From: "john andrews" <andrewsjb-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Disability and anarchism (was Re: baby food) Fw: Self Determinism
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 14:52:43 PST


Relevant?

>Free Ticket to Eternity By Nat Hentoff
>Source: Feb 6 '99 Washington Post; Page A21
>
>Having become, in 1997, the first state to legalize physician-assisted
>suicide, Oregon, out of further compassion, has decided to provide this 
>service to 270,000 low-income residents without charge. Death does not 
>discriminate -- why should Oregon?
>
>As of Dec. 1, the Oregon health plan provides state funds for 
diagnostic 
>and counseling sessions to verify the desire for suicide. And, of 
>course, the lethal drugs to fulfill that desire will be free.
>
>State funds for this act of extreme compassion will be segregated from
>federal Medicaid money because Congress has not yet permitted death to
>be subsidized under Medicaid.
>
>As Richard Doerflinger reported in "Life At Risk" (a newsletter
>published by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops), there were
>angry dissenting voices at a November hearing on this dividend for the
>economically challenged.
>
>Ric Burger -- a diabetic, a wheelchair user and a spokesman for 
disabled 
>citizens in the state -- noted: "The fact that the state of Oregon will 
>not properly fund our personal attendant services, yet will pay for us 
>to die, amounts to nothing less than cultural genocide."
>
>Another group, Physicians for Compassionate Care, charged that
>"bureaucratic barriers have already been placed in the way of providing 
>state funding for state-of-the-art antidepressant medication and even 
>pain medicines, while full funding of assisted suicide for this same 
>vulnerable population is being promoted."
>
>Last year, the Economist praised Oregon's Democratic Gov. John 
Kitzhaber 
>for rationing health care in the face of limited resources and observed 
>that Oregon no longer pays for such treatments as "efforts to fight the 
>final stages of AIDS." But now, AIDS patients can be lawfully assisted 
>to kill themselves -- thereby saving the state even more money.
>
>Despite the recent defeat in Michigan of an assisted-suicide proposal,
>other states are likely eventually to allow doctors to provide patients 
>the means to dispose of themselves.
>
>Polls indicate much popular support for state-aided "death with
>dignity." Many doctors agree. Some are neutral, like the Oregon Medical 
>Association.
>
>Yet in 1994 the New York State Task Force on Life and Law issued a
>report -- "When Death is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the 
>Medical Context" -- that warned doctors and patients of the dangers in 
>the state's hastening of death.
>
>This group, created by then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, consists of lawyers,
>physicians and an ecumenical roster of religious leaders. The task 
force 
>pointed out that "in light of the pervasive failure of our health care 
>system to treat pain and diagnose and treat depression, legalizing 
>assisted suicide and euthanasia would be profoundly dangerous for many 
>individuals who are ill and vulnerable. The risks would be most severe 
>for those who are elderly, poor, socially disadvantaged, or without 
>access to good medical care."
>
>The task force also noted that "racism, ageism, bigotry against 
disabled 
>people, and issues of class and economic status would materially affect 
>killing decisions."
>
>The Supreme Court refused on June 6, 1997, to declare 
physician-assisted 
>suicide a constitutional right, but in the decision for a unanimous 
>court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist encouraged the states to explore 
>ways of dealing with this rising issue.
>
>Rehnquist emphasized that "the lives of the terminally ill, disabled 
and 
>elderly people must be no less valued than the lives of the young and 
>healthy." Otherwise, he said, they would become victims of "abuse" by 
>compassionate expediters.
>
>And Justice David Souter, in a concurring opinion, stated his concern
>that assisted suicide could slip into euthanasia: "Whether acting from
>compassion or under some other influence, a physician who would provide 
>a drug for a patient to administer might well go the further step of 
>administering the drug himself, so the barrier between assisted suicide 
>and euthanasia could become porous as well as the line between 
voluntary 
>[and involuntary] euthanasia."
>
>Souter also recognized "the financial incentives" in this new era of
>managed care.
>
>In the sweepingly compassionate new world ahead, I would not be
>surprised if Oregon became the first state to legalize the right of
>physicians to directly kill a patient. At no cost to the departed, of
>course.

- "Vivez sans temps mort!"

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