ow courtesy o f the

backing of at least 90
Right: The linchpin of
the assisted suicide
House Republicans,
debate, Dr. Jack
Majority Leader Dick
Kevorkian, stands with
Armey (R-Texas) has target-
his attorney, Geo
ed it for defeat.
Fieger.
Beyond the religious
arguments against physi-
Below right: Dr. Ed
cian-assisted suicide, oppo-
Pierce of Merians
nents like Right To Life of
Friends
is rallying for the
Michigan claim that legis-
legalization
of physician-
lating it as a right would
assisted suicide.
make the option far more
appealing than it should be.
Below: Dr. Michael A.
For Ron Seigel, the same
Grodin, director of the
argument is much more
Law, Medicine and
personal. The difficulties of
Ethics Program at
policy making are less com-
Boston University.
pelling a reason to distrust
assisted suicide than what
he feels is its subtext.
"We hear all this stuff
about regulation, but you
take one step, you take
another, and you get fur-
ther and further along until
you blur the line between
passive and active," said
Seigel, the corresponding
secretary of the
Handicapped Caucus of
the Michigan Democratic
Party. Seigel suffers from
cerebral palsy, a congenital
condition which has left
him with moderately
slurred speech, impaired
coordination and the firm
belief that people with
from Merian's Friends, for example, is
physical disabilities, including
in petition limbo these days, barely less
advanced illnesses, are not disposable.
than 300,000 signatures (read dollars)
"This is part of the Jewish experience,"
shy of the 350,000 it needs to make
he said, referring to the Holocaust.
the 1998 ballot. This, despite a recent,
"We have been classified as inferior
privately conducted poll showing that
quality individuals. It's very scary how
nearly 60 percent of Michigan voters
the world did not seem to care whether would support a bill legalizing physi-
we lived or died, and were silent about
cian aid in dying.
it.
Even so, the state Legislature
When the rhetoric of the aid-in-
appears unwilling to give voters that
dying camp is in high form, it's got all
chance. "My sense is that the Right to
the power of a secular sermon.
Life camp will attempt to remove the
"Keep government and the 'believe
amendments the committee adopted
as we do or else' pressure groups from
[to plit assisted suicide on the ballot in
sentencing the terminally ill to die a
November]," said Rep. David Gubow
lingering, agonizing death against their
(D-Huntington Woods). He said he
will," cries a fund-raising pamphlet for
would not support any bill that refused
Merian's Friends. "Neither the govern-
to allow the electorate a chance to vote
ment nor anyone else's moral or reli-
on the issue.
gious beliefs should dictate your per-
"The Right-to-Life movement has
sonal decision to live or bring an early
the state Legislature in its hip pocket,"
end to terminal pain and anguish," it
echoed Dr. Ed Pierce, chairman of
continues. "Stand up for your rights,
Merian's Friends, but that still does not
now!"
explain why assisted suicide strikes vot-
But assisted suicide simply doesn't
ers as a good idea whose time won't
seem to stir the body politic as much
come.
as other so-called "wedge" issues. The
Perhaps one reason for the apparent
grass-roots assisted suicide proposal
disparity is the constituency involved.

What little research that's been done
on the subject shows that assisted sui-
cide tends to be the last resort of peo-
ple — predominately middle-aged
women — who feel alienated from the
health care system. The people who
seek help in suicide "are worried that
they're going to be a drain on them-
selves and others" financially and emo-
tionally, said Dr. Grodin of Boston
University.
Thirty-six of the 47 people men-
tioned in The Suicide Machine, the
authors note, were concerned about
becoming dependent on others. Surely,
these are not activists.
Generational politics undoubtedly
play a factor in the dynamics of the
debate. In an article in the Winter
1997 issue of the Central Conference of
American Rabbis Journal, Rabbi
Richard Address writes that baby
boomers afraid of their own mortality
and the dark process of death are stir-
ring the discussion. It's not hard to see
why. Their parents have entered old
age and they themselves are beginning
to feel older.
If the divisions between those on

Kevorkian's side of the debate and his
opponents are any indication, legislat-
ing assisted suicide, as difficult as it
may be politically, is the easy part.
Figuring out what to do next seems
excruciating in comparison.
By protecting the practice with law,
how then can we regulate it? Would
physicians be the only people allowed
to help a dying person kill themselves
— what Merian's Friends recommends
— or would physicians' assistants,
nurses, nurse practitioners, dentists and
chiropractors have license, too? Would
states or the federal government require
doctors to be specially trained in sui-
cide assistance, making it a sub-, sub-
specialty or a tenet of board certifica-
tion? As Right to Life of Michigan
points out, the American Medical
Association has rejected physician aid-
in-dying as an appropriate practice, so
professional resistance to the idea
might be strong.
And what about patients? Would
only the goses, those with little time left
to live, be eligible, or would anyone
who decides they've had it with life be
entitled to an assisted death? Would
the laws demand psychiatric consulta-
tion, as Merian's Friends also proposes,
or require a mental health review board
to determine whether the patient was
severely depressed and therefore unlike-
ly to be making a sound decision?
All of these questions and countless
others would have to be addressed by
any serious law, initiative or referen-
dum — which, understandably, has led
some to suggest that the easiest way to
deal with assisted suicide is on a case-
by-case basis.
One thing, however, is certain. As
more Americans live longer, thanks to
medical technology's breathtaking suc-
cesses, physician aid-in-dying, patholy-
sis, or whatever other term one choos-
es, will not disappear.
Last summer, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in overturning two circuit court
rulings permitting assisted suicide,
declared that the Constitution does not
include the right to have a physician
help you die. Following that decision,
Lois Waldman of the American Jewish
Congress' Commission on Law and
Social Action released a statement that
neatly summarized the future of the
issue.
"The debate will not be easy," she
wrote. "We ourselves have been unable
to reconcile our concerns about per-
sonal autonomy, on the one hand, and
concern about abuse and our respect
for the Jewish tradition's bias in favor
of life, on the other." O

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