assisted suicide

DISASTER IN CANADA-THE BIGGEST UNDERREPORTED STORY IN US MEDIA

nancyvalko assisted suicide, conscience rights

This February, The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that  the Canadian law that makes it illegal for anyone to help people end their own lives should be amended to allow doctors to help in specific situations. The court gave federal and provincial governments 12 months to craft legislation to respond to the ruling. Until then; the ban on doctor-assisted suicide stands. If the government doesn’t write a new law, the court’s exemption for physicians will stand.

Against this ghastly situation, however, there are welcome voices of opposition.

In a September article in the Canadian press titled “Quebec’s split over euthanasia a warning for Canada”, reporter Allan Woods writes:

But with time running out before Dec. 10 — the date that patients can begin requesting the procedure — hospitals and health-care providers are scrambling to draw up policies and find the staff who will carry out those patients’ wishes.
If that wasn’t tough enough, some of those who might be expected to lead the change — palliative care physicians and hospice administrators — have let it be known that they are instead digging trenches for the battle.

“The vocation of a palliative care hospice is to provide care, and that doesn’t include medical aid in dying,” said Élise Rheault, director of Maison Albatros Trois-Rivières.

Mr. Woods goes on to write that:

Quebec Health Minister Gaétan Barrette, a doctor himself, says the refusal by the province’s hospices to provide the procedure amounts to “administrative fundamentalism” and he accused palliative care doctors — who have a right under the law to conscientious objection — of acting like hospital owners rather than service providers.
“The law was very much framed as being in a continuum, along the lines of (euthanasia) being the end part of palliative care, so it is a logistical problem if the significant majority of palliative-care professionals are saying we will invoke conscientious objection,” said Dr. Eugene Bereza, director of the Centre for Applied Ethics at the McGill University Health Centre.

This horrific development in our neighbor Canada is a warning to those in the US, especially with a California law rammed though the legislature and now sitting on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk awaiting either his signature or veto.

How NOT To Prevent Assisted Suicide On World Suicide Prevention Day

nancyvalko assisted suicide, disability, euthanasia

HOW NOT TO PREVENT ASSISTED SUICIDE ON WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day and this week is the US National Suicide Prevention Week.

.According to the International Association for Suicide Prevention:

“We may not be able to pinpoint the exact figure, but we do know that each individual suicide is a tragic loss of life. It is hard to imagine the extreme psychological pain that leads someone to decide that suicide is the only course of action. Reaching out to someone who is struggling can make a difference.” (emphasis added)

All aspects of suicide, suicide prevention and the groups at risk are addressed by these organizations. Yet on the topic of preventing physician assisted suicide, there is only silence.

If indeed some suicides should be considered acceptable or even worthy, I have some suggestions on how NOT to prevent assisted suicide:

1. Change the terminology. Call your organization “Compassion and Choices” rather than The Euthanasia Society of America. Insist that physician assisted suicide now be called “death with dignity”, “aid in dying” or some other term that eliminates the word “suicide.”  Glamorize assisted suicide as “heroic” and “altruistic”. Refuse to even acknowledge the existence of suicide contagion and its devastating effects on surviving friends and families. Insist that only terminally ill people with 6 months to live and are in unendurable pain are eligible despite the evidence.

2. Change strategies as necessary. If most people in a state like California will not vote to legalize assisted suicide, find a judge to rule that a ban on assisted suicide is unconstitutional and hope that this will lead to a new US Supreme Court decision. Lobby professional health care organizations like the AMA, ANA and American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine to take at least a neutral position on assisted suicide because some of their members are in favor of assisted suicide. Encourage articles in journals like Psychology Today promoting the idea of “rational suicide”. Promote positive statements on assisted suicide from celebrities like Hugh Grant, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Stephen Hawking.

3. Demonize the opposition. Call them “religious extremists” who are against individual choice and freedom. Accuse them of actually wanting people to endure needless suffering. Tell health care professionals that their conscience rights  are merely a right to ” to exercise their idiosyncratic convictions at the expense of patient care”.  Ignore disability organizations like Not Dead Yet.

4. Manage negative facts to persuade the media and thus the public to support assisted suicide. Publicize tragic stories like Brittany Maynard’s to raise even more money to legalize assisted suicide everywhere. Dismiss  or downplay stories about coercion, euthanasia on demand in European countries, ethical palliative and hospice care  and criticism of so-called “safeguards” and self-reported state statistics.

5. Most of all, ignore the lethal consequences of physician assisted suicide on individuals, health care itself and society.

A Modest Proposal on Assisted Suicide

nancyvalko assisted suicide, bereavement, medical ethics

On August 26, 2015, the Wall Street Journal published letters to the editor responding to Dr. William Toffler’s great August 18 opinion article titled “A Doctor-Assisted Disaster for Medicine-As a physician in Oregon, I have seen the dire effect of assisted-suicide laws on patients and my profession”.

The letters to the editor were overwhelmingly critical of Dr. Toffler’s position. Here are some excerpts:

“On May 5, my mother, at age 73, chose to take her life using the medicine provided by her doctor to end her life. She couldn’t breathe, could barely walk and was skin and bones when she finally died. She had been a vocal advocate of the Death with Dignity Act and had spoken with all her physicians years before this ever became a real issue for her. ”  Portland, Oregon. (emphasis added)

“As a patient, I am not worried about “death doctors.” I am worried about doctors who use any treatment available to prolong life without having a matter-of-fact discussion with the patient about what the quality of that prolonged life will be.” Beaverton, Oregon (emphasis added)

“My personal experience in medical practice during the last 63 years is that those physicians who are against physician-assisted suicide have never spent month after month nor year after year with a dying patient who is suffering intolerable pain.” (emphasis added)

In response, here is the letter to the editor I sent to the Wall Street Journal today:

A MODEST PROPOSAL ON ASSISTED SUICIDE

With all the rancor about physician-assisted suicide, I would like to make a modest proposal.

First of all, take the medical professionals out of assisted suicide.

Capital punishment opponents have successfully challenged lethal injection executions on the basis that even that direct termination of life is “cruel and inhumane” and sometimes fails to render an inmate unconscious, causing much suffering. How can we then justify an oral overdose that cannot guarantee rapid unconsciousness, a quick termination of breathing and heartbeat or a lack of complications?

Secondly, if the suicide is then assisted by a family member or friend, eliminate any profit incentive by barring the person assisting from receiving any proceeds from an insurance policy or provision in a will. Families and friends who say no can instead concentrate on obtaining adequate symptom relief and support for their loved ones.

Unfortunately, the assisted suicide message of a victimless choice is seductive not only to people with life-threatening medical conditions but also to physically healthy people of all ages dealing with despair, disability, mental illness and the frailty of old age.

Almost 6 years ago, my physically healthy but addicted daughter killed herself using a technique the medical examiner called “textbook final exit”. My daughter read Final Exit, a book written by Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society now known as Compassion and Choices.

My daughter’s suicide was neither quick nor peaceful and it devastated her family and friends. However, none of us regret the years of efforts to save her and none of us would have sat at her deathbed supporting her alleged choice while she struggled to breathe.

Sincerely,

Nancy Valko, RN ALNC

New Doctor-Assisted Suicide Bill Introduced in California After Prior Bill and 2 Court Challenges Fail

nancyvalko assisted suicide, euthanasia, medical ethics

Last October when Compassion and Choices (the former Hemlock Society) rolled out Brittany Maynard’s tragic assisted suicide story along with the establishment of a Brittany Maynard Fund to raise money to legalize doctor-assisted suicide throughout the US, the group was confident that this would be the tipping point in a movement that had stalled in other states.

The state of California was considered a sure thing for doctor-assisted suicide especially because Brittany Maynard and her family left California which had repeatedly rejected doctor-assisted suicide for Oregon, the first state to legalize such suicides. Nevertheless, People magazine and other mainstream media praised Ms. Maynard “heroism” in supporting doctor-assisted suicide and touted the “success” of such laws in the few states that had legalized it.

However, efforts to pass Senate Bill 128 failed in the California legislature this summer after efforts by disability, pro-life and other organizations to educate both legislators and the public about the dangers of doctor-assisted suicide.

Undaunted, Compassion and Choices then supported efforts to reverse the ban against assisted suicide with lawsuits filed by several terminally ill patients in two courts. However both courts, one in San Francisco and one in San Diego,  refused to overturn California’s ban on assisted suicide.

The well-funded pro-assisted suicide groups are nothing if not tenacious so it should not be a surprise that they have now unveiled a “new” and “improved”  doctor-assisted suicide bill called AB 15 End of Life Option Act with more so-called “safeguards”.

The reassurance of safeguards are critical to the selling of doctor-assisted suicide to a public understandably squeamish about allowing doctors to help some people to kill themselves.

 WHAT SAFEGUARDS?

There have been many articles about the problems with these alleged safeguards but they are rarely covered in mainstream media articles. The latest and one of the best is then August 15, 2015 US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ paper titled  “Assisted Suicide Laws in Oregon and Washington: What Safeguards?”,

For example, here is a portion of the paper that gives the real facts behind the alleged psychological counseling safeguard:

Despite medical literature on the frequent role of depression and other psychological problemsin choices for suicide, the prescribing doctor (and the doctor he selects to give a second opinion)are free to decide whether or not to refer suicidal patients for any psychological counseling.Even if such counseling is provided, its goal is to determine that the patient is not suffering from“a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment.” Ore. Rev.Stat. 127.825; Rev. Code Wash. 70.245.060. The doctors or counselor can decide that, since depression is “a completely normal response” to terminal illness, the depressed patient’s judgment is not impaired…..
From 1998 to 2012, on average only 6.2% of patients who died under the Act in Oregon were referred for counseling to check for “impaired judgment.” Of 108 patients who died under the (Oregon) Act in 2007 and 2009, none was referred for psychological evaluation. In Washington, only 4% of patients are known to have been referred for such counseling in 2014 (six of the 167 who died from any cause after receiving the prescription); the state does not report whether any of those who actually ingested the lethal drugs had been referred for counseling.
 In another section, the paper relates what happened with an Oregon physician despite the alleged safeguard that an assisted suicide request must come from a competent, terminally ill person:
An Oregon emergency room physician was asked by a woman to end the life of her mother who was unconscious from a stroke. He tried to stop her breathing or heartbeat in several ways,finally giving a lethal dose of a paralyzing drug to the older woman who died minutes later. The state board of medical examiners reprimanded the doctor but he faced no criminal charges for this direct killing–which news reports called a case of “assisted suicide”–and he later resumed medical practice.

WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

Unfortunately, even my home state of Missouri which has laws against assisted suicide had a case similar to the one referenced here about the Oregon physician who gave a lethal overdose. This 2001 Missouri case involved a nurse. The nurse gave a lethal overdose without a doctor’s order to a patient who had a stroke the day before but wouldn’t stop breathing when taken off a ventilator. After the patient’s son voiced support for the nurse, she was only sentenced to 5 years’ probation.

The point is that when so-called “safeguards” are accepted (and routinely ignored) in states that do have legalized doctor-assisted suicide amid an aggressive national campaign to legalize doctor-assisted suicide as a civil right, there has been a chilling effect on prosecutors and juries even in other states that have rejected assisted suicide as long as “compassion” is given as the reason for ending life.

Ominously, in other countries like Belgium and Holland, the practice of doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill adult has  evolved over the years to now include children, people with mental illness and even people who are only “tired of life.”

Are we willing to risk a similar fate here?

TWO ARTICLES ABOUT ASSISTED SUICIDE MAY PREDICT ULTIMATE COURSE OF MEDICALIZED DEATH

nancyvalko assisted suicide, medical ethics, mental health

A July 31, 2015 article in Medscape (a subscription website for medical professionals) titled “Assisted Suicide for Mental Illness Gaining Ground” admits that:

“Euthanasia (referred to as assisted suicide in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, where it is also legal in cases involving suffering due to medical and psychiatric illness) has been legal since 2002 in Belgium, and the law was extended in 2014 to include emancipated children with suffering due to terminal illness.

Through a required process, patients must show their illness to cause “unbearable or untreatable suffering”; however, the definition is acknowledged to be subjective, Dr Thienpont told Medscape Medical News.

“By its nature, the extent to which the suffering is unbearable must be determined from the perspective of the patient him- or herself and may depend on his or her physical and mental strength and personality,” said Dr Thienpont.

Despite the ongoing criticism that very few assisted suicide requests in the US are referred for psychological/psychiatric consultations, this article examines a July 27, 2015 British Medical Journal article ““Euthanasia requests, procedures and outcomes for 100 Belgian patients suffering from psychiatric disorders: a retrospective, descriptive study”   that tries to make the case that mental illness itself can be grounds for assisted suicide.

In the meantime, an Irish website thejournal.ie has an August 2, 2015 poll asking “Poll: Would you consider euthanasia while still healthy?” based on a story about a healthy nurse who  legally ended her life in a Swiss clinic:

“A HEALTHY NURSE from England has opted to die via assisted suicide, rather than growing old.
Gill Pharaoh (75), a former palliative care nurse, chose to die at a Swiss clinic so she wouldn’t become a burden on her family or the health service.

In an interview with the Sunday Times shortly before her death, Pharaoh said her children struggled to cope with her decision, but understand where she is coming from.

Her husband accompanied her to the clinic.”

Unfortunately, the countries in Europe that have legalized euthanasia/assisted suicide apparently are the “canaries in the mine” warning us of a relentless march towards the acceptance of euthanasia on demand in the US and potentially worldwide.

I accepted this award in the name of all the ethical, dedicated nurses in health care: CARDINAL O’MALLEY PRESENTS 2015 PEOPLE OF LIFE AWARDS

nancyvalko assisted suicide

USCCB>MEDIA > NEWS RELEASES

CARDINAL O’MALLEY PRESENTS 2015 PEOPLE OF LIFE AWARDS

http://WWW.USCCB.ORG/NEWS/2015/15-116.CFM

July 28, 2015
WASHINGTON—A nurse, a chastity educator, and the retired director of the bishops’ national grassroots organization received the 2015 People of Life Award for lifetime commitment to the pro-life movement, July 27, during the annual Diocesan Pro-Life Leadership Conference in Kansas City, Kansas. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap., of Boston, chair of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), presented the awards to Nancy Valko, Molly Kelly, and Michael Taylor. Over 120 diocesan, state and national Catholic pro-life leaders and guests from across the country attended the private awards dinner sponsored by the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.

Nancy Valko was recognized for her professional and volunteer advocacy, especially on disability and end-of-life issues. A registered nurse since 1969, she worked for 45 years in critical care, oncology, hospice, home health and other specialties. Valko formerly served as president of Missouri Nurses for Life, board member of the Saint Louis Down Syndrome Association, and co-chair of the St. Louis Archdiocesan Respect Life Committee. She is currently a spokesperson for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses and serves as a legal nurse consultant with the Valko Group. Having cared for family members as well as patients with chronic conditions, disabilities and terminal illness, her compassionate insight informs her many presentations, media appearances, and articles on medical ethics in Catholic publications and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Valko has become a significant voice in the fight against assisted suicide.

Molly Kelly was honored for her decades as a pro-life speaker and chastity educator. Widowed as the mother of eight children, Molly began speaking in local schools on prenatal development and life affirming options for pregnant girls. While raising her family, she opened their home to five unwed mothers in need of support. Called to address the issue of chastity at first locally, and then in every state as well as Canada, Great Britain, and Australia, she engaged over 50,000 high school youth each year with the message of “saved sex.” Rather than moralizing or teaching merely abstinence, she proposed the beauty of self-control with frankness and affectionate humor. Her popular videos, including “Face-to-Face with Teens: Molly Kelly,” “Teens and Chastity” and “Abortion,” expanded her outreach to countless other youth in public and private schools, equipping them with the tools to make wise, healthy decisions in their relationships.

Michael Taylor was honored for 46 years of pro-life leadership, including 26 at the bishops’ pro-life grassroots mobilization organization, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA). He holds a doctorate of sacred theology from The Catholic University of America. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, he helped to form NCHLA and to shape the bishops’ Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities, which guides Catholic efforts in pro-life education, pastoral care, prayer, and public policy. From 1975-79, he served as associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, where he helped design the annual Respect Life Program still used in dioceses across the country. Taylor established and served as the first executive director of the National Right to Life Committee. He was also appointed to the Pontifical Council for the Family for five years. As director of NCHLA, he oversaw several massive postcard campaigns, in which over 138 million Catholics called upon Congress to enact the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, oppose the “Freedom of Choice Act,” support conscience rights and maintain pro-life measures already in law. Today NCHLA’s online action center is the hub of Catholic grassroots email activity on federal laws and policies, and their website, http://www.EndRoe.org. . . , is a comprehensive resource for students studying abortion law in the United States.

The People of Life Award recognizes Catholics who have answered the call outlined by Pope John Paul II in The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae, 1995), dedicating themselves to pro-life activities and promoting respect for the dignity of the human person. It is bestowed in honor of their significant contributions to the culture of life.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, and a long-time member of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, offered his congratulations as well.

Valko, Kelly, and Taylor join 25 other People of Life Award recipients since the Pro-Life Secretariat inaugurated it in 2007. More information on previous recipients and on the People of Life campaign is available at: www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/people-of-life/people-of-life-award.cfm
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Keywords: Cardinal O’Malley, USCCB, Catholic bishops, pro-life, People of Life campaign, People of Life Award, Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, Nancy Valko, Molly Kelly, Michael Taylor, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, youth, chastity education, National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, Archdiocese of Kansas City, Archbishop Naumann
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Compassion and Choice’s lethal game plan: California Mom Christy O’Donnell Fights to Die on Her Own Terms by Katie Couric

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A July 1, 2015 Yahoo News article titled “California Mom Christy O’Donnell Fights to Die on Her Own Terms” by Katie Couric (https://www.yahoo.com/health/california-mom-christy-odonnell-fights-to-die-on-122937321077.html) shows that Compassion and Choices has a lethal game plan for forcing assisted suicide on the nation. Note this quote:

“Despite the growing death-with-dignity fight in various states, Coombs Lee doesn’t expect that it will find itself in front of the Supreme Court anytime soon: “I don’t think it’s reasonable to think the Supreme Court will act before the majority of states.” But Coombs Lee is hopeful that the End of Life Option Act will pass in California within three years. “It will definitely pass,” she says. “And if this legislature doesn’t pass it, there are two lawsuits working their way up.” (emphasis added)

As a nurse, I am also appalled by the implications of this quote:

“Attorney Barbara Coombs Lee, president of nonprofit death-with-dignity organization Compassion & Choices and co-author of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, tells Yahoo Health that those safeguards include extensive evaluations by two physicians, as well as several waiting periods, before a patient can fill a prescription for life-ending medication. Even then, Coombs Lee points out, not everyone actually takes the medication. “Every year between 30 to 51 percent of the people who have the prescriptions do not administer them,” she says, adding that many feel that the quality of their lives improves just by having the option.” (emphasis added)

So these suicidal people not only have deadly drugs themselves but also drugs potentially accessible to anyone else in their household like a grandchild whether or not these people eventually use them to kill themselves. When I was a hospice nurse, we had strict rules for accounting for and safely disposing unused drugs- especially controlled drugs. Apparently such standards are ignored in legalized assisted suicide.

Suicide Prevention or Suicide Assistance-The Tragic Story of Brittany Maynard

nancyvalko assisted suicide

November 8, 2014

Suicide Prevention or Suicide Assistance-The Tragic Story of Brittany Maynard

I recently wrote an article “I Lost My Daughter to Suicide: A Nurse’s Response to Brittany Maynard’s Campaign for Assisted Suicide” hoping that there was a small chance of convincing her or other vulnerable people that suicide (assisted or unassisted) is never the answer to any problem.

Now we know that Brittany did kill herself by assisted suicide on Nov. 1 with her family and new husband watching.

Was it worth trying to save Brittany and other suicidal people from suicide? Will legalizing assisted suicide lead to a better and more compassionate society?

WHY TRY TO SAVE A SUICIDAL PERSON?

In 2009, after my beautiful, 30 year old daughter Marie died by suicide using a technique she learned from visiting suicide/assisted suicide websites and reading the book “Final Exit”, a fellow medical colleague remarked to me that he even questioned why we tried so hard to save suicide attempters when they “were just going to do it again anyway.”

I ignored the massive insensitivity of that remark and told him that studies have shown that only 10% (or less in some studies) of suicidal people ever go on to complete a suicide.

I also told him that I don’t regret one minute of the 16 years I spent trying to save my daughter Marie from substance abuse and despair. And although I was often frustrated, heartbroken and even angry at times during those years, I never stopped loving her unconditionally.

When Marie died, some people asked if I was relieved because Marie “was at peace and no longer suffering”. Of course not! The worst possible outcome for Marie and the rest of her family and friends was suicide. Although it was hard to watch Marie suffer with her demons, I would have spent the rest of my life trying to save her from suicide.

Personally and professionally as a nurse for 45 years, I have encountered many suicidal people. Some were terminally ill. But I found that even the few who were insistent about killing themselves revealed great fear and ambivalence. The will to live is so strong but these suicidal people were being overwhelmed with desperation, even when they were physically healthy.

I recall reading one woman’s story about how she attempted suicide multiple times but stopped when her brother said that he would stop her from suicide every time and any way he could. She

said that his faith in the value of her life-even when she didn’t have it herself-convinced her to finally stop trying to kill herself. Obviously, “No” can be a life-saving word.

As Brittany Maynard admitted herself, she really didn’t want to die but, even though she still felt relatively well while planning her assisted suicide, she was afraid of possible future pain and debilitation.

The Oregon she moved to because of its’ law legalizing assisted suicide was the first state to pass such a law because it was sold to the public by groups like Compassion and Choices as a last resort to help terminally ill people end their lives because of intractable pain.

Ironically, the reality in Oregon now is that the three most frequently mentioned end-of-life concerns cited by people using the law are not about pain but rather “loss of autonomy”, “decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable” and “loss of dignity”. There are lots of older people who could make the same complaints about their lives.

Where was Brittany’s assisting doctor when she died and was she even told about the so-called “safeguards” in Oregon’s law such as referrals for psychological or psychiatric counseling before she died? We will never know, especially because Oregon statistics and reporting on assisted suicide depend on secrecy and the assisting doctors’ willingness to self-report such cases.

ASSISTED SUICIDE IS STILL SUICIDE

The media coverage has been intense ever since Brittany Maynard announced her impending assisted suicide. The mainstream media fed the feeding frenzy by portraying Brittany’s situation as a tragic love story only relieved by Brittany’s stepping forward to act as a spokesperson for Compassion and Choices’ campaign to legalize assisted suicide throughout the US.

Criticism of assisted suicide itself was subdued in media outlets that rarely even reported the AMA’s, ANA’s and other professional organizations’ positions against physician assisted suicide. Some outlets even followed Compassion and Choices’ preference for using “death with dignity” terminology rather than the usual term “physician assisted suicide”. Suicide prevention websites and crisis help lines were never mentioned as a resource for any viewers who might be contemplating suicide themselves.

According to the World Health Organization’s publication “Preventing Suicide-A Resource for Media Professionals”, the media should “Avoid language which sensationalizes or normalizes suicide, or presents it as a solution to problems” and “Provide information about where to seek help” among other recommendations. None of that was done in the weeks of reporting when Brittany Maynard was standing on a virtual window ledge while so many people shouted their support for her “right” to jump.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) does not keep statistics on assisted suicide but according to Oregon’s annual reports on assisted suicide, there have been over 750 assisted suicides reported since assisted suicide was legalized there in 1997.

In the meantime, more than 38,000 suicides were reported in the US by the CDC in 2010, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death for Americans. The CDC also states that “Suicide costs society approximately $34.6 billion a year in combined medical and work loss costs” and “The average suicide costs $1,061,170”. According to the CDC, “More than 1 million people reported making a suicide attempt in the past year” with “More than 2 million adults reported thinking about suicide in the past year.”

It seems obvious that the health crisis here is the staggeringly large and increasing suicide rate, not the lack of enough legalized assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide has now been legalized in 5 states. Three states (Oregon, Vermont and Washington) by legislation and in New Mexico and Montana by court rulings still under dispute. Compassion and Choices has repeatedly fought to legalize assisted suicide in the other 46 states but has lost in public referendums and state legislatures.

Will Brittany Maynard’s tragic story be Compassion and Choices’ self-described “tipping point” in their decades-long quest to convince the public to demand that health care professionals supply lethal overdoses to people who think their lives are (or will be) too terrible and undignified?

As a society, we may think we deserve to decide when our own lives are not worth living and that we then have a right to be dispatched by a medical person. We may think that we deserve a life unencumbered by our own or anyone else’s disability or terminal illness.

But if we do embrace such attitudes, I fear will we soon learn that the damage done to ourselves, our vulnerable fellow human beings and our society is incalculable.