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Philadelphia Inquirer assistant opinion editor  promotes legalizing euthanasia in America 

Sep 23, 2022

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An opinion piece written by Alison McCook, an assistant opinion editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, promotes the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Pennsylvania.

McCook writes about the death of her mother in 2007 from ALS and asks the question “Why is assisted suicide not legal in Pennsylvania?” The argument is well crafted and is designed to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia .

What is the difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide?

Typically, in the case of assisted suicide, two medical practitioners approve a person’s request to die and the primary practitioner writes the prescription for the lethal drug cocktail. The person receives and consumes the lethal drug cocktail and dies by assisted suicide. Assisting a suicide is currently legal in 10 states.

With euthanasia, typically, two medical practitioners approve a person’s request to die and the primary practitioner then lethally injects the person with a lethal drug cocktail. Lethal injection is currently defined as homicide in all 50 states. The death lobby is now working to expand assisted suicide laws to euthanasia.

McCook argue that legalizing assisted suicide leaves out a group of people who are not capable of self-administering the lethal drugs. She writes

Even if Pennsylvania manages to pass a medical aid-in-dying law, it would be flawed, along with all the other aid-in-dying laws on the books in other states, because these laws require that patients give themselves lethal medication. By the time my mother was ready to die, she would have likely been too paralyzed to do this. There’s a whole class of patients who are terminally ill and cannot ingest the medication without assistance. Our laws, as written, leave them behind.

This article shows us the direction of the death lobby in America. Historically, they started with trying to legalize euthanasia but failed. In 1994 Oregon passed its assisted suicide voter initiative because they limited the act to assisted suicide. Now the death lobby is working to expand their assisted suicide laws to euthanasia.

The good news is that their first attempt in California has failed. In June 2022 a California federal judge rejected a case designed to permit euthanasia within California’s assisted suicide act

Lonny Shavelson, a doctor that solely focuses on assisted suicide, argued that the state’s assisted suicide law discriminated against people who had difficulty self-ingesting lethal assisted suicide drugs . To remedy the situation the state needed to permit euthanasia (lethal injection) in those cases. U.S. District  Vince Chhabria decided that legalizing euthanasia would not extend the state assisted suicide law but fundamentally alter it.

The American death lobby lost their first battle in legalizing euthanasia in America but clearly their goal is to continue this battle.

Opposing euthanasia is most effective when we call it what it is– homicide/murder. It is never a good or a safe idea to give doctors the right in law to kill you.

Categories: Euthanasia
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