Our Right to Death

How medical breakthroughs challenge easy answers about suicide.

RU Sirius from the February 2007 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Unplugged dedicates its final 40 pages to such issues, and Colby effectively explains the political controversies involved. He seems to lean toward the pro-choice side, but he is frustratingly indirect, stating only that “the social experiment with physician-assisted suicide in Oregon has been conducted thoughtfully and with careful oversight” and that he supports the state’s rights against the attempted interventions of Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales. He disapproves of physicians’ participating in suicide (“my sense is that physician-assisted suicide presents a line that society does not need to and should not cross”) and paints Jack Kevorkian, roaming the countryside in his Volkswagen van of death, in frightening, disapproving colors. Colby’s thinking regarding the right of the terminally ill to choose death seems terminally confused. Is he saying that the terminal and suffering should have the right to end it all, but only without a doctor’s help? It sounds like it.

It seems to me that we can allow doctors to consult their own consciences in deciding whether alleviating suffering through death under some circumstances might not conform with the injunction to “do no harm.” Granted, the issue wouldn’t loom so large if it weren’t for laws that require us to request a doctor’s prescription before we acquire the lethal chemicals we need to kill ourselves. But as someone who took two years to get accustomed to pumping my own gas, I’d like to have the legal option of having a friendly doctor serve me my final cocktail should circumstances require it.

Individual autonomy in matters of personal choice, including the choice to live or die, is the libertarian ideal. But that doesn’t mean such choices don’t create often-knotty complexities. Disabled activists worry about our old friend the slippery slope, where those deemed to have a lower quality of life are pressured to exit the scene, making the “individual choice” aspect questionable. Some disabled activists seem actually to identify with people in persistent vegetative states. Given the history of eugenics during the 20th century, I can’t blame them. And some poor people may feel so burdened by the high costs of medical care that they will hasten their own deaths, or be pressured by relatives or taxpayers to do so. Finally, some critics worry that those who are merely depressed will find it too easy to receive assisted suicide, thus ending their lives when they may only need a new prescription medicine or a compelling hobby. Clearly, psychiatric examination and treatment should be part of any doctor’s procedure before supplying a death cocktail to a patient. But should we deny the rights of the many to protect the few who are likely to cheat life in this manner? After all, there are many ways to commit suicide, and most depressed people act on impulse rather than engaging in the long-term planning that would be needed to convince a doctor to help them die.

Still, these are all legitimate concerns, and we should keep a wary eye out to ensure that we don’t slide inadvertently into a system of semi-involuntary euthanasia of the poor and infirm. But we should ultimately err on the side of personal privacy and choice. It is as much an outrage for the state to force a person to live as it is to force a person to die.

RU Sirius is the host of The RU Sirius Show and NeoFiles on the MondoGlobo Podcast Network, at mondoglobo.net. He co-wrote Design for Dying (HarperCollins) with Timothy Leary.