Earlier in April, the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation to legalize physician-assisted suicide for Canadian citizens. The momentum for such a law has been building since the fall, when the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously struck down a criminal ban on the practice. With the Liberal Party’s control of Canada’s Congress, the House of Commons, the bill is expected to pass in the next few months. Given the geographic and ideological similarities between Canada and the US, is it time for the US to implement a similar law? The history of physician-assisted suicide — also known as “right to die” or “death with dignity” — laws in the US has been long and controversial. In Massachusetts, our home state, such laws have been proposed six times over the last twenty years but failed — sometimes narrowly) — each time. Currently, assisted suicide is legal in only California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Vermont, although courts in several more states have protected the rights of patients to end their own lives.
I’ve always felt the “death with dignity” debate to be a discussion of basic human rights. If you believe in personal freedom, there shouldn’t be an exclusion for “unless you’re in chronic pain and wish to end your suffering.” This is particularly true for those who ideology is centered around the demand for “smaller government,” the idea that government works best when it’s less involved in the lives of those it governs. I’m not at all certain how “smaller government” could be argued to include exercising control over how the gravely ill might choose to end their suffering.
Perhaps I’m guilty of being a bleeding-heart Liberal, but it seems to me the freedom to live one’s life also assumes the freedom to determine how one exits that life. What compelling interest could the State possibly have in forcing an individual to live and suffer from constant, chronic pain? To those culture warriors who believe physician-assisted suicide (death with dignity) is a sin, I would ask only one question: What is it that allows you to believe you have any right to dictate to others how they may appropriate live and/or die? There’s nothing in this debate that could possibly be held to connote upon anyone the right to make that determination for another person. No one should have the right to use their moral/ideological/theological framework as justification for exercising veto power over how (or whether) someone suffering from chronic, unyielding pain may choose to end that suffering.
The decision a person in chronic pain might make to end their life can have no discernible or direct impact on anyone save for that person and their loved ones. I can think of no credible argument to be made to support the contention that the State or a religious entity has a right to intervene in and/or exert control over such a deeply personal decision. Both will make an argument that they have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable for being exploited, which is certainly true…but to extrapolate from that responsibility the right to prevent someone from making a sound, considered decision to end their life is ludicrous. That sort of intrusiveness isn’t consistent with a “small government” philosophy or with a religion claiming a firm grounding in compassion.
Should the U.S. adopt a law permitting “death with dignity?” I’d have to respond with an unequivocal “YES!” If we’re to have any claim to compassion or consistency of conviction, death with dignity must become the law of the land. Neither government nor a religious faith tradition has any business stepping in to prevent someone in chronic pain from determining when the time has come to end their suffering. That’s not protecting the vulnerable or preventing exploitation; it’s a mean-spirited, compassion-free effort to force someone to live out their time in pain…an easy judgment to pass when you’re not the one suffering.
It’s time that Congress did the right thing and acknowledge that “smaller government” doesn’t include involving the State in end of life decisions. It’s time that “death with dignity” became the law of the land.
