This is a letter to the editor published in
the Dayton Daily News on April 30, 1996.
In the April 8 editorial "Society easing toward some assisted
suicide," the Dayton Daily News supported the position
that the decision concerning physician-assisted suicide "ought
to be an individual one, between the person and the doctor."
The editorial went on to say, "The law, however, can and
should set the rules and conditions very tightly, especially in
instances in which the terminally ill person cannot express a
wish."
I contend that the rules and conditions would not and could not be set very tightly if physician-assisted suicide were made legal. At first, "equal protection under the law" would be stretched to cover difficult cases, then utilitarian values would be used to support convenience.
Assisted suicide assumes that the patient can initiate
the terminating process after it has been set up by someone
else. If assisted suicide is legalized for patients capable of
initiating the process, the courts, using the "equal protection"
principle, will require that euthanasia be offered to patients
not capable of initiating that process, when they request it.
Since the practice of "substituted judgment" has been
recognized widely, euthanasia soon will be authorized when requested
by the family of patients who are unable to give consent, whether
unconscious or demented. As our society becomes accustomed to
the practice, euthanasia will be granted to healthy, but depressed
people. A liberalized interpretation of "substituted judgment"
will be used when euthanasia is requested first by the families
of persons with mental illness, retardation, or other handicaps;
and later, by the families of persons who are old and infirm,
but mentally alert. Finally, some physicians will decide that
a patient's "quality of life" is "poor," and
they will request authorization to kill the patient in spite of
objections from the patient or from the patient's family.
Most of these things are already happening in the Netherlands.
Byron C. Hall, Jr.