I wonder what evidence there is for the inevitable negative effects you fear, and whether, instead, it matters how the legalization of assisted suicide is institutionalized?
I don't think there is a way of knowing, for example, how many people have died in Oregon who could instead have benefited from therapy for demoralization syndrome. Or if you go back to my story about Ray - if he had committed suicide before he began therapy, who would have registered that as a negative outcome? He would have been another terminally ill person, out of treatment options, who saw no hope in his future wanted to die. There would have been no way to measure the loss of an extra year of life, during which he utterly transformed his understanding of himself.
As far as other effects: the statistics on assisted suicide in the Netherlands are pretty appalling. It's been legal for more than twenty years there. The laws require a great many checks and balances, but the evidence shows that they simply aren't followed. Patients are supposed to be the ones to bring it up, but more than half of doctors have suggested it to a patient. And one in four doctors admits, in surveys, to having killed a patient who did not request it. One in four.
Right now there is considerable support in the Netherlands for revising the law to allow any person over the age of 70, no matter how healthy, to request assisted suicide. Examples of reasons given by supporters of the law include feeling lonely and isolated, being widowed, and becoming less physically capable. I find that a pretty appalling example of how perceptions of the value of an older/weaker/vulnerable life have been degraded. Of course, given the lack of a control group, there's no way to test whether the apparent acceptability of this new proposal is an effect of legalized assisted suicide.
no subject
I don't think there is a way of knowing, for example, how many people have died in Oregon who could instead have benefited from therapy for demoralization syndrome. Or if you go back to my story about Ray - if he had committed suicide before he began therapy, who would have registered that as a negative outcome? He would have been another terminally ill person, out of treatment options, who saw no hope in his future wanted to die. There would have been no way to measure the loss of an extra year of life, during which he utterly transformed his understanding of himself.
As far as other effects: the statistics on assisted suicide in the Netherlands are pretty appalling. It's been legal for more than twenty years there. The laws require a great many checks and balances, but the evidence shows that they simply aren't followed. Patients are supposed to be the ones to bring it up, but more than half of doctors have suggested it to a patient. And one in four doctors admits, in surveys, to having killed a patient who did not request it. One in four.
Right now there is considerable support in the Netherlands for revising the law to allow any person over the age of 70, no matter how healthy, to request assisted suicide. Examples of reasons given by supporters of the law include feeling lonely and isolated, being widowed, and becoming less physically capable. I find that a pretty appalling example of how perceptions of the value of an older/weaker/vulnerable life have been degraded. Of course, given the lack of a control group, there's no way to test whether the apparent acceptability of this new proposal is an effect of legalized assisted suicide.