By Julie Grimstad
More states are legalizing physician-assisted suicide and calling it medical treatment. Opponents of such laws are accused of lacking compassion and assaulting the right to choose. Actually, what is under assault is truth.
According to Gallup, Most Americans Favor Legal Euthanasia – 66% of Americans believe doctors should be legally allowed to assist the suicides of “terminal patients living in severe pain who request it.” We have to ask them, “Do you have any idea what assisted suicide entails?”
Many people have undoubtedly bought the lies of the death lobby (i.e., Compassion & Choices and its allies). Here are a few examples.
Lie #1: Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD)—the death lobby’s euphemism for PAS—is not suicide. It is medical treatment.
Response: This claim is ludicrous. No matter who supplies the lethal means, the person who kills himself or herself commits suicide. Furthermore, authentic medical treatment consists of interventions aimed at improving health and preserving lives, not ending lives.
Lie #2: Laws permitting PAS are necessary because people experiencing severe pain should have a right to end their suffering.
Response: PAS has been legally practiced in Oregon since 1997. Yearly reports by the Oregon Health Authority reveal that pain is not the main reason people give for requesting PAS. The most common reasons are decreasing ability to participate in enjoyable activities, loss of autonomy, and loss of dignity. People with serious illnesses do not need the added pressure of knowing they can “choose” to kill themselves. They need emotional support, respect, adequate care and pain management, assurance they will not be abandoned, and help finding a reason to live. Every person has the God-given unalienable right to life. No one has the “right” to kill oneself.
Lie #3: Safeguards in PAS bills protect against abuses.
Response: The “safeguards” are merely ploys to win legislators’ approval. The death lobby intends to remove them as soon as possible after a PAS law is enacted. The so-called “safeguards” that have been stripped from such laws include residency requirements, waiting periods to give people time to change their minds after making a request for PAS, and conscience protections for healthcare providers. For instance, California’s PAS law went into effect in 2016. It took less than five years for the death lobby to proclaim that “safeguards” were “barriers” to full access to assisted suicide. In 2021, the CA Legislature reduced the 15-day waiting period required between two oral requests to 48 hours and trampled on the conscience rights of physicians who refuse to comply with requests for PAS.
If there is nothing to hide, why lie?
If you would like to know more about healthcare advocacy and how to protect your loved ones, visit the Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization website.