The New York Times is on an assisted suicide/euthanasia promotion juggernaut. Recently, it had a magazine-length, front page story swooning story about a euthanasia party in Canada. Today, a major front-page opinion section column by a doctor supporting assisted suicide–but hand-wringing about it being done carefully.
First, Jessica Nutik Zitter admits she might have assisted the suicide of a patient whose motive for wanting to die now was resentment and a feeling of abandonment from his sister. From, “Should I Help My Patients Die?“:
His despair had given way to rage. “Let’s just end this,” he said. “I’m fed up with my lousy life.” He really didn’t care, he added, that his sister opposed his decision. His request appeared to stem from a deep family wound, not his terminal illness…
At our second meeting, with more trust established, he issued a sob, almost a keening. He felt terrified and powerless, he said. He didn’t want to live this way anymore. I understood. I could imagine my own distress in his condition — being shuttled like a bag of bones between the nursing home and the hospital. It was his legal right to request this intervention from me. But given how uncomfortable I was feeling, was it my right to say no?