Disability-Rights Advocates

To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always.
– Ambroise Paré, French surgeon, 1510-1590

I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman an instrument to produce abortion.
– Hippocrates, Physicians’ Oath, c. 400 B.C

We were saddened by the news that Brittany Maynard has died. She committed suicide with lethal medication prescribed by a physician in Oregon, where the law allows assisted suicide. She moved there from California, where voters rejected assisted suicide. The 29-year-old was surrounded by her husband, mother, and father.
According to the media, she had a malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme. Doctors had removed as much as possible, but it recurred. She decided to forego radiation or chemotherapy, which might have prolonged her life but offered little possibility of cure. Not stated was whether she was offered the possibility of participating in a clinical trial. This offers patients a chance to prolong their lives, and also a chance to contribute to improving the care of others with similar diseases – thereby giving meaning to however many or few days were left to her.
Reportedly she was having increasingly frequent seizures and faced progressive deterioration of her neurologic functions. If reports are correct, there seems little doubt about the diagnosis. Brittany Maynard probably had less than six months to live, but prognoses are often wrong – in both directions. But we can question whether the state and the medical profession had to become involved.
We can question whether it is wise – or safe – to conflate the role of healer with the role of executioner. We can question whether we will be able to see someone in a white coat enter our hospital room, and not feel a pang of doubt about whether he is there to help us get better – or to help us die sooner.
Specifically, we can ask this question: Why is taking an overdose of barbiturates – prescribed by a physician with the approval of the state – somehow a beautiful and uplifting way of leaving this world, while taking pills or shooting yourself on your own is unacceptable? Why does the first supposedly have no ill effects on surviving loved ones, while the second may lead to an increased suicide rate among family members?
Here is a related question: Why is an overdose of barbiturates “terribly painful” and so fraught with error that a federal judge banned its use in California to put convicted murderers to death, yet at the same time it is an easy and sure way to kill medical patients? Logic? We don’t need no stinkin’ logic. We’re progressives!
And we can ask these questions:
● Why is there is no mention of verifying the diagnosis except by “reviewing the chart”? Reviewing the chart gives us a good idea of the chart, but not of the patient. I spent 25 years in medical oncology at a university medical center. For every patient, we reviewed the biopsy slides with our pathologists. Usually the referring diagnosis was correct. But sometimes it wasn’t.
The most glaring example I saw was a woman referred with a diagnosis of breast cancer. The microscopic slides indeed showed cancer, but it was not connected to the normal breast tissue. The pathologist suspected it was a “floater” – that is, that someone else’s cancer tissue floated off her slide in the preparation process, and floated onto our patient’s slide. He was correct. Our patient didn’t have cancer. The other patient biopsied that morning, who had been told she was okay, in fact did have cancer.
If it were not for a second pathologist reviewing the slides, we would have treated the healthy woman unnecessarily, while the woman with cancer would have been left untreated. “Reviewing the chart” would have caused us to perpetuate the error.
Similarly, patients with neurologic disease should be evaluated by an independent neurologist, patients with heart disease should be evaluated by an independent cardiologist, and patients with intractable pain should be evaluated by an independent specialist in pain management. Why is this not required?
● Why is there is no requirement that the patient be seen by an independent psychiatrist or psychologist to rule out depression? True, anyone contemplating suicide is by definition depressed. The question is whether the physical disease or the depression is the chief reason for the suicidal thoughts.
The treatment for depression includes psychotherapy, antidepressants, and family support – but not death. Suicide is not a treatment for depression. Suicide is the result of failure of treatment for depression.
On the other hand, availability of a “way out” may help some sufferers to endure their problems. Some patients expressed gratitude, even when they decided not to commit suicide. Honesty requires that we recognize this fact.
Advocates for assisted suicide or euthanasia often talk about respecting the patient’s “autonomy.” To me, this word means that I decide whether or not to end my life. And if my answer is yes, I take responsibility for ending it my way, and don’t ask others to do it for me – of course, unless I am quadriplegic. “Autonomy” should mean what it says.
Suggesting suicide to a patient should not be called “respecting autonomy.” In many cases, a more honest term would be “cost containment.”
● Why is there is no comment on possible errors – that is, facilitating the deaths of patients who were not “terminal”?
“Terminal” used to mean “in the actual process of dying.” For example, a chart might state, “Blood pressure falling, pulse weak, appears terminal.” But now, “terminal” means “expected to die in six months.” Such predictions are often inaccurate. Actress Valerie Harper, who has a malignant brain tumor of another type, was given three months to live – almost two years ago. And with treatment, she’s still going strong – and still acting.
The most glaring example I saw was a young man with rapidly growing tumors. We expected him to die in days. Nevertheless, high-dose chemotherapy was begun. The tumors shrank and eventually disappeared. The biopsy was reviewed to be sure it was cancer. It was. The young man went on to finish college, get married, and father a normal child. But if we had caused his death, we never would have discovered our error – and therefore we would have repeated the error again and again.
● Why do the Oregon and Washington plans provide no feedback to the referring doctors? Of the patients reported in the New England Journal, 30 did not actually take the lethal medication – either because the decided not to, or because they died before they could. But of these 30, 11 lived longer than the expected six months, in one case 97 months – that is, eight years after he or she was expected to die. So much for prognostic accuracy.
● Why is it that under Oregon and Washington laws, the doctor makes out the death certificate to indicate the underlying disease as the cause of death, but omits assisted suicide? The cases are supposed to be reported to a central authority, but may not be. The most reliable – though not completely reliable – source for a cause of death is the death certificate. If assisted suicide is praiseworthy, why conceal it?
The bias of physicians from the time of Hippocrates, 24 centuries ago, until only a few years ago, was for the continuation of life. The bias is now shifting. Unless we do something, soon the bias will be for the cessation of life as soon as it becomes inconvenient to others. In an era of “cost containment,” this thought should trouble all of us.
Stalin is said to have remarked that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. The assisted suicide of one patient, Brittany Maynard, fills us with sadness that so young a person should have been afflicted with so serious a disease, and relief that her suffering is over. But legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia will have profoundly destructive effects on our civilization. Sooner or later, we all will become statistics. Let it be later rather than sooner.
Author’s Note: For further information, go to the Not Dead Yet website and the Euthanasia.com website.

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Contact: dstol@prodigy.net. You are welcome to publish or post these articles, provided that you cite the author and website.
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