Cnn just did a special on a military veteran who wants to end his own life, the NY Times had an extesive article on the rising cost of paying for aged people with dementia, suicide and euthanasia are continuing to gain respectability as a "choice".
This from Bloomberg –
Boomers Push Doctor-Assisted Dying in End-of-Life Revolt
Bills under consideration in northeastern states as well as in Kansas are modeled after laws in Washington and Oregon, the only two states that currently permit doctors to prescribe life- ending drugs. One of those, in New Jersey,
is sponsored by Burzichelli’s brother-in-law, state assemblyman John
Burzichelli. Often referred to as physician-assisted suicide or
doctor-aided dying, the movement has come a long way from the 1990s when
Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan pathologist, was in the spotlight for
hooking patients up to a homemade device that helped them administer
lethal drugs.
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While Caplan (note from Faranda – he used to write an ethics column for the NY Times; now pro-euthanasia) has changed his views, opposition from doctors,
religious organizations, anti-abortion groups and disability advocates
hasn’t been swayed. They are waging their own campaigns at the state
level against legalizing any form of aided dying.
The Washington, D.C.-based anti-abortion advocacy group National Right to Life
takes the position that all life has value and the priority should also
be trying to improve the quality of life for patients with terminal
illness, said Jennifer Popik, legislative counsel for the organization.
The group helps its state affiliates lobby against the measures.
“You
don’t fix the problem by killing the patients,” Popik said. “We want
the focus to be on saving as many lives as possible and having people’s
quality of life be as high as it can be.”
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