[ OUR OPINION ]
PHYSICIAN-assisted suicide became legal this week in the Netherlands after two decades of unregulated but tolerated euthanasia. A death-with-dignity law has been in effect in Oregon since 1997, and parliaments in Belgium, France, Britain and Australia are debating similar measures. However, the Hawaii Legislature's autocratic rules have allowed a single senator to stifle the debate, apparently because of his religious beliefs. Legislators should tear loose their shackles and have compassion for people now forced to endure painful terminal illnesses. Assisted-suicide foes
derailing democracy
THE ISSUE:
A Netherlands law allowing doctor-assisted
suicide took effect this week.
Opponents of the Hawaii bill, which has passed the House, have compared it with practices in the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been performed on patients who were incompetent or unable to decide upon their death. This, they say with some justification, was a "slippery slope." However, the new Dutch law requires that assisted suicide be limited to patients facing unbearable, interminable suffering who must make a voluntary, well-considered request to die, in a medically appropriate way, and after another physician has been consulted.
The Oregon law and the Hawaii bill are even more restrictive, requiring that a physician-assisted death be permitted when requested by a mentally alert person and approved by two physicians, a psychologist and a social worker. While the Dutch law requires that doctor and patient must have had a close relationship, which should preclude foreign patients, the Hawaii bill, like the Oregon law, explicitly requires that the patient be a resident of the state.
The American Medical Association has opposed death-with-dignity legislation, saying the role of doctors is to heal, not to facilitate death. However, the Oregon medical society remains neutral. Physicians Ed Lowenstein and Sidney H. Wanzer have raised concerns in the New England Journal of Medicine that an attempt by Attorney General John Ashcroft to overturn Oregon's law would set "a new and dangerous precedent for health-care professionals" by intruding into the regulation of medical practice.
Ashcroft has threatened to revoke the licenses of doctors who prescribe lethal doses of federally controlled drugs. A federal judge is expected to rule this month on his ridiculous claim that the Oregon law violates the nation's drug-abuse regulations. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has rightly scoffed at Ashcroft's move, noting that Oregonians have decided democratically that terminally ill residents should have the right to take their own lives.
Hawaii was following the same path before Senate Health Committee Chairman David Matsuura blocked the process a month ago by refusing to allow the bill out of his committee. Legislators should assert the democratic process by taking the death-with-dignity bill to the Senate floor over Matsuura's obstructionism.
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