nightmares in an agitated state.
When I arrived the following week, her room was empty. No Alice, no manuscripts, no empty chair waiting for a friendly face. It seemed that since her last mentoring task was finished and all of her written words heard, she’d finally found the stage right exit.
Which brings me to my point. Yes, there really is one. All of her end of life needs were met through a hospice program. Her pain, her comfort and her need to matter.
It’s hard for me to imagine someone ending their life because they don’t want to exist in a diminished state of wellness. It makes me sad when I meet terminal patients who can’t see the gifts they’re giving to families, friends, hospice staff or volunteers. Invariably, the final gift given – when you have nothing but yourself to give – is priceless!
Caring for and being cared for are a part of the healthy ebb and flow of relationships. When someone plans to terminate a relationship because they can’t reciprocate like they used to, our answer shouldn’t be to silently acquiesce. Our response should be to firmly assure them that we want and need them in our world. And to keep telling them until they believe us.
I’m also opposed to physician assisted suicide because it goes against my faith. Before you discount my faith as an unacceptable line of reasoning, I reply that even though my faith can’t be put under a microscope, it does have substance. It’s not just wishful thinking or a pie-in-the-sky opiate – it’s internal evidence of things not seen.
On this particular issue, my faith assures me that God numbers our days before we’re born and that we need to stay here until his divine destiny for us is complete. It reminds me to pray like David, “Help me to realize that my days are numbered, Lord, so that I live life like a wise person.”
