Sitting here watching the Twins wail on the Indians and thinking about suicide—not in a personal way, as that would be the end of playing golf, following the Twins, and discussing with my roommates the probable current condition of our puppy's bladder and bowels. But why the hysteria on this topic? In particular, I don't get the fanatical opposition to assisted suicide from political conservatives who in every other instance are opposed to governmental encroachments on individual liberty. Whose life do they think it is? Here is an MPR article regarding a bill before the Minnesota state legislature in 2019. A woman terminally ill with ovarian cancer is quoted:
I'm a social worker so I've been trained to follow certain social work principles and one of them is self-determination. And this to me is the ultimate act of self determination.
For balance, Scott Fischbach, the executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, is quoted as well:
There are a number of ways to deal with the struggles that come to all of us at the end of life. Assisting somebody to kill themselves is not the route to take. Here in Minnesota, we pride ourselves on having a very good health care system. We need to be sure that health care is available to all and assisted suicide is not. We can do better.
His solution for terminal illness is health care. If terminally ill people don't want it—well, he knows best. Is he saying something different from that? The dying woman makes an argument that is countered with word salad. To me, it's unseemly that a healthy person should mount their moral high horse and deliver opinions about what terminally ill people should want for themselves. Also, can't help but note that, while health care should indeed be available to all, Fischbach is the executive director of MCCL, so it's probably safe to say that he hasn't voted for anyone who's carried that ball down the field.
Perhaps, since the question related to a bill pending in the state legislature, he was shy about making a religious argument, something along the line of "only God gives life and only God can take it away." I think he'd be right to be sheepish. A desperately ill person, in pain and with no hope of recovery, wants to end their life, and the objection is that they'd be "playing God." It seems acceptable in other contexts. Our judicial system may render the verdict that a person be killed and it is done. A doctor may prolong life beyond what nature would allow without being charged with "playing God."
No one is against palliative care if that's what the patient wants. That's not what every patient wants. My own theory of the case, which of course may be wrong, is that religious conservatives are in denial about how miserable life can get. It violates their "picture preference," which includes a kindly God, enthroned and engaged, even to the point of intervening in ball games and elections. It's embarrassing to them that choosing not to live might be a rational choice. At least this would account for the hysteria. Here is Minn Stat Sec 609.215, Subd 1:
Aiding suicide. Whoever intentionally advises, encourages, or assists another in taking the other's own life may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 15 years or to a payment of a fine of not more than $30,000, or both.
Note the verbs "advise" and "encourage." These issues are not even to be discussed. This is what I mean by hysteria. Suicide is approved by many philosophers whose works are regarded as part of the Western canon—by Epictetus, for instance, who refers to it as "the open door": you can face life with equanimity in part because you know that, if things get bad enough, you can walk through the open door. The Penguin classic paperback of his Discourses might well be in violation of this statute but for the fact that, when it was challenged by a criminal defendant, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that "advise" and "encourage" violated the First Amendment's guaranty of freedom of expression. Now it's only illegal to assist. Of course it often happens, for example toward the end stage of ALS disease, that the patient would need help if she wanted to commit suicide. The law in Minnesota therefore encourages her to kill herself while she still can, which might be before she wants to.
Comments