Massachusetts is set to vote on a referendum legalizing assisted suicide. This will be a disaster, if passed. And polls indicate that it’s about to pass.
This is, as they say, a recipe for disaster. It’s also sure to guarantee elder abuse.
Proponents argue that they need to make suicide safe. Whatever that could possibly mean.
Mass Against Assisted Suicide writes that other places that have tried it have seen a spike in suicides:
Assisted suicide proponents claim that legal assisted suicide will prevent violent deaths such as those by murder-suicide and suicide involving a handgun.[1] In Oregon where assisted-suicide has been legal since 1997, murder-suicide has not been eliminated.[2] Indeed, murder-suicides follow “the national pattern.”[3] As discussed below, suicides involving a handgun have also not been eliminated. Oregon’s suicide rate has instead increased with legalization of assisted suicide.
Oregon’s overall suicide rate, which excludes suicides under Oregon’s assisted suicide act, is 35% above the national average.[4] This rate has been “increasing significantly since 2000.”[5] Just three years prior, in 1997, Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide.[6] Other suicides thus increased, not decreased, with legalization of assisted suicide. Moreover, many of these deaths are violent. For 2007, which is the most recent year reported, “[f]irearms were the dominant mechanism of suicide among men.”[7] The claim that legalization will prevent violent deaths is without factual support.
.We are losing all respect for life.
If someone attempts suicide and fails what mechanism is there for the state to step in to help that person. Or will the state just hand them pills to make sure they get it right. No, proponents argue that you have to have a terminal disease. Well, here’s the thing. We’re all terminal. Terminal ain’t dying.
Legalizing assisted suicide also gives hospitals an incentive to push suicide rather than treat terminal patients, especially poor ones. This will lead to death. Death and abuse. And just because it’ll be legal, it doesn’t make it right.
