{"id":10384,"date":"2022-03-13T18:49:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-13T10:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.exitinternational.net\/?p=10384"},"modified":"2022-03-13T22:06:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-13T13:36:08","slug":"right-to-assisted-suicide-gets-favorable-argument-in-ma-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euthanasia.net\/exit\/right-to-assisted-suicide-gets-favorable-argument-in-ma-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Right to assisted suicide gets favorable argument in MA Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON (CN) \u2014 The Right to assisted suicide gets favorable argument in MA Court reports the Court House News Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Massachusetts Supreme Court seemed receptive Wednesday to becoming the first court in the country to establish a constitutional right to assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re moving forward,\u201d said Justice Dalila Wendlandt. \u201cWhy isn\u2019t it time to recognize that patients \u2026 have a right to decide in their own way, on their own terms, how they want to die as opposed to waiting?\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Elspeth Cypher asked, \u201cWhat in the Massachusetts Constitution would prevent us from saying this is a fundamental right?\u201d<\/p>\n

And Justice Serge Georges Jr. noted that \u201cwe have these newer and more humane ways of addressing the end of life. \u2026 A hundred years ago \u2026 we didn\u2019t have all this. But facts evolve and the common law evolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assisted suicide is legal by statute in the District of Columbia as well as nine states: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.<\/p>\n

The Montana Supreme Court also held in 2009 that there is no state law that prohibits it.<\/p>\n

But no state high court has ever held that assisted suicide is constitutionally protected.<\/p>\n

The Massachusetts case was brought by two doctors: Alan Steinbach, who wants to write prescriptions for terminally ill patients, and Roger Kligler, a retired physician with stage 4 prostate cancer who wants the right to kill himself to alleviate possible suffering at the end of life.<\/p>\n

The state attorney general took the position that a physician who prescribes fatal drugs can be charged with manslaughter. So the doctors argued that the right to assisted suicide is protected by the state constitution\u2019s guarantees of liberty and privacy.<\/p>\n

At oral argument, both Assistant District Attorney Maria Granik and Christopher Schandevel of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA claimed that such a right must be \u201cdeeply rooted in history and tradition,\u201d which assisted suicide isn\u2019t. But a number of the justices pushed back.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen jurisdictions have addressed this and given their citizens this right,\u201d Justice Wendlandt said. \u201cHow do you account for that? Are we limited to the history of Massachusetts? Common law is an evolving thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

More pointedly, Cypher noted that, \u201cunder tradition and history, women didn\u2019t have rights. How did they get them? How did that happen if someone didn\u2019t make a change?\u201d<\/p>\n

Georges was also dismissive. \u201cYou have your argument down pat and that\u2019s great,\u201d he told Schandevel. \u201cBut do you not see the paternalistic part of this?\u201d He demanded, \u201cWhat interest does the government have in Dr. Kligler\u2019s suffering?\u201d<\/p>\n

Granik replied that \u201cthe state has the right to protect the lives of all its citizens.\u201d But she didn\u2019t seem to persuade anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat interest does the government have in telling him, \u2018We won\u2019t let you end your life on your terms; we\u2019re going to make you end it on ours\u2019?\u201d Georges asked. And Cypher added, \u201cWhat interest does the government have in making sure this doctor has a painful death?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cypher repeatedly suggested that the state\u2019s only interest was nothing more than a religious preference. And Georges commented that \u201cthe only interest that seems to be articulated here is, \u2018We feel better if you can\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice David Lowy wondered why the court had to wait for assisted suicide to become deeply rooted. \u201cIf we might get there at some point, why are you saying that \u2026 it will exist in three years but it doesn\u2019t exist now? If this is an organic document we\u2019re interpreting, why can\u2019t we say that there\u2019s a liberty interest now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Granik and Schandevel then backpedaled and said that if the state were going to allow assisted suicide, it should be left up to the legislature to come up with a comprehensive regulatory scheme. Wendlandt seemed to like that idea.<\/p>\n

But Georges observed that, \u201cif we were the first domino\u201d and recognized a constitutional right, the legislature could still pass a law to regulate it. He said that\u2019s exactly what had happened with abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d have to resolve a lot of complex issues\u201d in future cases, Schandevel warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t we do that all the time?\u201d Georges asked.<\/p>\n

\"Right<\/a><\/p>\n

If assisted living expands, “the fear is that the people who are on the chopping block, so to speak, will be black and brown people because of the disparities that already exist in the health care system,” said Dean Browne Lewis of North Carolina Central University School of Law.<\/p>\n

The doctors in the case are being supported by Compassion and Choices, the country\u2019s leading organization in favor of assisted suicide. But the case drew amicus briefs from more than two dozen organizations and most of them opposed the practice.<\/p>\n

A brief for local Catholic bishops said it violated the \u201csanctity of life,\u201d and a disability rights organization claimed that assisted suicide \u201cviolates the spirit and letter of the Americans with Disabilities Act by \u2026 conveying the message that disabled lives are less worthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state medical society didn\u2019t take a position on the issue but warned the justices that allowing assisted suicide would raise numerous thorny questions about how to define a terminal illness and how to make sure that patients are competent and fully informed and are acting voluntarily.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen states are currently considering legislation to expand assisted suicide, according to Lucia Silecchia, a professor at the Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

A bill likely to pass soon in Delaware would allow not just doctors but also nurses to write fatal prescriptions, noted Browne Lewis, dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law.<\/p>\n

She said the reason that legislators want to include nurses is that many doctors refuse to participate in assisted suicide because they see it as contrary to their role as healers.<\/p>\n

A similar bill failed in Washington state recently, according to Jennifer Popik, a legislative director at National Right to Life. That bill would also have reduced the waiting period and allowed delivery of fatal medication by mail.<\/p>\n

Groups such as Compassion and Choices have long targeted New York for legislation, but a task force in the state recently opposed it, Lewis said.<\/p>\n

She noted that most states that have approved assisted suicide are \u201cheavily white,\u201d but in a state like New York, \u201cthe fear is that the people who are on the chopping block, so to speak, will be black and brown people because of the disparities that already exist in the health care system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insurance companies have a strong incentive to steer people toward assisted suicide in order to reduce the enormous cost of end-of-life care, added Popik.<\/p>\n

In fact a bipartisan resolution introduced in Congress opposes medically assisted death in part because \u201cinsurers have denied or delayed coverage for life-saving care while offering to cover assisted suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that technology now exists to keep people alive longer, but at great expense and with a reduced quality of life, is what is driving the interest in the practice, Lewis said.<\/p>\n

She pointed to focus groups findings that elderly people\u2019s main fear is of having to live with dementia rather than physical disability. The fear \u201cis mental, not physical,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Not all states that allow assisted suicide keep statistics on it, but in the decade after Washington state legalized it in 2009, some 1,622 people killed themselves, according to a state report.<\/p>\n

In Oregon, more than 1,900 people have committed suicide since the practice was legalized in 1997.<\/p>\n

In California, 337 people died of medically assisted suicide in 2018 alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOSTON (CN) \u2014 The Right to assisted suicide gets favorable argument in MA Court reports the Court House News Service. The Massachusetts Supreme Court seemed receptive Wednesday to becoming the first court in the country to establish a constitutional right to assisted suicide. \u201cWe\u2019re moving forward,\u201d said Justice Dalila Wendlandt. \u201cWhy isn\u2019t it time to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[206,101],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n