If A Physician Aids a Terminally Ill Patient in Dying, Is It Assisted-Suicide or Not?
Posted By Administrator on March 9, 2010
Under current Connecticut law, “A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when … he intentionally causes or aids another person, other than by force, duress or deception, to commit suicide.” Two Fairfield County doctors who have been asked by their terminally ill patients to prescribe medications to help them die peacefully, are asking the court if doing so would make them guilty of a crime if they did so. The core of the doctors’ lawsuit is to ask the court interpret the word “suicide.”
The issue of physicians aiding terminally ill patients in dying has been under debate for many years in other states across the country. Oregon, Washington and Montana currently have “Death with Dignity” laws allowing physicians to prescribe medication for terminally ill patients who wish to die peacefully. Connecticut has thus far resisted passing such a law.
On one side of the argument is the belief that aiding anyone in dying, whether they are terminally ill and in excruciating pain or not, amounts to assisted suicide. Some opponents of “Death with Dignity” laws have claimed that allowing physicians to prescribe medications to aid people in dying will open the floodgates for scores of elderly, disenfranchised, lonely or depressed people to obtain such prescriptions to commit suicide with the assistance of their doctors.
Those on the other side of the debate argue that if a person is terminally ill — and is going to die with or without the help of a physician — then aiding that person in dying without having to endure excruciating pain is not assisted suicide. The physician’s role in such cases is to aid a patient in dying with dignity and without having to endure unbearable pain.
And there is a difference. According Denver-based Compassion and Choices, an end-of-life advocacy group:
“Those facing a terminal illness do not want to die but—by definition—are dying. They are facing an imminent death and want the option to avoid unbearable suffering. Terminally ill patients who legally access the Death with Dignity Act find the word ’suicide’ offensive and inaccurate. Many have publicly expressed that the term is hurtful and derogatory to them and their loved ones.”
A Connecticut Court will have an opportunity to weigh in on the debate. It will be interesting to see which turn this case takes.
For your information, I have posted links to the “Death with Dignity” laws in other states:
The Washington Death with Dignity Act
The Oregon Death with Dignity Act
Baxter v. Montana (the court decision that allowed “Death with Dignity” in Montana)
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