The following HVCL Community View was recently printed in the Letters to the Editor in Croton-on-Hudson's local paper, The Gazette. At this posting Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and Mr. Martin Smolin of Sleepy Hollow have responded. Ms. Paulin's response is quoted below HVCL's co-director and editor Judith Anderson's commentary.
Community View: The Semantics of Suicide
“… suicide is painless it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please.” (by Johnny Mandel/Mike Altman)
Words from the familiar instrumental theme song of the hit movie and TV show M*A*S*H., have lost some of their sardonic bite. The unforgettable images of Korean War Army medical doctors, surgeons, nurses and chaplain running to incoming helicopters to quickly give aid to the injured and dying (despite personal anti-war feelings) seem quaint. Some today would define compassion differently. Some would define the role of medical doctor differently, too.
Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale has introduced legislation she and Sen. John Bonacic, R-Mount Hope, now refer to as “aid-in-dying”. The bill (S.5814/A.5261-b) according to Ms. Paulin would have safeguards to prevent wrongdoing. We are not reassured.
First, why advocate again for death? Do we really want to continue to create a society that finds new ways to kill its most vulnerable citizens? Many disability groups oppose it for obvious reasons. Why not legislate for expanded state-of-the-art hospice care? Rosary Hill in Hawthorne, NY and Calvary Hospital in the Bronx are only two examples of compassionate end of life care. Visit them before forming Paulin’s opinion on natural death as “horrific, painful, degrading” (Karl Evers-Hillstrom, The Legislative Gazette, 2/16/16).
Why not connect depression with assisted suicide abuse and seek broader protections and treatment for individuals who suffer mental stress or illness?
Why not listen to the majority of medical professionals who find this latest corruption of the medical calling as offensive as abortion?
If suicide is tragic, why is assisted suicide enlightened? Too often an increasingly secular culture will seek to solve problems, despite other humane alternatives, in this way.
“Suicide in my mind implies that you’re not terminally ill, and going to die anyway. As unfortunate as it is, it’s a matter of when it’s gonna (sic) be. This has to do with compassion for the person who is dying and their families. It’s not assisted suicide,” says the Assemblywoman.
“Suicide is suicide. Assisted suicide also brings other people into that process, it may be the physician, it may be the nurse, it may be the pharmacist, in a very negative way,” so says Stephen Hayford, legislative director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms.
The debate on assisted suicide has been heating up since California passed assisted suicide legislation last fall. Belgium and the Netherlands have already moved beyond to the inevitable euthanasia with staggering statistics. The question before us again is the dignity of human life and the narrow notion only perfect human life is worthy of care and protection from its natural beginning to its natural end.
While we empathize with her recent loss of a family member, we find Ms. Paulin’s view shortsighted in its lack of reflection on the inevitable effects to citizen rights and to the broader culture in dangerous ways. Just debating the probable abuses inherent in such legislation should humble us. Instead, like abortion, we legislate to the hard case and pretend that unavoidable, unintended consequences will not harm in profound ways, like the “aid-in-dying” movement.
Call your representatives and say NO to this destructive State-approved, State-promoted legislation and yes to a greater appreciation of the value and purpose of human life at all its stages, joys and sufferings. Pragmatism should serve us, not kill us.
Judith Anderson
Co-director, Hudson Valley Coalition for Life
3/15/16
To the Editor:
I'd like to respond to the issues raised by Judith Anderson concerning my legislation to enable terminally-ill patients to access medical aid in dying.
My legislation is based on a respect for every individual's personal beliefs. While Ms. Anderson is clearly opposed to medical aid in dying, the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers believe that individuals facing the end of their lives should have access to it. I would defend her right to refuse this option - but in doing so, I would not deny it to terminally-ill patients who desire it.
Medical aid in dying empowers dying patients - through means they alone control - to engage the dying process on their own terms. It is complementary to - not something offered instead of - hospice care. In Oregon, which has had a medical aid in dying law for 18 years, over 90% of patients who have used the law were in hospice care when they died.
It is already legal in New York to end your life through various means, including the refusal of treatment, food and hydration. Rather than a dramatic departure from accepted social practice, medical aid in dying is simply one more option we can provide patients to cope with the end of their lives.
Sincerely,
Amy Paulin, Member of Assembly, 88th A.D., Scarsdale
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