Image by Annette Shuman on Unsplash,
The NY Times published an opinion piece: The Perverse Economics of Assisted Suicide by Louise Perry. July 22. Here’s a version of how I answered it in a letter to the Times. We need to make our voices heard.
It is not clear why the NY Times published this article by an unqualified, insensitive journalist about the economics of medically assisted suicide in countries with national health care.
First medical aid in dying is not assisted suicide.
In many cases there are no current medical alternatives available for the physical or mental illness. Often existing medical alternatives come with horrific side effects and even worse pain.
Often medical aid is not available due to the patient’s finances; in the US we are at the mercy of merciless insurance companies, who are happy to kill their paying customers to save a few dollars. They certainly don’t mind adding to their pain.
Second, families increasingly cannot provide qualified care to their sick or elderly relatives. People live longer with more serious chronic disease. More and more people are single (up to one-third of the population in some cases).
Third, nursing homes and other care facilities increasingly resemble concentration camps with no hope of reform. Nursing homes have always had a staffing problem. With new immigration laws, the situation can only get worse. Many people in nursing homes actively want to die and would choose that option if they could.
It IS true that assisted dying can save money. Millions of dollars are spent on unwanted care that accomplishes nothing.
But so what? People die from easy access to guns, accidental police shootings, loosened safety measures, and DUIs, in numbers far greater than they ever will be for medically assisted dying.
Finally, let’s remember that in WWII spies were given cyanide pills so they wouldn’t end up dying a horrible death in POW camps. Most medical and nursing home options feel like those camps.
If you oppose assisted dying, you need to present realistic alternatives for the elderly and for others in incurable chronic pain, mental or physical. We need to make assisted dying more widely available, not less.
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