The ''Death with Dignity Act'' Debate in Massachusetts

10/15/12

Next month, voters in Massachusetts would be casting their votes for or against the “Death with Dignity” Act, which proposes physician-assisted deaths upon request by terminally ill patients who do not welcome the prospects of prolonging their sufferings. The first such law was passed in Oregon about 15 years back, and statistics show that at least 1 in 500 terminally ill patients choose the option. On Monday, the Boston University website published an interview with Marcia Angell, senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the first to sign the petition for putting the measure to ballot. Marcia's answers to the debate are quite enlightening.

Opponents of the measure, including Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston recently opined in an article, “even proponents of PAS readily acknowledge that modern medicine can manage the pain in almost every case. Very few Oregon residents that request PAS indicate unbearable pain as the reason…”

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However, Angell says that it should not be called PAS or physician-assisted-suicide, but “physician-assisted-dying” and that “it should be distinguished from the usual suicide, in which someone with a normal life expectancy chooses death over life.”

If approved, the Massachusetts law would allow terminally ill patients with a life expectancy of about six months to receive a prescription for a lethal drug, provided the patient makes two verbal requests and a written request in the presence of
witnesses. Doctors would be required to advise patients on alternatives including forms of pain control.

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While the BUToday asked Angela about her response to the Massachusetts Medical Society opposing the measure on the grounds that it is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer,” she said the measure is only for those for whom doctors have decided that “healing” is no longer possible.

According to proponents of the law, not having the benefits of the law means denying people control over their lives because they are terminally ill, though the same persons had full control on their lives while healthy. Not having such a law in place means compelling patients to continue to live in agony against their choices, even where doctors find there are no hopes of recovery.

The conditions of the law are mentioned in the introductory paragraph of the summary as written by the Attorney General of Massachusetts. The introductory paragraph of the measure reads:

“This proposed law would allow a physician licensed in Massachusetts to prescribe medication, at a terminally ill patient's request, to end that patient's life. To qualify, a patient would have to be an adult resident who (1) is medically determined to be mentally capable of making and communicating health care decisions; (2) has been diagnosed by attending and consulting physicians as having an incurable, irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, cause death within six months; and (3) voluntarily expresses a wish to die and has made an informed decision. The proposed law states that the patient would ingest the medicine in order to cause death in a humane and dignified manner.”