Bipartisan Call for Federal Oversight over Hospice Assisted Suicides

Assisted suicide legalization is bad medicine and even worse public policy. It abandons the sick, destroys human equality by creating a killable caste of people, and cheapens the intrinsic dignity of human life. Moreover, the supposed "strict safeguards" are neither strict — for example, relying on doctor self-reporting — nor particularly protective. Besides, as soon as the law goes into place, the safeguards are quickly redefined as "obstacles" to a good death and the process of loosening the law commences.

These and other myriad problems have gotten the attention of Senators James Lankford (R., Okla.) and Tim Kaine (D., Va.), who along with two representatives sent a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asking for oversight over the practice in the hospice context. Among their expressed concerns (citations omitted):

• "There are grave informed consent issues within physician-assisted suicide. Patients spend little time with the physician providing physician-assisted suicide relative to the course of their disease."