Why Choice is an Illusion?

Monday, November 3, 2014

Three bullet points against assisted suicide

1.  Legal assisted suicide encourages people with years to live to throw away their lives.  See: Nina Shapiro, "Terminal Uncertainty":  Washington's new "Death with Dignity" law allows doctors to help people commit suicide - once they've determined that the patient has only six months to live. But what if they're wrong? The Seattle Weekly, January 14, 2009,  https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/terminal-uncertainty.pdf

2.  Legal assisted suicide is a recipe for elder abuse, for example, in the inheritance context.  See this short bar article (non-lawyers say they like it): https://www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/BView.aspx?Month=05&Year=2009&AID=article5.htm 

3.  Once assisted suicide is legal, there is pressure to expand to euthanasia for non-terminal people, for example, to you or your family member, who through no fault of their own, falls on hard times: http://www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/2014/10/this-is-how-society-will-pay-you-back_9.html