New York State’s government, already infamous for its hostility to life in the womb, has taken another tragic step towards the moral abyss – the State Senate has followed the Assembly in passing a bill to legalize murder by doctor (a/k/a assisted suicide).
The inherent flaws of any assisted suicide bill are well known. The moral incoherence of stigmatizing disabled and ill people and encouraging them to kill themselves, while at the same time struggling mightily to prevent self-harm in others, cannot be reconciled by any rational person. These bills send the morally degraded message that only some lives are worth living, and that some people are better off dead.
There is no way to craft legislation that can overcome these fundamental moral deficiencies. No matter how much the advocates claim otherwise, the bills lack any real safeguards for vulnerable and isolated people. They utterly fail to address the mental health conditions that lead to requests for suicide. They degrade the medical profession and undermine trust in the people who are supposed to be caring and treating for us.
Indeed, the advocates’ arguments for the adequacy of safeguards are entirely being made in bad faith. Everywhere assisted suicide has been legalized, they immediately re-characterize safeguards as “barriers to access” and seek to erode or eliminate them.
The slippery slope isn’t just real, it’s fully intended. The road leads directly to active euthanasia, where the killer isn’t the patient but the doctor. That’s where they want to go — where Canada and Europe have already gone.
In a way, the worst thing about assisted suicide laws is the distortion of truth. They require doctors to lie on death certificates. They classify as “terminal” any disease that may cause death within six months, even if the condition – like diabetes – is perfectly treatable and can be lived with for decades. They deny that what is happening is suicide but instead have cooked up an Orwellian new language in hopes of causing social change through verbal engineering.
The clearest example is in the definition section of the bill. Here is what it says:
“’Medical aid in dying’ means the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death.”
The idea of a doctor helping to kill a patient has been rejected by medical ethicists since the ancient Hippocratic Oath: “I will do no harm or injustice to [my patients]. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.” Modern medical ethics hold to the principles of “beneficence”, namely promoting the well-being of the patient, and “non-maleficence”, meaning “do no harm”. Assisted suicide perverts these principles beyond recognition.
The American Medical Association still sees this, even though the New York Medical Society does not. Ironically, on the same day as the vote in the NYS Senate, the AMA Board of Trustees reaffirmed their opposition to assisted suicide as incompatible with ethical medical practice.
The relevant provision in the AMA Code of Ethics, which dates back to 1994, states that “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.”
Nothing has changed since then, and the AMA Board of Trustees sees it clearly: “the profession of medicine should not support the legalization or practice of physician assisted suicide or see it as part of a physician’s role.”
This issue is not “over” in New York or anywhere else. Our coalition of religious leaders and disability advocates will continue to fight. We will resist the inevitable attempts to expand assisted suicide to non-terminally ill people and minors. We will advocate for true compassionate care and treatment for people suffering from illnesses, either physical or mental.
But a dangerous step has been taken, and if this bill becomes law the road is wide open to tragedy. Our only hope now is a veto from the governor, who is herself deeply entrenched in the Culture of Death, as seen in her notorious abortion absolutism. God help our state and our nation.
