DELAWARE CONSIDERS LEGALIZING ASSISTED SUICIDE, INCLUDING FOR “INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED” PATIENTS
lets doctors ‘play God’ by making predictions about how long patients
will live and then fulfilling their own prophecies by seeing to it that
death occurs.”
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Delaware lawmakers are considering legislation that would legalize
physician-assisted suicide, including that of “intellectually disabled”
patients who may not be able to provide meaningful consent.
The Delaware End of Life Options Act was introduced by Representative
Paul Baumbach, a Democrat. The bill was voted out of committee last
year, so the full House of Representatives could bring it up for a vote
as early as March, when the legislature’s next session begins.
Baumbach insists
his bill concerns “not a life or death decision” but a “death or death
decision” because it authorizes doctors to administer lethal drugs only
to patients who have “an incurable and irreversible disease that has
been medically confirmed and will, within reasonable medical judgment,
produce death within 6 months.”
Critics have pointed out one major loophole in this definition: What
about someone, such as a diabetic, whose illness is “incurable and
irreversible” but nevertheless treatable? If the patient were not
treated, his illness could kill him within six months. Would he
therefore qualify as having a terminal disease under the bill’s terms?
If the legislation only went this far, it would be bad enough. But an amendment
Baumbach proposed recently makes it even worse by enabling physicians
to kill intellectually disabled patients with supposedly terminal
illnesses.
The bill defines “intellectual disability” as “a disability, that
originated before the age of 18, characterized by significant
limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior,
which covers many everyday social and practical skills.” And it
authorizes a doctor to terminate that person’s life if “a licensed
clinical social worker” certifies that the patient understands what
assisted suicide entails.
This is truly alarming. As National Review’s Wesley Smith
observed, “These are people who can’t legally enter contracts! They
can’t control where they live! They can’t make their own medical
decisions! They also can’t vote, pursuant to the Delaware Constitution! …
Yet, if they have a terminal illness, they are going to be able to
commit assisted suicide if a social worker — who may be ideologically
predisposed in favor — confirms that they ‘understand’ that they are
receiving a poison prescription?”
“It doesn’t even require approval of a guardian, as would corrective surgery or treatment to cure or palliate,” he added.
The interesting thing about the inclusion of the amendment is that, as Alexandra Snyder of Life Legal Defense Foundation told The Stream,
advocates of assisted suicide usually “start by legalizing suicide for
people with a 6-month physical diagnosis, and then expand that in every
direction.” In this case, though, they’re tipping their hand before the
initial law has even been passed.
Even without the amendment, the bill would be a terrible idea. It
lets doctors “play God” by making predictions about how long patients
will live and then fulfilling their own prophecies by seeing to it that
death occurs. Moreover, argued Delaware physician Michael DePietro,
assisted suicide is rarely requested to end pain and suffering but “to
relieve various kinds of emotional and societal problems” patients are
experiencing — problems that “can also be effectively addressed using
tools available to psychiatrists, palliative care professionals and, not
least of all, the love and support of those close to the patient.”
DePietro continued:
distress by helping patients die by suicide, we open the door to very
disturbing practices. Once we start seeing some people as better off
dead, it is a very short step to start to tell those in emotional
distress that require care and love that it is really caring and loving
to help them die.
themselves are no longer around to make expensive demands on the health
care system, and one wonders when the right to die will become for such
people a duty to die.
The American Medical Association’s code of ethics
prohibits both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, noting, among
other things, that “euthanasia could readily be extended to incompetent
patients and other vulnerable populations,” as, indeed, Baumbach’s
amendment would do.
With any luck, Baumbach’s inadvertent honesty in proposing the
killing of the intellectually disabled will enable Delaware lawmakers to
see his bill for what it is — and then to swiftly assist in its demise.
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SEE OUR PREVIOUS POST:
ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL HB160 BEING VOTED ON~IS LIFE MORE PRECIOUS THAN
MONEY? OR IS IT CHEAPER TO KILL THAN TO CARE?