A family practice physician explains why she changed her mind about Medical Aid in Dying.
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“Opponents of Death-with-Dignity (DWD) laws use several falsehoods in their attempts to prevent legislation from passing. We believe policy decisions affecting people with terminal illness should be made based on evidence and the actual content of the legislation.”
“New legislation and court judgments are further expanding access to MAID, some bringing new and different twists.”
“One facility used the term “provider-hastened death” and stated that it encompasses euthanasia.”
“Why would an anti-MAiD activist try to force a patient about whom they know nothing, to live by the activist’s personal values rather than the patient’s own?”
As more states legalize PAD and the practice becomes more ethically accepted, it is important to determine a standard of care to guide physicians.
Advocates, supporters, and champions (of MAiD) need to decide if it is better to have a law that is less than ideal … or have no law at all? Is something better than nothing?
It’s time that we revise and refine our cultural lexicon around this emergent end-of-life practice. A medically assisted death definitively warrants a linguistic and conceptual category of its own.
“We have a long way to go to educate the public about choices in dying, about defining ‘life’, and about making the end less agonizing for patients and their families.”
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