One of the most organized efforts to defeat right-to-die (RTD) legislation wherever it is proposed is spear-headed by Not Dead Yet (NDY) under its current President, Diane Coleman. NDY claims to represent, or be representative of, at least 12 disability rights groups who oppose RTD legislation. Coleman’s failed appeal to Maine Governor Janet Mills to veto the RTD law, passed narrowly by Maine’s legislature, presents an outline of the arguments used to oppose such RTD laws.
Author and retired technology expert Harwell Thrasher shares his experiences caring for his wife Sharon after she was diagnosed with ALS.
If we use “existential suffering” as a stand-in for all of the related terms we use, it will help us discuss what we may mean by them. Certainly, distress, dread, angst, anxiety, anguish, or crisis all suggest suffering at least in a mental or psychological sense, a kind of suffering that all people encounter at one point or another in their lives, or even daily. Some existential suffering can be mitigated through changes in circumstances or with the help of others, but when one is dying, whether slowly or rapidly, one may wish to forego the suffering whether or not there may be temporary relief for it.
In Part 1 of this series, I addressed ten criticisms of MAID laws, particularly those in Oregon and Washington, though most such laws are modeled largely on Oregon’s law. In Part 2, I look at criticisms of MAID laws concerning economic pressures, coercion, depression, inadequate resources for MAID clients, doctor shopping, inadequate Medicaid rules, ableism, and the failure of the drugs prescribed to MAID clients. My hope is that we can learn from opponents of MAID laws how to make the laws better.
A Washington state man, Aaron McQ, described his illness (a rare form of ALS) as “terrifying . . . like waking up every morning in quicksand.” He agreed to discuss his experience with Kaiser News to help provide more understanding about how users feel after qualifying for PAD. Over 3,000 terminally ill residents in the US have used PAD laws since Oregon’s first took effect twenty years ago. This is one man’s experience.
All of the Death With Dignity (DWD) laws now in the US are modeled after the Oregon law that went into effect in 1997. The other jurisdictions that have adopted such a law include Washington, Vermont, Washington, D.C., Colorado, California, and Hawaii. A judicial decision in Montana allows DWD to be practiced with cooperating doctors.
Missing from all of these laws is the right of people who have specific kinds of incurable, debilitating, painful, or extremely distressing medical conditions, but are not necessarily within six months of dying, to use these laws.
Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act (DWDA), implemented in 1998, was a monumental step forward in pursuing the primary goal of permitting those suffering from illness or disease to hasten their own death. But its advocates realized that, out of political necessity, it was not a universally applicable law, covering everyone in need. And the DWDA did not assure that all people have excellent medical care to meet their needs, though Oregon did dramatically improve palliative care in the state, diminishing the need for many people to make use of the DWDA.
Once ALS starts, it almost always progresses, eventually taking away the ability to walk, dress, write, speak, swallow, and breathe and shortening the life span. How fast and in what order this occurs is very different from person to person. While the average survival time is 3 years, about twenty percent of people with ALS live five years, 10 percent will survive ten years and five percent will live 20 years or more.
