{"id":21907,"date":"2020-07-16T10:57:33","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T15:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=21907"},"modified":"2020-07-16T10:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T15:58:00","slug":"extending-the-right-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/extending-the-right-to-die","title":{"rendered":"Extending the Right to Die?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a> this week, Nicholas Goldberg argues that California\u2019s controversial \u201cEnd of Life Option Act\u201d\u2014which allows for assisted euthanasia in specific cases\u2014should be extended to include dementia and Alzheimer\u2019s patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The End of Life Option Act, argues Goldberg, \u201chas not led to\nthe horror scenarios opponents had conjured,\u201d and instead has allowed over\n1,200 terminally ill individuals to end their lives peacefully. Goldberg\nbelieves the Act should be expanded to include more people, such as dementia\nand Alzheimer\u2019s patients, and that \u201cpolicymakers also could consider people\nwith certain degenerative diseases or those living in chronic pain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldberg then cites the example of his own grandmother, who\nhad made it very clear prior to a diagnosis of Alzheimer\u2019s that when it was\nimpossible for her to speak, read, or remember, she wanted to die. And yet, her\nworst fears were precisely the condition she found herself in\u2014for years. Lying\nin a bed, unable to speak, read, remember, but also unable to dress herself,\nfeed herself, or use the restroom. We must accept, closes Goldberg, that\n\u201cfighting to extend life\u201d is not always the best option, and that \u201cthere are\nfates worse than death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that statement, I agree. One consequence of the amazing\nmedical advances of the past century has been that human life often persists perhaps\npast the point those living it would wish. But I also wholeheartedly believe\nthat there is a grave difference between suspending life-sustaining measures,\nand actively aiding someone in taking his or her own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocates of \u201cassisted dying\u201d like to decry the \u201cslippery\nslope\u201d argument\u2014that allowing one form of carefully controlled, monitored, and\nseemingly merciful euthanasia will then lead to more and more liberalized\npractice or even abuses. But the experiences of countries like Belgium and the\nNetherlands, who were the first to legalize euthanasia, give some strong\nsupport to the slippery slope. The Netherlands became the first\ncountry in the world<\/a> to legalize euthanasia, in 2001. (Before that time,\neuthanasia had been illegal, but still performed and rarely prosecuted.) The\npractice was to be allowed in cases of \u201cunremitting and unbearable suffering,\u201d\nand when \u201cno reasonable alternative\u201d existed. Rob Jonquierre, now the Executive\nDirector of the International Federation for Right to Die Societies, told\nthe Bulletin<\/em><\/a> at the time that\nalthough doctors may see an increase in requests to die, he did not expect a\n\u201cmassive increase\u201d in euthanasia numbers. And yet, in the period from 2007 to 2017,\nthe number of Dutch people who died by euthanasia tripled<\/a>.<\/em> Since that time, the Netherlands has\nalso permitted the euthanasia of minors, those suffering psychiatric illnesses\nsuch as chronic depression, and, most recently, those with advanced dementia\n(in cases where the person had previously expressed a wish to die).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dementia ruling involved the 2016 killing<\/a> of a\n74-year-old woman who had expressed her wish to die by euthanasia before she\nwould need to enter a nursing home. Nonetheless, she also expressed a wish to\nindicate that time herself, \u201cwhile still in my senses and when I think the time\nis right.\u201d She never did so, and eventually, others made the decision for\nher\u2014she was given a sedative in her coffee. She awoke, however, and had to be\nheld down while doctors finished the procedure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to cases that literally involve life and\ndeath, we cannot be too careful. We can never know if the Dutch woman came to a\nplace of enjoying her life, even in a seemingly reduced mental and physical\ncapacity. We can never know if others around her might have found pleasure or\ncompanionship in her presence, again, regardless of her mental capabilities. What\neuthanasia does is pronounce that certain lives\u2014those afflicted by\nsuffering\u2014are less worthy of living. Suffering, so goes the argument, is\nsomething to be avoided at all costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if we are wrong about suffering? What if it can in\nfact be one last route for reconciliation, for healing, for humility, or for\nthe improvement of our souls?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Mr. Goldberg\u2019s story of his grandmother, I offer my own\nstory of suffering. My father, who had been an alcoholic most of his adult\nlife, suffered a horrific trucking accident in 1989 in which his pelvis and a\nnumber of his vertebrae were crushed. He physically recovered enough to walk\nand partake in most activities, but both his pain and his alcoholism worsened\nwith the decades. There were many, many times when he indicated he thought it\nwould be better if he were dead. He hurt too much. There seemed no hope for any\nkind of recovery\u2014mental, physical, or emotional. His actions caused pain to\nthose around him. And then, in April of 2019, he made the sudden decision to\nquit drinking. Against the pleas of his family, he did so cold turkey, with no\nmedical aid\u2014and it cost him his life, four days later, when his heart simply\nstopped. An autopsy was performed. I fully expected the report to indicate that\nhe had, in his last hours, \u201cgiven up\u201d and had a drink. When the coroner told me\nover the phone that the toxicology report found no trace of alcohol in his\nsystem, I broke down in sobbing. In that moment, I was able to forgive decades\nof pain. And my father was able to beat the demon that had haunted him, giving\nhis whole family a much better legacy to remember and a story of hope to cling\nto. Had my father had access to euthanasia as a means of escaping his chronic\npain or mental disease (alcoholism), how different would be the memory and\nlegacy we now hold? How different would he have felt at the end, knowing the\ndisease had beaten him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can never, never know the end of the story, or the\nhealing that it may bring. We do both ourselves and others an injustice to\npretend we do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if we are wrong about suffering?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":21916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"What if we are wrong about suffering?","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"808"},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[805,808],"tags":[830,4777],"class_list":["post-21907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreground","category-life","tag-euthanasia","tag-right-to-die"],"yoast_head":"\nExtending the Right to Die? 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King is the Managing Editor of IOF's journal, The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy, the United States\u2019 leading journal of family-policy research. In that capacity, she writes, edits and corresponds with editors and contributors to ensure that each issue provides the most relevant and accurate research and policy analysis available. Nicole holds a B.A. in English as well as M.A.s in English and Political Theory. She has contributed to The Front Porch Republic and Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, among others. She is also a contributing editor to SALVO Magazine and a blogger at salvomag.com.","url":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/author\/nkingifamnews-com"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21907"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21937,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21907\/revisions\/21937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}