Wesley Smith: Assisted Suicide Is the Euthanasia of Hope

Effort to legalize assisted suicide ignores the opportunity for patients to change their minds, or cheat death

By Wesley J. Smith | Published on 10.13.2011

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How are we to best care for the dying? This crucial issue impacts us at our core, not only in light of our own eventual demises, but because we all want the best for those we love. Happily, hospice and advances in pain control allow for truly compassionate care. Unlike much of human history, today patients can die peacefully at home, without significant pain, in the loving presence of their families.

Wesley Smith
Wesley Smith

But some assert this isn’t enough, that doctors should be allowed to prescribe suicide for terminally ill patients who want to die. These advocates even go so far as to call assisted suicide the “ultimate civil liberty.” But peel away the veneer of “choice” and we can see that assisted suicide abandons people — who might eventually regain the desire to live — to a premature death.

When I was a hospice volunteer, I met one such person. His name was Bob, and he was dying from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Bob told me that he had been suicidal for 2½ years after the solar plexus blow of his diagnosis. Jack Kevorkian was active at the time, and Bob had wanted a Kevorkian exit. Had his family cooperated, he would have died sooner rather than later. But they wouldn’t and so he didn’t.

“I eventually came out of the fog,” he told me, “and I am so glad to be alive.”

Bob spent his last18 months on earth happily watching his three daughters blossom, intensely loving his wife, and making some money for his family with online investing. When the end came, it was peaceful and in his sleep.

The same point was made in a letter-to-the-editor published in the Oct. 4, 2011, Boston Globe by Jeanette Hall, a cancer survivor. Hall lives in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal. After being told she had six months to live, Hall wrote, she asked her doctor for assisted suicide:

I didn’t want to suffer. I wanted to do what our law allowed, and I wanted my doctor to help me. Instead, he encouraged me not to give up, and ultimately I decided to fight the disease. I had both chemotherapy and radiation. I am so happy to be alive! It is now 11 years later. If my doctor had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead.

Hall and Bob convey an important message we don’t hear often enough in the debates about end-of-life care: If we legalize assisted suicide, some patients will die instead of ultimately regaining their joy in living.

For some reason, this message doesn’t resonate as vividly as the siren song of doctor-prescribed death. But know this: If we are seduced into legalizing assisted suicide, we will cheat at least some people out of the universe’s most precious and irreplaceable commodity: Time.

Assisted suicide isn’t “choice;” it is the end of all choices. Doctor prescribed death is not “death with dignity;” it is really the euthanasia of hope.

F.Y.I.

The Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and the Santa Barbara Foundation will host a free town hall on “Death ... in the Age of Choice,” from 7 to 9 p.m. Oct. 19 at the museum’s Fleischmann Auditorium, 2559 Puesta del Sol Road. Admission is free. Click here for more information.

— Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a legal consultant to the Patients Rights Council. He will be a panelist at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum’s Oct. 19 “Death ... in the Age of Choice” town hall.

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» John Locke on 10.13.11 @ 07:00 PM

With all due respect, this is the ultimate in denial of individual rights and freedoms.  Who are you to decide if someone who wants to make a free choice to die will not be allowed to do so?  Mush-minded nanny government at its worst.

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» CWMoss on 10.14.11 @ 07:39 AM

No where does the effort to legalize assisted suicide does it ignore the right for a patient to change their mind. There is no excuse for misinformation like this.

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» Rambler on 10.14.11 @ 07:57 AM

What does the author recommend? That we should wait until our lives have become a agonizing hell, where we can no longer interact with those we love? And even then, if some doctor can keep us breathing breathing, to just endure a technologically lengthened terminal train ride?

This is a painful article to read. I hate to tell the author this, but you are going to die. You will ultimately do it as an individual, no matter how much anybody tries to meddle.

If endurance is something that brings you exhilaration, then at least have a marker where you want the agony to stop.

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» I. M. Old on 10.14.11 @ 09:49 AM

Mr. Smith asks us all to adopt his fantasies about life and death, and suggests that his beliefs are universal truth.

This is both intellectually dishonest and incredibly arrogant.

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» meneush on 10.14.11 @ 09:05 PM

Please ignore the snarky and ignorant comments. Thanks for your excellent observations of your experience and a well written article. It’s interesting, and sad, that the ‘usual suspects’ react with stereotypical disdain, but with no personal experience, professing some aspect of an ideal of personal liberty, without, in my view, any deep reflection or personal experience with end of life issues. Sadly, these reflexive comments, without obvious reflection or experience, have become all too prevalent. They only obscure the excellent observations of people who have real experience and who can help us all to consider and deal with these problems.

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» CWMoss on 10.15.11 @ 09:59 AM

Meneush,
Why do you assume that people with opinions different from yours are ignorant with no personal experience or deep reflection? I have been a hospice volunteer for years and continue to work with this great organization. I have had hundreds of hours of training and support group meetings exploring both palliative care and end of life spiritual and emotional issues. I have given this a great deal of reflection. My opinions are mine and do not reflect any policy or attitude either explicit or implicit at hospice.

I have sat beside and gotten to know many people as they approach death. Most, did not want assisted suicide and I deeply respect and honor their wishes. If I had ALS, I would want the option to exit on my own terms, and that includes the option to change my mind.

I have no problem with the authors’ opinion and his right to express it. I strongly disagree with the subtitle to the article. It is blatantly false, misleading misinformation meant to instill fear. The effort to legalize assisted suicide absolutely does not ignore the patients right to change their mind. In fact, this is a vital component to the discussion and any proposed legislation.

It is a complicated issue with much to consider. Comments that cast aspersions on those with whom you disagree do little to advance the conversation, as do comments with no factual basis. Good, moral, reasonable people with experience and deep reflection can still disagree. It would be nice if we could express our concerns while maintaining mutual respect.

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» John Locke on 10.16.11 @ 08:58 PM

Considering those of a different opinion to be stupid, ignorant, or whatever, is a sign of a small mind - unless one is talking about facts.  There is no room for opinion on facts - facts are facts.

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» GoletaMan on 10.18.11 @ 11:38 AM

Where is it written that I must let someone else decide when and where I should be allowed to die. Who appointed this other person to be my God?
Modern medicine is still focused on preserving the heartbeat, with little concern for the person on the inside.
We all fear death, to some degree. It is arrogant to assume that your own level of fear should be forced on others.

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