By Gary Dickson
I don”t recall the exact stimulus that caused me to reflect on the people I have known who chose to end their life because they were in the final stages of a terminal illness. It was probably something on television or a recent news story. Whatever it was it caused me to reflect and read about the subject of physician-assisted suicide.
Ever since I was a teenager my opinion has been for making physician-assisted suicide legal for terminally ill individuals. The event that first cemented my opinion on this subject happened when I was 18. My best friend”s father was dying form terminal cancer. One afternoon when my friend returned home from school, he discovered his father lying dead in a pool of blood in the bedroom from a gunshot wound to his head. I know that my friend, as well as his mother, was emotionally scarred by their loved one”s action. They had been preparing themselves for the eventual death of the father/husband, but they were not prepared for the violent and gory end that he chose to end his pain and suffering.
Years later, while managing a daily newspaper in a resort town in Colorado, I had the good fortune of having one of the best barbers I have encountered in all of the places I have lived. Not only was he a great barber, but he was also a wonderful human being. Everyone in the community who knew this man sang his praises. Sometime after I had moved to another Colorado town I learned that the barber had ended his own life because he was dying of cancer. Once again, it was the way that he ended his life that confirmed my opinion about physician-assisted suicide. It was springtime and the Colorado River was as high as it gets, due to the annual snowmelt run-off. The barber had waded into the river, drowned and his body was carried miles away.
One other case that sticks in my mind was the husband of the high school principal I knew very well in a Colorado town. The husband was terminally ill and suffering, so he sat in a geothermal hot pot at the edge of the river and slashed the back of his legs at the ankles and bled to death in the warm water.
I believe that these individuals I”ve described would have had a much more relaxed and dignified end and their families would not be enduring a lifetime of horrible feelings and nightmares about how the life of their loved one ended. All it would have taken is our society to be humane enough to allow physician-assisted suicide
I always thought that Dr. Kevorkian had the right idea and that he was far too maligned for his efforts. But, after revisiting what he was all about, I now believe that he may have been responsible for setting back the cause of physician-assisted suicide rather than promoting it. Records indicate, according to a story that appeared in the Detroit Free Press, that as many as 60 percent of the people Kevorkian assisted into death were not terminally ill and at least 13 had not complained of having any type of pain.
I agree with Dr. Charles Baron, a professor of law at the Boston College Law School, who wrote, “Denying physician-assisted suicide as an option to terminally ill patients means enforced suffering for many patients… Whether through common-law development in the courts or by legislative action, it is time to move on to the next stage in making laws that show greater respect for patient autonomy and increased compassion for the plight of the terminally ill.”
Making it legal doesn”t force any individual or physician to either utilize it or assist in it, but it gives the terminally ill an option to end their suffering and provides compassionate doctors with a way to help others without fear or stigma.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. Email him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
