Massachusetts Lawmakers Urged to Pass End-of-Life Options Act

[TexasTowelie]

Advocates are calling for the passage of the End-of-Life Options Act, a bill that would give the terminally ill in Massachusetts autonomy over their death. Through this legislation, a patient would voluntarily be able to make a request for aid in dying and a prescription for medication that would bring about a peaceful death. Nearly 75% of Americans support medical aid in dying, according to a poll taken last May.

Lee Marshall, a Gloucester psychotherapist and former registered nurse, was diagnosed with stage four terminal cancer in October 2018. She now advocates for people to decide when the pain and suffering reaches the point where quality of life is no longer there.

“And medical aid in dying would allow me the sort of the comfort that if that happens to me, I have a way to relieve my suffering, so I’m in control,” Marshall explained.

More information can be found at the link below:

https://www.deathwithdignity.org/

https://digboston.com/ma-lawmakers-urged-to-pass-end-of-life-options-act/
(no more at link)

[thucythucy]

1. The organized disability community has consistently opposed this legislation.

My partner died in 2019 of cancer. Hospice services in Massachusetts were excellent, and she received medication to ameliorate her pain. The law here says that medication can be administered as needed to minimize pain, up to and including to the point of death if that is a side effect of reducing the pain. So "pain" per se is not the issue. The "dignity" part is what most people cite, believing that needing assistance with personal care--for instance toileting--is inherently "undignified" and a fate "worse than death." This is an affront to people like my partner who had been disabled since young adulthood, needing personal care assistance through most of her life.

The "Death with Dignity" groups (which used to be called "The Hemlock Society&quot have an ableist viewpoint that extends beyond treating people with terminal conditions, and disability rights advocates note that people with disabilities are more likely to be pressured into choosing death so as not to be "a burden" on family, friends, and society in general. They note that while insurers will not pay for many home health services, they will foot the cost of "assisted suicide"--offering an economic incentive in addition to these other social pressures to "do the right thing."

"Not Dead Yet" is the preeminent disability rights group advocating around this issue:

https://notdeadyet.org/

What's needed is a comprehensive health care system that meets people's genuine needs, not an easy fix that benefits the insurance industry most of all.

I just thought I'd present an opposing view in this debate that has been generally ignored, even among otherwise sympathetic progressives.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. I see your point but what seems to be missing is discussion, and clear understanding of just what...

this business of life is all about. What is the purpose of life and when is it effectively over, whether or not physical functions are still working?

We now have all these heroic (and expensive, btw) ways of keeping the body "alive" and to what end if the mind of that body cannot appreciate it? I have been through situations in my own family where the deaths were inevitable and in clear view, but some insisted on keeping the patients alive-- every minute of life was somehow sacred.

And how does all this fit into our common history? Throughout most of it we have readily gone to war, and numbers like 25 to 30,000,000 dead Soviet troops and citizens become just numbers, not people. We know all about Nazi death camps and experiments, but not that much about Japanese unit 731. Closer to home, Andersonville and Tuskegee. The Belgian Congo.

We can be an extremely cruel species, and it is ironic that we can decry the death penalty or the "right to die" while ignoring all the other death around us.

[thucythucy]

3. The disability community--for instance Not Dead Yet--

has no problem with advanced directives, DNR orders, or the right to refuse treatment. Nor is this about palliative care.

I suggest you check out the materials at the link I provided.

That we can be cruel as a species isn't in doubt. It's another reason why people with disabilities--who have so often been the targets of that cruelty--are so skeptical about physician assisted suicide. The Nazis you mention had their own version of the term "quality of life." They called it "life unworthy of life." The T-4 program-which exterminated people with disabilities throughout Germany--was the dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. People with disabilities are still targeted by right wing hate groups. In Germany neo-Nazis taunt us chanting "Under Hitler you'd be gassed." In parts of Africa people with albinism are murdered so their body parts can be harvested for magical "cures." Here in America the prisons are filled with people with cognitive and mental disabilities.

And here in Massachusetts we've had to fight this "Death with Dignity" measure again and again. It's especially frightening now during the pandemic, when there are documented cases of people with disabilities being denied treatment--for instance ventilators--because someone has decided that the "quality of life" of someone who uses a wheelchair isn't worth the bother.

I'm sorry that you've been through painful end of life experiences with family. It's why hospice is so essential. And why, again, I have no problem with DNRs--which my partner signed during the last months of her life.

But all that is a far cry from empowering physicians to actively cause your death.

Again, check out the materials at the Not Dead Yet website. They've been addressing this issue for decades.

Best wishes.