Following is a brief summary of points worth making in rebutting arguments for legalizing assisted suicide and active euthanasia:
1. A request for assisted suicide is typically a cry for help. It is in reality a call for counseling, assistance, and positive alternatives as solutions for very real problems.
2. Suicidal intent is typically transient. Of those who attempt suicide but are stopped, less than 4 percent go on to kill themselves in the next five years; less than 11 percent will commit suicide over the next 35 years.
3. Terminally-ill patients who desire death are depressed and depression is treatable in those with terminal illness. In one study, of the 24 percent of terminally-ill patients who desired death, all had clinical depression.
4. Pain is controllable. Modern medicine has the ability to control pain. A person who seeks to kill him or herself to avoid pain does not need legalized assisted suicide, but does need a doctor better trained in alleviating pain.
5. In the U.S. legalizing voluntary active euthanasia [assisting suicide] means legalizing non-voluntary euthanasia. State courts have ruled time and again that if competent people have a right, the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment requires that incompetent people be "given" the same "right."
6. In the Netherlands, legalizing voluntary assisted suicide for those with terminal illness has spread to include non-voluntary euthanasia for many who have no terminal illnesses. Half the killings in the Netherlands are now non-voluntary, and the problems for which death is now the legal "solution" include such things as mental illness, permanent disability, and even simple old age.
7. You don't solve problems by getting rid of the people to whom the problems happen. The more difficult but humane solution to human suffering is to address the problems.
WHAT TO DO
Call and E-mail your legislator:
Please contact your local legislators listed in this Edition of the Lifepages as well as the key members of the Vermont Legislature highlighted on the following page.
Write a letter to the Editor:
Write from your heart. Make a clear statement of opposition to this bill. If you want, include a short perspective from your own experience that shows it is better for us to take care of the dying than to give societal approval to kill them. Try to avoid using the language of those who support changing the law. The most accurate term for this issue is “physician-assisted suicide.”
Then submit your letter to the daily paper that serves your part of the state. You can call to get the mailing address, or send it via e-mail or through the newspaper’s Web site. Put the words “letter to the editor” in the subject line of the e-mail. Include your name, town, and daytime telephone number.