POINT
POINT
from page 40
on emotions rather than issues. For
example:
• Their television characterization
of Michigan becoming the "suicide
capital" is nothing but a mean-spir-
ited scare tactic based on the bizarre
implication that hordes of dying
patients will come to our state for
suicide assistance. It dishonestly
ignores that the bill applies only to
Michigan residents and their spous-
es, adult children and parents.
• They claim the bill would force
physicians to lie because it requires
that the underlying disease, rather
than suicide, be listed as the cause of
death. The bill simply says that "for
legal purposes" (to protect the
patient's insurance), the cause of
death will be recorded as the under-
lying disease, which is the same pro-
cedure used for patient death from
an unintentional overdose of the
morphine used to dull pain. The
cause of that death, after all, is not
listed as a drug overdose.
• They have redefined the stipula-
tion for patient confidentiality to
make it into a conspiracy of "secre-
cy," whereas, in fact, the proposal
merely recognizes the reasonable
desire of patients and their families
to keep medical records confidential.
A better course is to reassure hon-
est and concerned opponents by
explaining the essence of Proposal B.
The original and continuing pur-
pose of the proposal is to provide an
alternative passage for those desper-
ate, dying patients suffering the tor-
LETTERS
tures of the damned who have no
hope of recovery or relief. These
patients demand and deserve the
right to decide how much agony
they must endure.
Some critics prefer to expand
access to hospice care, improve the
quality of palliative medication and
'provide better end-of-life training
for physicians. The problem is that
all those changes take time — time
that is unavailable to patients dying
in agony with only weeks or months
left to live.
Proposal B
supports
patients'
rights
Meanwhile, what about today?
What about patients with too much
time left to suffer, but too little time
left to benefit from long-term solu-
tions. Why must today's patient wait
for tomorrow's answers? The two
programs should proceed simultane-
ously — a procedure mandated by
Proposal B.
Although fear of abuse is a corn-
mon concern, this bill, designed
with detailed input from ministers,
lawyers, physicians, legislators and
other representative groups, is fair,
\
10/30
1_998
PROPOSAL B
Initiated legislation to legalize
the prescription of a lethal
dose of medication to termi-
nally ill, competent, informed
adults in order to commit sui-
cide.
The proposal would:
1) Allow a Michigan resi-
dent or certain out-of-state rel-
atives of Michigan residents,
confirmed by one psychiatrist
to be mentally competent and
two physicians to be terminally
ill with six months or less to
live, to obtain a lethal dose of
medication to end his/her life.
2) Allow physicians, after
following required procedures,
to prescribe a lethal dose of
medication to enable a termi-
nally ill adult to end his/her
life.
3) Establish a gubernatorial-
ly appointed, publicly funded
oversight committee, exempt
from Open Meetings Act and
whose records, including con-
fidential medical records and
minutes, are exempt from
Freedom of Information Act.
4) Create penalties for vio-
lating the law.
Should this proposal be
approved?
atta VAORWEC-Mittff,
I /
Tking Sides
In A Feud
I am a secular Jew with no interest in
any religious movement from Orthodox
to Reform. I have found a dispropor-
tionate number of the Orthodox Jews
I've met to be people I prefer to avoid. I,
therefore, find it startling to find myself
solidly on the side of the Orthodox with
regard to the feud
between the secular and Orthodox Jews
("In the Candles' Glare,"Oct. 16).
What kind of a Jew does not know
that the Torah forbids kindling of a
fire after sunset on the Sabbath? Was
there not one among the Secular
Humanists who knew this basic tenet
of Judaism? Was there not one among
them who knew they were in an
Orthodox kosher facility? Was there
poor timing or profound ignorance, or
compassionate and, by its safe-
guards, secure against abuse. More
to the point, however, the mere pos-
sibility of future abuses of a system
not yet in place should not deny
today's hopelessly ill patients the rea-
sonable right to determine for them-
selves just how much agony they
must be made to endure at the end
of their lives.
Proposal B does not pretend to be
the answer to all the medical prob-
lems that cause and define end-of-
life suffering, but it can play a sig-
nificant role in the larger battle of
trying to make life reasonable and
death bearable. It gives the dying
patient the right and dignity to
make his/her own decision about
how and when to go. It takes the
decision away from strangers and
bureaucrats and gives it to the
patient — where it belongs.
Those who would qualify for
assistance, after all, are patients in
the last stage of life, adult patients
fully cognizant of what they have,
what they are leaving and what is
otherwise in store for them. They
are fully capable of making deliber-
ate, intelligent decisions about
themselves, decisions based on their
values, their futures and perception
of suffering. It is an unacceptable
arrogance of the state and of society
to make such intimate decisions for
those people, decisions that may be
contrary to the mature, considered
desires of the patients themselves. ❑
do they have so little respect for
Orthodox Jews,
they couldn't manage to schedule
their service at an appropriate time?
Could this have been an intentional
confrontation in response to the much
publicized interpret demonstrations by
the Orthodox?
There is no comparison between the
trivial inconvenience to Humanists of
scheduling their candle lighting a few
minutes earlier and the violation of a
Law of the Torah. The Torah does not
offer optional degrees of observance,
despite existence of Jewish factions that ,
apply figurative interpretations to it. TI).
Orthodox are literalists, and the
Humanists should realize that they
would not have done much worse if
they had sacrificed a pig on the bimah of
the local synagogue. Since when does
"pluralism" require one side to give up
its beliefs so as not to inconvenience the
other side? To call the Humanists' gath-
ering a "conference on pluralism" is
disingenuous to the pointed outrage
when they demonstrate ignorance, total
disrespect and intolerance of the other
side's beliefs.
Dennis L Green
Detroit
Jew Vs. Arab
Jew Vs. Jew
Israel, under pressure from the Unit-
ed States, is about to surrender
another 13 percent of the Judean-
Samarian hills to the PLO-Hamas-
Islamic Jihad. In return, Yassir Araft
will sign — again — solemn promis-
es to contain Arab terrorism, to
"modify" the PLO Covenant against
Israel and to delay arguments of
Jerusalem as the city with two capi-
tals.
Yielding more land, Israel will
then have a border that separates the
hills of Judea-Samaria (Arabs) from
the coastal plains (Jews), as in 1967.
When Israel was divided between
Arabs and Jews, the Arabs. swore
"palestine" would never be divided
and that is occurring.