Court to Decide on Right to Die

Re “Supreme Court to Decide Issue of Right to Die,” Oct. 2:

I’m sure the Supreme Court review of assisted suicide will generate many lofty legal and ethical theories. However, recently, I visited with a close friend languishing near death because of a thrombotic stroke. Because he could not speak, I asked him to respond to a few simple questions by squeezing my hand. This exercise persuaded me he had some awareness of his predicament. I asked his physician if he had received any medication for anxiety. She responded with considerable emotion, “I will not kill him.”

If the cardinal rule of medicine is above all else do no harm, I have a question for those more learned in ethics than I. Does the omission of medication to relieve the suffering of the dying cause less harm than the commission of medication that might decrease both the intensity and duration of that suffering?

EMIL BERKANOVIC, Professor

School of Public Health, UCLA

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There are very worthwhile and humane reasons behind a woman’s right to choose (abortion) and a terminally ill person’s right to die in peace and with dignity. However, I don’t believe that we, as a species, have a sufficiently evolved sense of morality to handle the responsibilities that accompany certain rights.

If, as The Times reported (Oct. 2), the ill elderly and poor already fare worse in HMOs (as opposed to traditional medical plans), it doesn’t take a crystal ball to foresee what the future holds if the right to die becomes a legal reality. In all probability, HMOs and insurance companies will curtail and severely restrict the medical services provided to persons with terminal illnesses (AIDS, cancer, heart disease, to name just a few). Who is going to decide which conditions are, in fact, terminal? Until someone finds an alternative way, life itself is terminal!

Within a generation patients will face the “suffer or die” decision at far earlier stages of their illnesses. If death on request is made a pleasant alternative to suffering and pain, will we even continue to search for new cures for illness and injury? There’s no “one size fits all” answer to the dilemma.

BETTY ROME

Culver City