Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

To live, and die, in peace

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER
Published April 17, 2005

It took Terri Schiavo nearly 13 days to die from a lack of food and water. Those days, according to most of medical science, were not uncomfortable for her.

Even so, a question that kept coming up - whispered mostly - was why her death couldn't have been mercifully hastened. Why not provide her with a little too much morphine in the way many doctors do but won't admit to, or inject her with the lethal cocktail that we use to peacefully end the lives of dying pets? Those questions were asked even as we knew that the law stood in the way of such tender mercies, even for people who, unlike Schiavo, retain some awareness at the end of their lives.

Maybe one of Schiavo's legacies will be to renew the debate over doctor-assisted suicide. Polls taken during the height of the brouhaha indicate that a large majority of Americans would not want to be kept alive in Schiavo's condition. Yet only one state - Oregon - has gone any real distance in providing the option for its dying citizens to leave this mortal coil in a manner and time of their own choosing.

Oregon is the only state that allows physicians to prescribe pills that will bring about a peaceful end for patients, as long as they are judged mentally competent, ask for the prescription multiple times and are within six months of death. This kind of law might not help people like Schiavo, but it could provide peace of mind to millions of others who are sentient toward the end of life and don't want to face the prospect of a slow, agonizing death.

This is something most Americans want, according to numerous polls, but our leaders are standing in the way. California and Vermont are the only states even considering adopting legislation to mirror Oregon's law. Maybe the unseemly display by Congress during Schiavo's last days will move such measures along.

We haven't progressed much on physician-assisted suicide because it is one of those culture-war issues that defies rational debate. Many of those against it profess that it violates their religious beliefs. (To which I say, then you don't have to choose it, but for some reason that never seems to fly.)

Their argument is essentially that because God has a plan for every human life, individuals may not choose to cut short that plan, meaning every human must die a natural death. What I don't understand is how medications, feeding tubes, emergency operations and machines are considered in any way natural. And couldn't it be just as much "God's plan" for someone to die at a time of his choosing, surrounded by loved ones, than being stuffed with tubes and monitored by machines? Even the pope came home to die.

Under the Bush Justice Department - and former Attorney General John Ashcroft in particular - there has been a relentless drive to stop Oregon's program. Ashcroft is one of those true believers who wants to impose his religion on others through the law. In November 2001, he threatened Oregon physicians with the loss of their prescription-writing privileges if they provided pills to hasten a patient's death. The state challenged that action, and the case has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear the issue next term.

To me, there is only one legitimate concern in the right-to-die debate, and that is the possibility that severely disabled patients might feel societal pressure to end their lives prematurely. However, a look at Oregon allays much of those fears. In the seven years since the state has permitted physician-assisted suicide, only 208 people have taken the option. Numbers that small suggest that suicide is a rare choice and not something encouraged by a social norm.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who assisted more than 100 people in ending their lives on their own terms, lives out his days in a Michigan prison. His grandstanding tactics and arrogant demeanor condemned him as much as his actions. But Kevorkian had it right. Future generations will look upon his imprisonment the way we now view the Inquisition's indictment of Galileo or Margaret Sanger's troubles under the Comstock laws - a backward authority using its power to stall advancement.

I have no doubt that one day we will all be granted the dignity to make a choice about our own death. What doctors surreptitiously do to help a suffering patient bring about a quicker end will one day come out of the closet. Maybe all the attention given Terri Schiavo will make that happen a little sooner.

[Last modified April 17, 2005, 00:25:16]