By Nancy Valko
Of course, the big news from the national voting last week was the stunning election of Donald Trump as president. But barely mentioned by the media except for its passage was Colorado’s Proposition 106 “End of Life Options Act” initiative which won by a 65% to 35% popular vote. Now five states have formally legalized physician assisted suicide. Montana had a court ruling that state physician-assisted suicide is not “against public policy” but no law has been passed.
I remember going to Colorado about 20 years ago to speak against an assisted suicide bill in the state legislature. Enthusiasm was high and the assisted suicide bill was subsequently voted down in the legislature. But, as in other states including my own Missouri, the assisted suicide proponents never stopped pushing their agenda over and over again.
With their efforts often stymied in state legislatures after robust debate and testimony, well-funded groups like Compassion and Choices turn to the promotion of state initiatives. Colorado now joins Oregon and Washington State in legalizing assisted suicide by popular vote.
However, with groups like Compassion and Choices trying to normalize assisted suicide as just another valid medical decision, medical groups increasingly intimidated into neutrality and an almost entirely sympathetic mainstream media holding up Brittany Maynard as the ultimate poster child, the average person is easily persuaded to not look too closely at the reality of assisted suicide.
For example, here is just the title of the Colorado ballot measure. There is also a much longer ballot summary and a link to the full proposed law.
“Shall there be a change to the Colorado revised statutes to permit any mentally capable adult Colorado resident who has a medical prognosis of death by terminal illness within six months to receive a prescription from a willing licensed physician for medication that can be self-administered to bring about death; and in connection therewith, requiring two licensed physicians to confirm the medical prognosis, that the terminally-ill patient has received information about other care and treatment options, and that the patient is making a voluntary and informed decision in requesting the medication; requiring evaluation by a licensed mental health professional if either physician believes the patient may not be mentally capable; granting immunity from civil and criminal liability and professional discipline to any person who in good faith assists in providing access to or is present when a patient self-administers the medication; and establishing criminal penalties for persons who knowingly violate statutes relating to the request for the medication?”
But what might have happened if this alternative language was used? (Emphasis added)
Should Colorado change the Colorado revised statues to permit a licensed doctor of any specialty in conjunction with a similar doctor to write a prescription for a lethal overdose to cause death for any adult resident that the doctors expect to die within 6 months; require mental health evaluation only for the purpose of determining if the person is mentally capable to make the decision to end his or her life; grant immunity for the doctors and others from civil or criminal penalty as long as they claim “good faith” intentions; require that the death certificate falsely state the cause of death as a natural medical condition instead of the lethal overdose; prohibit life insurance policies from being affected by a request for a legal lethal overdose and prohibit public information about such lethal overdoses except a yearly statistical report as reported by the doctors involved?
Of course, we will never know.
But when we allow medical/legal protections and standards to be suspended for some suicidal people considered expendable based on an estimated prognosis and personal fear of even potential pain and/or dependence, we will inevitably see the pool of potential victims of medical termination expand and lethal injections accepted. This is already happening in Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.
Just as bad, we will also be creating a class of medical serial terminators immune from any real oversight and accountability while penalizing ethical health care providers who refuse to participate or refer.