Point
Medical aid in dying is the ultimate religious freedom by Harlan Kimpert – “Under current law, people who have made every life decision based on their personal values and faith suddenly become, due to a terminal illness, a victim of someone else’s theology.”
Counterpoint
The author of the article below notes that because this article was written for a secular news outlet, the author felt constrained to avoid using Scriptural references and religious arguments which, of course, are no less powerful than the arguments that were used.
I write in response to a recent op-ed (“Medical aid in dying is the ultimate religious freedom”, January 10, 2019) by Rev. Harlan Limpert in which he supports medical aid in dying, otherwise known as physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In his advocacy, Rev. Limpert employs three main arguments to support assisted suicide. Each of them omits, however, critical contextual information which, when considered, ultimately casts PAS in a very different, more troubling light.
The first argument focuses on society’s obligation to help people avoid suffering. The author gives the impression that the experience of intense, unremitting physical pain is a common occurrence and is the primary reason people seek PAS.
In reality, very few people seek assisted suicide to relieve pain and suffering, as shown in studies in both the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Instead, the people seeking assisted suicide are generally upper middle-class white people who fear losing their autonomy.
A second argument for PAS turns on the blanket claim that legalizing the choice of persons wanting PAS will have no affect on the lives of those who do not make that choice. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The legalization and practice of PAS inevitably produces a host of negative side effects that impact everyone in society. For example, it has been documented that in places where physician-assisted suicide has been legalized, the rate of other forms of suicide also rises.
In addition, whether intended or not, legalizing PAS introduces a subtle yet powerful negative change in self-perception among various vulnerable populations (such as the elderly or the disabled), such that the “right” to die quickly becomes felt by them as the “duty” to die. If the quality of our lives or self-worth is measured in autonomy or independence, then vulnerable populations are naturally seen as not leading lives worth living and a burden on others.
A third argument paints a picture of PAS as a very limited and well-defined protocol with safeguards that virtually eliminate misuse or abuse. The actual experience of PAS elsewhere, however, is revealing.
In places where PAS is legal, what begins as a clearly defined form of voluntary suicide with strict guidelines for use by “competent adults only” quickly morphs into a very loose system where children, the clinically depressed, and noncompetent adults are allowed access to lethal medication.
Similarly, and most concerning for the rest of us, are the potential abuses of PAS that naturally stem from pressures exerted by those with financial interests (i.e., heirs and health insurance companies) or care-giving responsibilities, none of which can be entirely prevented by procedural “safeguards.” When care is expensive and killing is cheap, which do we think will win?
These kinds of easily foreseeable forms of abuse related to cost control have the effect of transforming PAS from a means of exercising personal autonomy into a means by which people are robbed of their autonomy. Protecting the “choice” of some endangers the choices of the rest of us.
Finally, the author raises the issue of religious liberty, asserting that the primary reason lawmakers across the nation and in Minnesota have refused to legalize physician-assisted suicide is because they are unduly influenced by certain people of faith. Ironically, the author cites his own religious commitments as a primary motive for his advocacy on behalf of PAS. Apparently, it is not the introduction of religious considerations into the discussion that is the real issue here, but rather the introduction of the “wrong” religious considerations, i.e., those held by those “other people of faith.”
Indeed, rather than hastening other people’s death, it would be far better for Minnesotans to use our personal and societal energies to address the underlying reasons why some people feel compelled to consider PAS in the first place; to invest in improving the quality of and access to our system of palliative (comfort) care so that no one need suffer unnecessary pain at life’s end; to invest ourselves in building the kinds of deep, personal and caring relationships that remove the fear of becoming a burden to others; and to lay the foundation for a truly loving and compassionate community.
Rev. Fredric Hinz is the public policy director for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in Minnesota.