physician-assisted suicide

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.”

Suicide is at a crisis level in the United States and around the world. According to the World Health Organization, more than 700,000 people committed suicide in 2019. In 2022, there were 49,476 self-inflicted deaths in the U.S. alone, or 14.2 per 100,000 people.

At the same time, assisted-suicide activism enjoys ever higher visibility, continually promoted in the media and popular culture as the best way to “die with dignity,” resulting in an increasing toll. Each year, well over 20,000 people around the world die by assisted suicide or euthanasia — which are generally not included in suicide statistics.

It is into this disturbing and paradoxical paradigm that The Lancet Public Health medical journal devoted an entire issue to suicide prevention. This should have been a welcome boost to saving lives. Instead, the mostly facile articles focus substantially on expanding government and promoting liberal policies as the best means of reducing suicides. Indeed, taken as a whole, the edition reflects the latest trend in medical-journal advocacy to transform political controversies — i.e., climate change, racism, and the like — into public-health crises to enable increased regulation and the imposition of left-wing public policies.

That is not to say that public health doesn’t have a significant role to play in suicide prevention. Of course it does. But the authors advocate shifting primary responsibility for suicide prevention from normal public-health activities and patient-centered clinical settings to an “all population approach” in which “all parts of government” will be “accountable” for the “social and commercial determinants of suicide risk.” In other words, everything government plans and executes would become ultimately about suicide prevention.

Suprise! Governor John Carney has vetoed legislation that barely passed in Delaware that would have legalized assisted suicide. From the Governor’s veto message: During my time as Governor, and since this legislation was first introduced, I have consistently opposed a state law that would allow physician-assisted suicide. I have always recognized, and do today, that this is a deeply personal issue. Supporters and opponents alike have thoughtful views on the subject, in many cases informed by their own painful, personal experiences. Over the past several years, I have listened to legislators, advocates, and constituents who have reached out to me and my team to share their views. I also followed the action of the Delaware General Assembly, where this legislation passed Read More ›