We should think twice about 'death with dignity'
Jan 30, 2015
Los Angeles Times
Physician-assisted suicide is back on California's political agenda.
Indeed, anyone who read the newspaper or watched TV coverage when the
End of Life Option Act (SB 128) was introduced Jan. 21 might think it's a done deal, though the bill
hasn't even cleared committee. The message from supporters and the
media is clear: Like women's rights, voting rights, gay marriage and
hikes to the minimum wage, it's only a matter of time before physician-assisted
suicide becomes legal because, after all, it is the right thing to do.
If this bill fails, supporters promise a ballot initiative in 2016.
As someone who supports all those other liberal causes, yet opposes physician-assisted
suicide, I'd ask my fellow progressives to shine a cold hard light
on this issue. We have been the target of a decades-long branding campaign
that paints hastening death as an extension of personal freedoms. We should
bring the same skepticism to physician-assisted suicide that we do to
fracking and genetically modified food.
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