"Twenty-one states, including some 'blue states' with
progressive voting records, have rejected assisted suicide
laws. 'What has happened in each of these states,' [Marilyn]
Golden said, ''is that a cross-constituency has come
together that spans left, right and center.'" [Golden is a
policy analyst for the Berkeley-based Disability Rights
Education Defense Fund.]
From "Assisted
suicide attacked from an unlikely front,"
Los Angeles Times,
August 6.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez
has whined that the assisted suicide bill was defeated
because it was "demonized by the religious right."
Baloney. … This bill was stopped because liberals,
disability rights organizations, civil rights
activists such as the League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC), the California Medical Association,
advocates for the poor, and others worked a vigorous
grass roots campaign under the aegis of
Californians Against Assisted Suicide to defeat the
bill. Sure the religious right opposed it,
along with the Catholic Church. But they weren't the
difference."
From a June entry on the blog of bioethicist Wesley J.
Smith.
Last week the Los Angeles Times chose to pick up on
something that everyone close to the issue of
physician-assisted suicide (pro or con) had known for years:
these invidious measures have been defeated because of the
efforts of a coalition that spans the ideological spectrum.
As the Times put it, "Five
times in the last dozen years, bills on medically assisted
suicide have risen in the California Assembly, and five
times they have failed."
The latest measure--the
so-called "California
Compassionate Choices Act"--was supposedly modeled on
Oregon's law, the only state to legalize physician-assisted
suicide.
AB 374 was shelved June 7, despite enlisting the services of
the powerful
Assembly
Speaker Fabian Nunez.
The Times article focuses on the disability rights
community, but such activists are part of a broader front
that includes the Catholic Church and, typically, NRLC's
state affiliate, such as the California Pro-Life Council.
But as
Marilyn Golden noted, in the quote that begins this edition,
those with disabilities have a special credibility.
"We
are on the front lines of this issue as it actually plays
out in the medical system," she told the Times.
There
is much to learn from the article. One of the points
highlighted by Paul Longmore, a history professor at San
Francisco State and "a pioneer in the historical study of
disability," is hardly new but nonetheless pivotal.
"Oncologists and others who do end-of-life care have told
me there's a lot of treatable depression in terminally ill
people, but it often goes undiagnosed and untreated,"
Longmore told the Times. "In a given case, I'd also
want to know about the pain management the patient is
getting. I'd want to know if they are worried about becoming
dependent on their families. I'd want to know if they have
access to hospice services."
These
two inter-related considerations can not be emphasized
enough. Depression in such situations can easily be missed
and therefore not addressed.
Likewise, especially with the elderly, there is also a
two-sided coin: not wanting to be dependent on family
members and a dread of being a "burden." These powerful
emotions can trigger or accentuate a pre-existing
depression.
AB 374
is, according to
Assembly Speaker
Nunez,
no longer in play for this session. But doubtless proponents
will massage the language and come back with a laundry list
of supposed "guarantees" and ironclad "safeguards."
The
coalition wasn't fooled this time around. It won't be
hoodwinked the next time either.
