Conservative Republican and former legislator Fred Deutsch says the “Death with Dignity” ballot measure is all death and no dignity. Rejecting the petitioners’ preferred terminology and claims of compassion, Deutsch says that legalizing assisted suicide is really about “killing Granny”:
The idea that assisting a suicide shows compassion is misguided. Suicide eliminates the person, and results in suffering for those left behind—grieving families and friends, and other vulnerable people who may be influenced by this event to see death as an escape.
True compassion doesn’t put lethal drugs in a sick person’s hands and abandon them to suicidal impulses or to self-serving motives of others who may want them dead. True compassion helps vulnerable people with their problems, instead of treating them as the problem.
If you oppose legalizing suicide, the simplest solution is not to sign the petition to put the measure on the ballot. That will kill the measure, which I believe is much better than killing people [Fred Deutsch, “Ballot Measure to Legalize Killing Granny Coming to South Dakota,” Dr. Fred’s Place, 2017.04.21].
Deutsch’s opposition, which he promises to write more on in the coming weeks, foreshadows the tone South Dakota’s religious right will take in opposing this measure.
Compassion doesn’t let a person suffer great pain with no hope of survival. I have sat at my brother’s bedside as he laid in his hospital bed after his body had ceased performing any function without the aid of machines. I witnessed his pain for days. I knew his wish was not to live in this condition for another moment but I was helpless to do anything about it. There was no rational reason why he suffered for another 18 months. I loved my brother but his suffering served no purpose.
True compassion helps vulnerable people with their problems, instead of treating them as the problem.
I’ll keep this in mind the next time wingnuts vote to take away food stamps, heating and housing assistance, medical insurance, school lunches from dignified poor, elderly, disabled and children. Hypocrisy much?
Making-even forcing people to suffer -is what compassionate conservative does. Uness you are filthy, stinking rich.
Mr. Deutsch has an issue with people making their own choices. It’s as if he believes he’s been chosen to be the “grand authority” who’s mission is to tell us what to do and how to best interpret our personal situations. I can only imagine where that mindset originated and what baggage it hauls along.
So if someone is about to jump off a bridge, should the cops and social workers tell them to just jump?
Hospice is a situation when someone is about to die that they stop medications to heal and just administer pain relief for comfort. When my Mom was dying she had been on morphine for two years already. She then had a problem that greatly intensified the pain and was guaranteed to kill her. So they increased the morphine. And increased it a few more times. My sister(an extreme rightwinger) had worked in a hospital lab and explained to us that to much morphine would slow the heart enough to kill someone. Each person has their own level of morphine that they can tolerate. She said that if you do not know exactly when someone will die, although you can check the heart rate, at some point the morphine which is keeping the pain to a reasonable level will kill them. So the question becomes, do you want someone to have three more horrible days, or two good days? If the goal is to stop pain, you can keep them comfortable and in due time they will die and we all will.
Deutsch is also on record as opposing the death penalty.
Perhaps Mr. Deutsch is being too simplistic. But here is a different perspective from someone who’s not.
http://badcripple.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-relentless-push-for-assisted.html
Ben, that is an excellent link – thanks! One of the very last comments in the link, however, makes the most salient point:
That, I believe, is a factor that opponents of PAS often overlook. It is easier to oppose PAS on philosophical or religious grounds when you are not the one who is suffering horribly.
bcb- Touché.
@Deutsch … Comparing the death penalty to euthanasia is clever, huh? Like comparing a chiropractor to a Doctor? Highly invalid but clever, in a “squirrel” sort of misdirection ploy, when all arguments point to your “failure to persuade”.