Baumbach’s Death with Dignity Bill is not even filed yet, and already there is opposition
….from the Medical Society of Delaware. Which was to be expected. And the opposition is not preemptive. The Associated Press contacted them for a statement on Rep. Baumbach’s potential bill, and they offered their opinion. From the AP story:
Rep. Paul Baumbach, a Newark Democrat, said he doesn’t know when he’ll introduce the so-called “death with dignity” bill, which is modeled on legislation from Oregon. Oregon is one of only five states that allow assisted suicide and was the first to allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients.
“We’re making sure we’re getting enough input so that by the time we introduce it, it has its best chance to go forward,” Baumbach said this week.
But the Medical Society of Delaware, keeping with policies of the American Medical Association, already has come out against the measure.
“The Medical Society of Delaware strongly opposes any bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, as these practices are fundamentally inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer,” the society said in a prepared statement.
“When the treatment goals for a patient in the end stages of a terminal illness shift from curative efforts to comfort care, the level of physician involvement in the patient’s care should in no way decrease,” the statement added.
The proposed legislation would likely allow assisted suicide only in cases where a patient has been told by their doctor that they have a short time to live, like six months or less. The legislation would provide that only the patient is authorized to make this decision, and a family member and the doctor would be required to witness the procedure.
This, along with Marijuana Legalization, are the next big socially progressive / socially libertarian reforms to be considered by society, and by extension, the General Assembly. I don’t expect either to pass right away this session, but these reforms are coming eventually. And opposition is to be expected. Still, if you are going to die, and there is no hope for a cure, and your final weeks as you approach the end are going to be horrific in terms of pain, who doesn’t want to have that choice?
Thank you for sharing information on this issue.
I can understand why doctors’ groups might oppose it, but there is a big difference in mandating participating in a patient’s self selected demise and offering choice born of free will and no criminal consequence for doing so.
Only a family member and a doctor can witness the procedure? Huh? Guess, I better wait for the full text…..but FWIW….
what if you have no “blood family” or care not to contact them?
AND…..this is huge for me…..the doctor had better know the patient for either a certain amount of time prior to diagnosis…..or a certain amount of time after the diagnosis.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve located the source of the doctors’ concern, from the linked AP story:
“When the treatment goals for a patient in the end stages of a terminal illness shift from curative efforts to comfort care, the level of physician involvement in the patient’s care should in no way decrease,”
I’m guessing the billings in no way decrease, either. The vast majority of money wasted on health care is on useless treatments in the last few weeks of life.
Having witnessed hospice care more times than I want to remember the idea that terminally ill people will be storming the doctor’s office for assisted suicide is ridiculous. The will to live, even if only for one more day, is strong. The idea that “suicide by doctor” will become a problem is also ridiculous (and I’m really tired of hearing these “concerns” coming out of my TV). There are far more effective, less time consuming, easier ways to take your life. People wanting “death with dignity” know their life has already been taken. We really need to stop avoiding this reality – a reality the terminally ill person choosing this course has faced, everyone questioning their decision? Not so much.
I think Geezer correctly identified the concern – money. The other concern I see is lawsuits which is also about money. Neither of these concerns has anything to do with the terminally ill person.
The decision to end your own life before the disease ends it for you – usually in a horrific, degrading way – defines courageous to me. It tells me the person completely understands their situation and wants to end their life on their own terms. They are going to die. They’ve accepted that. I have nothing but admiration for them. I am in awe.
And I don’t think a doctor has to know them well. That’s great if he/she does, but it shouldn’t be a requirement. What if the doctor that “knows” you well (is that really even possible in most cases?) refuses to participate? You’re just out of luck?
I think a lot of the people concerned about this bill are in denial. They can’t understand why anyone would choose to do this. Instead they create non-reality based arguments where a doctor accidentally? deliberately? kills a patient – a patient who they cast as a person who can’t possibly know their own mind. People focusing on this non-problem remove the terminally ill person from the equation. And terminally ill people will tell you that being removed from the conversation (assisted suicide, or not) is a huge problem.
Not to mention, a terminally ill patient will tell you that when it comes to denial the biggest culprits are those closest to them. No one is being cruel. They are heartbroken and afraid. What is the right thing to say in these situations? I got nothing. I guess what I’m saying is that no one, other than the dying person, should have veto power over this decision.
In 2011, I wrote a post called On Dying. It was about the death of my best friend and the post I’m most proud of. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written. It was also the most honest.
I’m also a little surprised that people think your doctor always follows you into hospice. I’ve had four, up close and personal, experiences with hospice and once you enter that situation your doctor exits the scene. (Not always, but a good deal of the time.) Your oncologist will give you the horrible news, but that’s where his/her job ends. Unless they’re a personal friend don’t expect to see them as a patient again. Your family doctor most likely exited once the specialists moved in.
I 100% support the bill, even tho none of my terminally ill friends would have chosen this path. I respect that decision. I also respect the decision to end your life on your terms.
Having done consulting work for hospice services and palliative care providers highly specialized in that area of medicine, I know all too well that the mainstream M.D. profession fights tooth and nail to hang onto that patient until the eleventh hour because late stage illnesses produce huge billings; same is true for hospitals clinging to those dollars.
@Pandora: The fear of most who oppose this is that their relatives will try to have them killed so the relatives can get their hands on their money. In my experience, people who harbor such fears usually have good reason to think their relatives would like to see them dead.
LOL! I can see that, Geezer.
Great resource for this discussion is Dr Atul Gawande’s recent book ‘Being Mortal’. We spend way too much time and do the most expensive medical treatments in the last weeks of people’s lives. Not only does it not help heal, it harms what little time people have left. There was a very excellent Frontline documentary based on Dr Gawande’s work as well.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/being-mortal/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/being-mortal/dr-atul-gawande-hope-is-not-a-plan-when-doctors-patients-talk-death/
The problem with the statement from the Medical Society of Delaware is that all of us (all of us) will die. We will get to the point when there is no healing left to be done. So if the doctors want to maintain a role in this process they damn well better sort out how to handle situations when “healing” is no longer an option.
While those fears may be warranted for some people – since you say so – you must know that there is no Euthanasia legislation I’m aware of, whether proposed or codified in law, that would allow anything like that.
@DG: Fearful people cannot be reasoned with, and are often incapable of distinguishing that an occurrence, while technically possible, is overwhelmingly improbable. This is why they screech about the “slippery slope” so often. So while such laws don’t say that now, what’s to prevent them from saying that next year?
Another example: There’s no chance whatsoever that Iran will spend years and billions on a bomb just so they can drop it immediately on Tel Aviv, but you’re pissing up a rope if you try to explain that to a conservative.
I can’t disagree with that.