The work of persuasion

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 21st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: physician-assisted suicide.

Right now, the practice is legal in 12 states and the District of Columbia. Fourteen states are considering legislation to legalize it. Advocates call it death with dignity that preserves patient autonomy. Opponents call it a corruption of medical ethics that can lead to coercion.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy talked to two people working to stop assisted suicide from coming to Virginia.

MARY MUNCY: Earlier this year, two medical students walked into Virginia Delegate Leslie Mehta’s office.

NIKHIL CHANDRAVEL: It's like a little mini Oval Office with a sofa and armchairs as well.

Nikhil Chandravel and a fellow student sat across from Mehta at a large oak table. It was their first meeting with a legislator. Their goal: convince Mehta to abandon a physician-assisted suicide bill.

Chandravel started with the history of racial injustice in healthcare in Richmond.

CHANDRAVEL: Back in the 1800s local physicians were also grave robbers, and they targeted the graves of African American slaves and freedmen. And since then, there's been generational mistrust for the healthcare system.

He told Mehta, a black woman, that physician-assisted suicide would deepen that distrust and that it often discriminates against elderly and disabled people.

CHANDRAVEL: Based on her experience as a caretaker for her loved one, she was able to recognize that there is a lot of, there's a lot of burnout among caretakers, and there might be some undue pressure on these individuals to take their own life, to spare their family.

Mehta is also a Christian, so they mentioned how the Church has participated in social issues in the past.

CHANDRAVEL: The thing about these conversations is you're nervous going in, but then as soon as you start talking, and especially with a lot of these legislators, they are so friendly and gregarious, you forget that you're like trying to pitch something, and it becomes a conversation.

They finished their conversation by challenging Mehta to consider her faith in her vote, then they went to talk to the next legislator.

Chandravel is in his final year of medical school on his way to a career in emergency medicine. About a year ago, a physician with the Christian Medical and Dental Association approached him about gathering students to help with the campaign.

CHANDRAVEL: I viewed that as our duty, as as Christians. But also, as citizens in a participatory Republic, we have a duty and obligation to speak up and to be involved.

The physician who approached him is Donald Stern.

DONALD STERN: About two years ago, I heard that the Virginia General Assembly was considering this bill that would provide for physician-assisted suicide. And I said, ‘I don't believe this. I just, I've got to do something.’

The bill had come up in previous legislatures. But this year, the state is completely controlled by Democrats, who are more likely to vote for assisted suicide.

Chandravel and Stern first worked to change the Virginia Medical Society’s statement on physician-assisted suicide from “neutral” to “opposed.” Then, when the legislative session began, they gathered other physicians to crowd the assembly hall in their white coats and met with as many legislators and aides as possible.

STERN: I had nine major talking points, which I've kind of gleaned from the literature about why we should be opposed as physicians to physician-assisted suicide.

He presented things like the Hippocratic Oath. Many graduating physicians swear to do no harm. Or evidence that poor people in Canada disproportionately use medical aid in dying. Or that once assisted suicide is allowed, safeguards quickly fall.

The other side advocated for patient autonomy.

STERN: That is the patient's right to make their medical choices.

After about two weeks of spending most of every day at the Assembly building… Chandravel and Stearn felt like they were making progress.

Just in time for the bill to be considered in a subcommittee.

STERN: We had probably a dozen folks testify in opposition to this bill.

Some doctors talked about evidence, others shared personal experiences. The other side told the assembly about patients suffering at the end of life.

STERN: The subcommittee still voted to carry the bill forward.

The bill would go to the full committee.

The next week, Stern sat in the front row with several other physicians in their white coats, looking the legislators in the eye as they deliberated. Chandravel was finishing rounds, keeping an eye on his cellphone.

STERN: The resolution came up and there was a Democrat on the committee who said, ‘I voted for this bill last year with some reservations. My reservations are even more so this year.’

He voted against the bill. Another Democrat voted against the bill. The Republicans voted against it:

STERN: It did not pass the full Health and Education Committee. Another miracle before our eyes.

They texted Chandravel a picture of the results.

CHANDRAVEL: I went to the bathroom, locked myself in, and called them just to, like, just make sure I was reading that right.

The bill was dead in the Senate. The House never took up the cognate bill.

Chandravel left the hospital and treated himself to dinner to celebrate.

Chandravel says the win took effort, but it wasn’t complicated. It came down to three things: showing up, convincing your side to vote, and convincing the other side not to vote.

He felt like he was fulfilling his favorite verse, Esther 4:14: “Perhaps you were born for such a time as this.”

CHANDRAVEL: I was born in India. I was born in a really small town in the middle of nowhere, and I feel like God's brought me to near the center of American Empire, right? There's got to be a reason for that. And I think all of us in whatever position we are. There's a reason that we were born to do whatever God has for us, and Esther says this too, like, ‘if not I, then who?’

The fight in Virginia isn’t over. The bills will likely be reintroduced next year. Stern and Chandravel are already working on their plan to stymie them.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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