I am a cancer doctor in Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. Oregon’s assisted-suicide law applies to patients predicted to have less than six months to live. This does not necessarily mean that such patients are dying.
In 2000, I had a cancer patient who had been given a terminal diagnosis by another doctor of six months to a year to live. This was based on her not being treated for cancer. At our first meeting, she told me that she did not want to be treated, and that she wanted to opt for what our law allowed — to kill herself with a lethal dose of barbiturates.
Comments
I disagree. The system worked as it should: a physician convinced a patient to be treated, not commit suicide.
We humanely end the suffering of our beloved pets when they have no life left to live. We should, carefully, afford to human beings the same dignithy.
If I understand correctly, the writer proposes that in order to protect some patients from the possibility of making an unfortunate choice (one that did not in fact occur in the case he cited), he would deny patients in general the opportunity to exercise an option that would be best for them. Restricting rights for all because a few might choose unwisely is terrible public policy.