‘Death with dignity’ not best option

Back in the spotlight in Hawaii again is the push for physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia, this time packaged by politicians as a sanitized version “allowing life-ending medication.” It portrays a very shallow and re-packaged argument for “death with dignity” as the only compassionate choice for patients with terminal illness or suffering in poor health.

Much of this current justification is based on the carefully crafted but misleading argument by California’s governor, Jerry Brown, whose position is that giving life-ending medication to people who are suffering due to poor health or terminal illness is the ONLY option. In other words, why not simply make it easy for them to end their lives? Why bother to consider better solutions that do exist? This is very narrow-minded thinking and misses the broader concerns about this issue.

The first major problem with this is that giving doctors the ability to prescribe medication that will kill their patients flies in the face of their healing and “do no harm” role. Having been in the health care industry for many years, I have witnessed some shocking displays that illustrate this trend. A physician, who was obviously overworked and tired, tried to convince a poor Samoan family not to have their father resuscitated if that becomes necessary to save his life. He pronounced their father “beyond hope,” stating his opinion as fact. He never once asked them a question about the patient’s wishes or values, nor about their own. Would such a doctor, who deemed a patient to be a hassle to work with, pronounce the patient “beyond hope” and sway him or her to opt for suicide rather than for palliative care?

The second problem is labeling as “compassionate” the giving to an individual the method for killing himself or herself. Would you call it compassionate to give a loaded gun to a dying friend or family member who is suffering and needs help? Is this really compassion or just the easy, convenient way or “taking care of the problem”? Compassion involves the work of helping, comforting, encouraging and assisting those who are suffering — extending a helping hand. Compassion is not helping a distressed person to end his or her own life.

In one of our local hospitals, I witnessed a hemodialysis patient who became very distressed and refused treatment and said he wanted to die. Fortunately, the medical staff did not abide by his wish and instead worked with him and calmed him down, and after a while he was fine and very grateful for the help and true compassion shown by these health care providers. Modern medicine allows for many options to ease suffering and pain.

Just Google “motives for physician-assisted suicide” and you will find much eye-opening information on not-so-compassionate motives for promoting “life-ending medication,” including many economic benefits to insurance companies and government agencies. The reports of the success of Oregon’s euthanasia law leaves out many inconvenient truths of the Oregon program: Google “Oregon’s physician assisted suicide abuse” and you will find many reasons why this is not the nirvana that’s promoted. Let’s pause to really consider the facts and the potential consequences.

Unfortunately, I believe many of the kamaaina who are polled in Hawaii support allowing life-ending medication only because they are not fully informed, but instead, are bombarded by inaccurate and incomplete information from seemingly authoritative people whose motives are cloaked by their misguided “compassionate care” argument. I invite anyone who is at all concerned about the seriousness of legalizing euthanasia to become informed about its pros and cons.

Eric Tessmer is a biomedical products manager; as a guest lecturer, including at the University of Hawaii, he works to bridge the gap between clinical and biomedical technology.