Debating assisted suicide

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: more states considering assisted suicide laws.

Pro-life advocates warn that hastening death short-circuits lessons unique to the final season of life. And doctors and disability advocates warn the guardrails never stay in place. WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry reports.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: In the early morning hours of October 31st, Illinois state senators passed a bill that not even the governor expected to come up for a vote. The measure would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill residents aged 18 years or older who were not expected to live more than six months.

Robert Gilligan is the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois.

ROBERT GILLIGAN: What happened is, in Illinois the legislature passed a lot of very significant, controversial pieces of legislation during what they call the veto session. Technically they’re supposed to be times when the legislature acts on the governor’s veto.

The state’s regular legislative session ended in May, with only the House having approved the bill. Then the Senate began a special session last month.

Now the bill is sitting on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk awaiting his signature or veto. But if he takes no action, the measure will go into effect 60 days after it arrived in his office.

Pritzker is not the only governor staring down an assisted suicide bill as the year wraps up. Over the summer, New York lawmakers also approved a similar bill and sent it to Governor Kathy Hochul for consideration. Neither governor has publicly said what their decision will be.

GILLIGAN: Advocates will say they need this because they don’t want to experience pain and suffering at the end of life. We all want to help people, but in terms of helping people under the guise of compassion, we’re actually not helping them. We’re hurting society.

Proponents of assisted dying claim laws like these provide a necessary end-of-life option for the terminally ill. But pro-lifers argue the legislation is a slippery slope—claiming that assisted suicide targets vulnerable and disabled people. They say allowing people to kill themselves with the help of medical professionals deprives them of the lessons and experiences that are unique to the final season of life.

Eleven states and Washington, D.C., currently permit medically assisted suicide. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice. Matthew Eppinette is the executive director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.

MATTHEW EPPINETTE: They talk a good bit about guardrails and safeguards like residency requirements, like waiting times. But what we’ve seen in state after state after state is there’s then a movement to go in and amend bills that have been passed and to remove exactly those kinds of safeguards.

In 2019, Oregon lawmakers removed the 15-day waiting period between a patient requesting lethal drugs and receiving them. In 2023 they allowed non-state residents to request the medication. Five other states have also reduced their waiting periods. New York’s newly proposed law has no waiting period.

Illinois state Senator Chris Balkema spoke out against the bill before the October vote.

CHRIS BALKEMA: Every state and country that has enacted this has opened the guardrails over time and made it easier and easier to take one’s life. The impact on Illinois’ most vulnerable, the one and a half million people with disabilities is huge.

As of now, the states that allow assisted dying all limit it to individuals with diagnosed illnesses that will likely claim their lives soon. But disability advocates warn that states could expand the laws to include individuals who doctors say could have a poor quality of life.

Conrad Reynoldson is the founder of the nonprofit called the Washington Civil and Disability Advocate.

CONRAD REYNOLDSON: I have a form of muscular dystrophy and it’s a rare disease that is often misunderstood as terminal.

When Reynoldson was diagnosed as a toddler, his doctor said he would have a poor quality of life and likely die young. Now, decades later, Reynoldson says doctors often wrongly assume people with disabilities will not experience the same fullness of life as others.

REYNOLDSON: It just sets up a two-tiered system where you have quote-unquote healthy people that get suicide prevention, and then quote-unquote unhealthy people who get this.

Every state that allows assisted suicide laws also operates suicide prevention programs. Eppinette says these policies cannot coexist.

EPPINETTE: At the very least it gives a tacit endorsement to the idea that there are some lives that should simply come to an end at a person’s own hand.

While assisted suicide proponents claim the laws are intended to save people from suffering and pain, pro-life doctors say medical advances have drastically improved pain management options. Dr. Sharon Quick was an anesthesiologist and now leads the Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation.

SHARON QUICK: You never, ever need lethal drugs to manage pain. I think we have this attitude in our society that youth, beauty, strength, independence, and intelligence are valued. And when you start losing those things, as you do at the end of life, then even patients will feel like they’re not valuable anymore.

According to Oregon’s most recent report on its law, the top three end-of-life concerns for people seeking assisted suicide were loss of autonomy, decreasing ability to participate in activities, and loss of dignity.

People who support assisted suicide point to these fears as reasons to help people end their lives. But Quick and others argue the responses show a need for our society to change how we view death. Instead of dreading the natural end of life, we should learn how to care for our loved ones and allow ourselves to be cared for when we need it.

Quick recalled watching her father lose his abilities as he struggled with multiple diseases near the end of his life. Instead of growing bitter, he allowed his family to meet his needs and always found something to be grateful for, an attitude that stuck with Quick.

QUICK: When you can learn to recognize your value, even in the midst of all of those losses, that is a freedom that is amazing for people to have, that their value is not dependent on their circumstances.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

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