Terminal Illness: Americans Believe Doctors Should Sometimes Allow Death : Euthanasia: The relevance of religion to a person’s life affects opinion on right-to-die issues, rather than adherence to a specific set of religious beliefs.

When a doctor from Michigan helped an Oregon woman with Alzheimer’s disease commit suicide last week, he knew his decision--and hers--would kindle a debate on medical ethics and mercy killing.

While authorities debate the doctor’s actions, a new survey shows that although some Americans might disagree with the methods used by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a Detroit pathologist, all segments of the public support right-to-die policies. There is a widely held belief that physicians should sometimes allow a patient to die rather than use the full range of medical procedures and treatments available.

And Americans, regardless of their religious beliefs, overwhelmingly support the right of patients to make their own decisions about life-sustaining treatment. If a person is unable to make his or her decisions known, people say a close family member should be allowed to make the call.

These are among the findings of a Reflections of the Times poll of 1,213 adults nationwide. The poll was conducted for the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press in Washington, and examined public views about dealing with terminal illness and disability.

The poll (with an error margin of 3%), conducted last month, showed:

More than half of Americans, 59%, would want their doctors to stop administering life-sustaining treatment if they had a terminal disease and were suffering a great deal of physical pain.

Those polled made a distinction between the decision to forgo life-sustaining treatment for adults and the decision of parents to withhold treatment for severely handicapped children.

The strength of religious views play a key role in determining views about ending the life of a suffering person.

One-third of adults can imagine themselves taking the life of a loved one who was suffering terribly from an illness that was terminal.

Americans have profoundly mixed feelings about growing old. Only four in 10 adults would like to live to be 100 years old, and half would emphatically not want to be that old. Women especially do not look forward to reaching the milestone of their 100th birthday. Ironically, this accomplishment is more likely for a woman than a man.

The public’s feelings about right-to-die legislation is driven by its belief in the need for discretion in administering life-sustaining medical treatment. Eight in 10 adults approve of state laws that allow medical treatment for a terminally ill patient to be withdrawn or withheld, if that is what the patient wishes.

Most states have some form of right-to-die legislation, and for the first time in its history, the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering whether there is a constitutional right to discontinue life-sustaining medical treatment in the case of Cruzan vs. Harmon. The public’s attitude toward right-to-die legislation is bolstered by a trend toward greater acceptance of suicide in the face of suffering.

About half of the public thinks a person has a moral right to commit suicide if suffering from an incurable disease or from great pain with no hope of improvement. Acceptance of suicide in such cases has been increasing gradually over the 15-year period since 1975, when these attitudes were first measured by the Gallup Poll. More than half, 55%, now think a person suffering great pain with no hope of improvement has a moral right to suicide, compared with only 41% 15 years ago.

The increasing acceptance of suicide is largely due to the aging of the population. The older people who overwhelmingly rejected suicide as a response to terminal illness 15 years ago have died and been replaced in the population by younger people with more moderate views about the acceptability of suicide in these circumstances.

Attitudes about suicide differ greatly depending on the strength of one’s religious views.

Most “born-again” Christians and very religious people reject a right to suicide even in the case of a terminal illness. They are fairly evenly divided in their attitudes about suicide when the patient is suffering great pain. Yet, paradoxically, a majority of “born-again” Christians and the very religious think acts of so-called “mercy killing” by spouses are sometimes justified.

It appears that some Americans, particularly those who are very religious, make an important distinction between what is “justified” and what is a “right.” This implies that the difficult decision to end a person’s life is perhaps justified, understandable and acceptable, yet not endorsed.

But the public makes a distinction between how decisions about medical treatment should be made for adults and how they should be made for infants. Half of the public rejects the notion that parents can refuse life-sustaining treatment on behalf of their severely handicapped infant, saying instead that such infants should receive as much treatment as possible.

“It’s difficult to agree on what the patient’s best interests are in the case of a newborn and there’s no way to extrapolate what the patient would want from knowledge of his or her life,” said Susan M. Wolf, a lawyer with the Hastings Center, a research institute in New York that studies medical ethics. h Views on this issue are also profoundly influenced by religion, with “born-again” Christians and those who are very religious most opposed to parental decision-making in these cases.

In fact, majority support for the right of parents to refuse medical treatment only occurs among those who say religion is un important in their lives

It is the relevance of religion to a person’s day-to-day life that affects opinion on right-to-die issues, rather than one’s adherence to a specific set of religious beliefs.

The views that Americans express about right-to-die policies reflect their personal feelings about how they would want their own medical treatment handled in various situations, and what they know or can imagine about the wishes of their parents. Not only do most Americans want life-sustaining treatment to cease in the event of terminal illness with severe pain, they also want doctors to withhold extended treatment if they had an illness that made them totally dependent on another family member for daily care. The wish to have life-sustaining medical treatment withdrawn decreases as the importance of religion increases. However, a majority (52%) of even the very religious would want their own treatment stopped if they were suffering a great deal of physical pain.

But fewer people are willing to say they would take part in a mercy killing. Only a third of adults can imagine themselves taking the life of a loved one who was suffering terribly from an illness that was terminal. The ability to imagine the mercy killing of a spouse or other loved one is greater for men. But that desire decreases significantly with age, presumably as the possibility of actually facing such a choice becomes more likely.

The Right to Die the poll of 1,213 adults last month gauged the views of people about mercy killing against the importance of religion in their lives. Do you approve or disapprove of laws that let terminally ill patients decide about being kept alive through medical treatment? In actual number of respondents: Approve Very Religious: 825 Somewhat Religious: 452 Not Religious: 221 Disapprove Very Religious: 148 Somewhat Religious: 49 Not Religious: 42 It depends Very Religious: 58 Somewhat Religious: 20 Not Religious: 11 Don’t know Very Religious: 49 Somewhat Religious: 10 Not Religious: 2 Source: Times Mirror Center for People and the Press