Why Colorado should legalize assisted suicide

Why Colorado should legalize assisted suicide

Published in The Catalyst 

Slowly but surely, countries around the world are coming to their senses. From Belgium to France, a half-dozen countries have legalized the controversial practice of physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, the United States is not one of these countries. Unless you live in Montana, Oregon, or Washington, it is a criminal offense to assist a patient in his or her death.

Understanding what assisted suicide really is typically changes the way one feels about its legality. Even the term “assisted suicide” has been called into question by many of its leading advocates. In the state of Washington, the movement to legalize assisted suicide labeled it “Death with Dignity.”

Nancy Niedzielski is one of America’s leading advocates for Death With Dignity. She watched her husband Jim scream in unrelenting agony as a growing brain tumor pushed his eyes out of their sockets from within. Jim aged what looked like 40 years over the course of just one year with brain cancer. He died a painful death despite many requests for assisted suicide. Nancy was a leading figure in the 2008 HBO Documentary “How to Die in Oregon.” Before becoming the most powerful leader of Washington’s movement, Nancy promised her husband she would do whatever it took to make a dignified death an option for Washingtonians. She campaigned for what she believes is not suicide. Suicide, she argues, is for people who escape life because they feel they cannot win a battle with depression. Death with Dignity, on the other hand, is an escape from existence, not life. People who are given the right to Assisted Suicide in Washington, Oregon and Montana are not living real lives with any hope – they simply exist despite relentless, eventually deadly suffering.

Whatever one calls it, assisted suicide is not given out to any old person who can’t stand their quality of life. Patients in Oregon, for instance, must be given a life span of six months or less. The person must be a resident of the state where it is legal and must be determined by the prescribing doctor to be in an immense amount of physical pain.

To gain a better understanding of the importance of assisted suicide’s legality, the films “How to Die in Oregon” and “You Don’t Know Jack” do the job perfectly. The stories told by these films convey the same urgency as does Nancy’s. Similar stories are told in books, journals, editorials and testimonials. The more time that passes in which assisted suicide remains illegal, the more people will die unfairly excruciating deaths. The loved ones who watch these deaths unfold will continue to remember there loved one’s final moments as scary and often traumatic.

Derek Humphry wrote the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization's (ERGO) manifesto concerning an individual’s right to die. The manifesto states that “the degree to which physical pain and psychological distress can be tolerated is different in all humans. Quality of life judgments are private and personal, thus only the sufferer can make relevant decisions.” If the ERGO manifesto had been made into law, Nancy’s husband would have died in peace and Nancy would not have had to undergo the experience of watching him suffer.

Here in Colorado, we have a statute in place that explicitly criminalizes assisted suicide. Thirty-three other states, from Florida to Alaska, have statutes that do the same. Nine more states, from Vermont to Idaho, criminalize assisted suicide through common law. The other eight states, from North Carolina to Utah, have not criminalized nor legalized assisted suicide.

The fact of the matter is that even if you are against assisted suicide on a religious or moral ground, it should not be up to you what people do with their lives and deaths. People should be able to control their own lives—it’s that simple. Just like abortion is legal and regarded as a matter of choice, assisted suicide should be legal and regarded as a matter of choice.

Some terminally ill patients are allowed to end their lives by refusing medical treatments; in all fairness, the terminally ill who don’t have that option should be allowed to choose death.