Constitutional Right to Die

In an opinion piece written by Ronald Sokol and published Mar 21, 2007 in the International Herald Tribune the constitutional right to die with dignity is advocated.

Using the recent trial of the French doctor and nurse who administered poison to a 65 year old woman who was suffering a cruel, debilitating, and undignified death from pancreatic cancer as a springboard Mr Sokol argues that the right to die will soon become as well entrenched in constitutional 'rights' as the freedom of press and religion are today. Mr. Sokol explains that as more people get older, and medical science extends their life, and suffering, more people will demand the 'right' to a peaceful and painless death.

My web site, EuthanasiaClinic.com, has been using statistics from the Center for Decease Control to show exactly the same thing.

In America the number of people aged over 65 years will increase from about 38 million in 2005 to about 56 million in 2020. If we continue to rely on the current standard tests for determining when a person should be 'allowed' to die then many people will begin to make their own choices of the time, place, and manner of death. It will either be that or they will have to rely on the good will of others to make those choices for them.

In the case of the French woman mentioned above, she had gotten to the point where she 'suffered from fever, trembling, incontinence, nausea, pain and an intestinal blockage causing vomiting of fecal matter' before she was allowed to die. Why is it we have to get to this point before others will let us die?

I am not sure that I agree with Mr. Sokol when he states, 'Within the next half century, perhaps much sooner, the right to choose to die with dignity will be as widely recognized as the right to free speech or to exercise one's religion.', but I certainly do applaud his vision. There are far too many ideologues standing in the way of a person being able to take control of their own life to the extent that they can choose the time, place, and manner of their own death. But as the number of people shown to be suffering needlessly increases dramatically, and the number of court cases against loved ones and physicians grows an awareness will creep into the social consciousness that something needs to be done.

I suggest a rational first step.

There is at least one method which any person can now use to end their own life. It does not require the intervention of anyone else, including a physician. It allows for a peaceful and painless death. It's effect is the same as falling asleep and not waking up. It is the death that most of us hope to have, but which modern medical science is increasingly denying us.

A Compassionate Law would allow the loved ones of a person, who is still cognitively and physically able to end their own life, to be in attendance at the death without concern of legal prosecution. While it does not address the very real needs of those who are beyond the point of being able to administer the means of their own death, it does help those who are still physically and mentally capable by allowing them to have at their bedside their loved ones.

Requiring a person to die alone should not be a punishment for choosing to end one's suffering.

This only covers some of the cases that will come up with a rapidly aging society but it does make an effort towards achieving a rational view of self determination and shows a willingness by society to allow compassion for the dying at a time when they are in their greatest need for displays of love and affection from those around them.