In a recent Letter to the Editor (“A good time to take action on end-of-life options,” by Eric J. Ruby, M.D., Taunton Gazette, March 31), the author used the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to urge state legislators to pass the “End of Life Option Act” (H.1926). There is never a good time to advocate for assisted suicide, but especially not during a time of crisis.
As we face the worst of this pandemic, vulnerable people are already anxious about care being rationed, but with suicide on the menu as a supposed “medical treatment” that anxiety will only grow. Assisted suicide places the most vulnerable in society, people with terminal illness, disability and advanced age, at a higher risk for mistakes, abuse and coercion.
Assisted suicide is often billed as a solution to pain and suffering. But pain and suffering, or even fear of it, never makes it into the top five reasons people choose assisted suicide in Oregon, the first state to legalize it in the U.S…
Read more at the Taunton Daily Gazette…