The Movement that Won't Die

The Movement that Won't Die | Elenor K. Schoen | A special report for CWR

The debate over physician-assisted suicide shifts to Washington as the state renews the drive toward legalization.

Physician-assisted suicide is gaining support in Europe, though losing more battles than winning them in the United States. But those leading the charge in the US remain dogged, pushing yet another initiative drive to legalize assisted suicide in Washington state—the first state to vote on, and defeat, legalizing the procedure in 1991.

Physician-assisted suicide is defined as “a patient self-administering a lethal dose of an oral medication that has been prescribed by a physician,” according to Physicians for Compassionate Care, a group that operates out of Oregon.

The Netherlands was the first country to introduce the concept of assisted suicide almost 20 years ago, finally legalizing it in 2002, which paved the way for euthanasia—the direct killing of patients by lethal injection or dosage, with or without their approval, whether because of terminal illness or merely because of “unbearable or unrelieved suffering.”

Some 2,000 Dutch die by euthanasia every year; nine hundred are euthanized without their permission. Belgium followed the Netherlands’ lead in 2003. Luxembourg—a country of 480,000 people, 87 percent of whom are Catholic—is the third European country to legalize assisted suicide/euthanasia, passing it by a 30-26 vote in their parliament this past February.

In the US, the movement began with Washington state’s attempt to pass Initiative 119, which favored physician-assisted suicide and which was rejected by voters 17 years ago. Since then, physician-assisted suicide has ricocheted from state to state—25 in all—failing passage by voters or legislators, often repeatedly. Oregon, the only exception, legalized physician-assisted suicide in 1994.

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Comments

[LJ]

When did we slip into this mindset that a medical degree and the Hippocratic oath were any kind of insurance against barbarity? Surely the experience since Roe V Wade should have dispelled it.
It is certainly clear that Roe has established one thing, that killing is a private matter.
So this is the final product of the Enlightenment and the technological revolution. We are out of the "Dark" Ages. Now we can kill you without such a bloody mess.
We are no different than the ancient Romans or Greeks, we just have better tools. We still worship youthful beauty and wealth ahead of God.

And Satan laughs uproariously.

[Rose]

When I win the Lotto, which should be the first project?

[Margaret]

Bloodless, painless killing -- with compassion. Such are the advances in technology