The End of Life Option Act introduced into California has given people the impression that dying with dignity is the noble thing to do.
However, lawmakers should not pass this Death with Dignity bill unless they get rid of the loopholes that allow hospitals and insurance companies to abuse the law.
The controversy of assisted suicide began in 1990 when Dr. Jack Kevorkian assisted in the suicide of 45-year-old Alzheimer’s patient Janet Adkins, according to Bio online. Kevorkian’s ideology of putting patients out of their misery has come full circle and into California legislation 25 years later.
State Senators Bill Monning (D-Carmel) and Lois Wolk (D-Davis), the co-authors of the act, contend that allowing a competent patient to make an informed decision about their life would be respecting their best wishes, according to the LA Times in January.
In a 2005 statewide survey conducted by Field Poll, 70 percent of Californians agree with assisted suicide.
But beyond the publicized case of 29-year-old Britany Maynard, who suffered from an aggressive cancer and moved from California to Oregon to commit legal suicide, the assisted death option can provide opportunities for healthcare providers to capitalize on profits.
The Disability and Health Journal wrote that the cost for a typical dosage of lethal injection is only $300 dollars, which is significantly cheaper than the cost of long-term medical care.
Hospitals do not consider morals when they are attempting to be cost-efficient based on a person’s economic status. Under the proposed law, a patient from a low economic background who had been denied long-term healthcare could be guided toward the idea of “dying with dignity,” according to the LA Times.
Health maintenance organizations’ power to control a physician’s treatment practices due to the cost of care is already a controversial issue in America. They should not be able to influence a practitioner’s decision to offer suicide assistance, hastening the end of a patient’s life.
Furthermore, terminal illness prognoses are fundamentally flawed, so physicians and lawmakers should not use them to determine if assisted suicide is necessary.
The assisted suicide laws in Washington and Oregon state that a person is eligible if they are terminally ill and will die within six months.
According to Oncology Journal, physicians’ prognoses are based on statistical averages, which can be difficult to apply when every patient’s case is unique. A cancer patient given six months to live based on physician predictions could actually have more years of life ahead of them with the possibility of the cancer going into remission.
The miscalculation of a doctor’s prognosis opens the door for assisted suicide, putting in danger those who could be diagnosed as terminal but could still have years of their life ahead of them.
Also, a patient who has suffered from a new, unknown illness could easily be misdiagnosed as terminally ill.
The Disability and Health Journal wrote that new patients suffering from disabilities and terminal illness often go through a state of depression and have suicidal thoughts but eventually adapt, finding happiness and contentment later on as they progress through their disability or illness.
The assisted suicide law would require a 15 day waiting period when someone signs up for assisted suicide, which lawmakers say gives the patient an opportunity to reconsider such a drastic resolution.
But it takes more than 15 days for a person to adapt to an illness or disability, which shows the lack of consideration that states have when it comes to dealing with a vulnerable patient who may want to take the easy way out.
Monning and Wolk have sat down with groups in opposition of the End of Life Option act to hash out the details of the new law. If the proposed legislation fails, Monning and Wolk have threatened to create a ballot measure, making voters responsible for the final decision, according to the LA Times.
Before we vote yes on a law based on what the media has fed to us, we must carefully analyze this legislation and determine who it will really benefit in the long term: our loved ones or the healthcare industry.
Michael Mendoza is a junior journalism major.