Freedom to smoke. Freedom to drink. Freedom to engage in unprotected sex. Freedom to eat (or not). Freedom to expose oneself to the sun. Freedom to drive.
The contradiction of these freedoms should be obvious. A person can freely and significantly increase his chances for lung cancer, liver disease, HIV, cardiac arrest, skin cancer and even death. But in 49 states, when he is given less than six months to live, he suddenly loses the freedom to die.
The only state that currently gives terminally ill patients the freedom to end their life is Oregon. But now, the state’s ability to recognize this inherent freedom is at stake.
In 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke out against assisted suicide, threatening to revoke a doctor’s ability to prescribe drugs if he or she did so for the purpose of ending a patient’s life, claiming the practice was not a “legitimate medical purpose” and therefore violated the Controlled Substances Act. Whether or not he acted within his jurisdiction when he voiced those threats is now for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide.
Behind the politics and minute legalities rests a far more potent threat than that which Ashcroft presented to doctors four years ago — a threat against the freedoms of American citizens not only in Oregon but across the nation as well.
Before understanding the true danger posed by the prohibition of these freedoms, one must understand the principles behind Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, which Ashcroft so vehemently condemned.
First and foremost, the act does not give doctors the right to simply kill patients and murder the sick, as many commonly presume. Rather its purpose is to let terminally ill patients feel in control of their situation and to let them die in peace rather than helplessly and with much suffering.
According to the seventh annual report regarding Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (DWDA), published by the Department of Human Services (DHS), “The Oregon Revised Statutes specify that action taken in accordance with the Death with Dignity Act does not constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law” and “the most frequently mentioned end-of-life concerns during 2004 were a decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable, loss of autonomy and a loss of dignity.”
Lawmakers took great precaution in assuring that terminally ill patients understood both their decision and their condition before a doctor prescribed any lethal medication. Under the DWDA, Oregon requires that the terminally ill patient, a condition determined by two doctors, be free of any psychiatric problems that may influence his or her decision, including depression, before doctors fill any prescription.
Moreover, the patient must be the one to ask for lethal medication before doctors consider the option or share it with the patient. After making two requests for a lethal prescription with at least 15 days between each request, the patient must sign a written statement witnessed by two people before drugs can be administered — and even then, never by the doctor who prescribed them.
What many perceive to be a simple process in which a sick person’s life is rashly taken is actually a long procedure during which doctors are forced to look out for the needs and wants of the suffering person.
Fundamentalist Christian groups like the Family Research Council (FRC), have spoken out against the DWDA, acknowledging a profound discrepancy between a doctor’s right to give life and the right to take it.
“To pervert the medical profession so that it becomes one of killing rather than healing poses a danger to everyone, particularly the disabled,” Bill Saunders of FRC’s Human Rights Counsel said.
Saunders misinterprets the position doctors have when treating terminally ill patients. Assisted suicide is not a question of killing or healing, because terminally ill patients have virtually no chance of surviving their diagnosed illness. Patients who will almost certainly die within an exceedingly brief period of time can have a doctor alleviate pain they might otherwise experience. In the same way one would argue this to be “playing God,” one might also argue that treating a cancer patient with chemotherapy in order to prolong his or her life is also playing God.
“I feel strongly that approving this legislation is sending a very poor message that we, as a state, are somehow condoning suicide. Helping another person commit suicide is a very serious crime. Significantly lightening the possible consequences for those who commit this crime sends a very dangerous message that we feel their actions do not warrant strong punishment,” Sen. John Kissel (R-Conn.) said.
Using the same mindset, Kissel should also share a distaste for a citizen’s fundamental right to a do-not-resuscitate order that courts have long upheld. Furthermore, the Department of Human Services’ annual report on Oregon’s DWDA clearly states “the Oregon Revised Statutes specify that action taken in accordance with the Death with Dignity Act does not constitute suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing or homicide, under the law.”
Those opposed to assisted suicide commonly argue that killing oneself conflicts with the innate human will to survive, but humans also possess an equally innate desire to avoid suffering. It is crucial that the individual has the freedom to choose between the two when they come in conflict with one another.
If a man can legally increase his chances for death by smoking, then he should be able to freely decide to end his life when given less than six months to live — and John Ashcroft ought to not be so bothered by his decision. The freedom to live and die should be neither partiar nor conditional.
