COLUMN RIGHT / JOSEPH FARAH : A Broad Hint to ‘Get Out of the Way’ : Doctor-assisted suicide may lead to euthanasia on a catastrophic scale.

Deeply depressed since she found out that she had terminal cancer, Marilyn thinks she has found a solution to the physical pain and the emotional ordeal. Her doctor has agreed to help Marilyn kill herself.

No psychological evaluation of Marilyn will be necessary. No family members need to be consulted on this monumental and irreversible decision. No alternative approaches or treatment need to be discussed. This is, the law says, strictly a matter between doctor and patient.

Welcome to the brave new world of California, 1993, if Proposition 161--the Death With Dignity Act is its official misnomer--is approved by voters this November. If polls showing a 65% to 70% approval rating for the proposal hold up, California will become not just the first state in the nation to legalize doctor-assisted euthanasia, but the first government in the world.

Given California’s role as a political and cultural trendsetter, the implications of this vote are awesome and worthy of much more discussion, exploration and debate than this little-noticed proposition is currently generating.

For instance, if euthanasia becomes the law of the land, how long will it take before the elderly and sick begin to feel an obligation to get out of the way? When will we see the first subtle forms of coercion used on aging and ailing family members? Will a new specialty arise in the medical profession with the advent of euthanasia? Will special clinics be established? Will doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill lead inevitably down the slippery slope to voluntary--and later involuntary--euthanasia for the physically and mentally handicapped? Will minors someday be eligible for the procedure without parental consent? How long will it be before public funding becomes available for euthanasia?

Because of such questions, opponents of Proposition 161, including the California Catholic Conference, say that legalizing doctor-assisted suicide would be a nightmarish moral catastrophe.

Currently such a practice is a felony under California law. Only in the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been decriminalized but not officially legalized, is it widely practiced.

While proponents of Proposition 161 point to the lax Dutch system of protecting life as a model for the rest of the world, most Americans might shudder at how rapidly the parameters of medically assisted “mercy” killing have expanded.

Since the early 1980s, when euthanasia for the terminally ill was introduced there, Dutch courts have widened the scope of the law to permit the practice in cases of non-terminal illness and even simple old age. With all the zeal of Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian, the Dutch “euthanasiasts” are now suggesting that patients with psychiatric disorders ought to have the right to demand euthanasia, even if they are not mentally competent. So committed is the nation’s medical Establishment to the concept that the Royal Dutch Medical Assn. has endorsed euthanasia on demand even for minor children without parental consent. Sadly, the medical profession in Holland seems to be leading the charge for euthanasia with all the enthusiasm of human-rights crusaders.

The mastermind behind California’s initiative is Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphry, author of the best-selling suicide guide, “Final Exit.” If you have any doubts that the proposed law represents just a foot in the door toward legalized killing of all kinds, listen to what Humphry told a San Francisco interviewer about the Proposition 161 campaign: “We are trying to overturn 2,000 years of Christian tradition.”

Californians should consider this issue very carefully before casting their votes on Proposition 161. Misled by the measure’s euphemistic name, many think that it would merely allow doctors to withhold artificial life-support systems and other extraordinary and inappropriate medical treatment when all hope of recovery is lost. In fact, Californians are already allowed to give such directives to their physicians; indeed, hospitals and nursing homes are now required to ask incoming patients if they have a preference in this matter. Proposition 161 would take us way beyond that. What this law would actually do is turn doctors into executioners by permitting them to inject lethal solutions into their patients’ bodies.

The very first responsibility of the state is to protect life. Human beings should not be “put down” or “put to sleep” like animals. Life in America has been cheapened enough. Approving California’s Death With Dignity Act would be the ultimate indignity.