The right to die: Suicide by any other name

But verbal cloaking is the stock in trade of the “right-to-die” forces. The Orwellian-speak they employ to describe their effort is telling. It’s death by euphemism.

Advertisement

For starters, no one is being denied the “right to die.” What some are trying to prevent is the drafting of doctors into the death business. Physicians are meant to help us heal or provide relief from pain. They aren’t supposed to play assistant in a suicide.

Oh, but we aren’t supposed to refer to self-inflicted death as “suicide.”

Rocky Shaw, president of the California State Coroners Association, told the Los Angeles Times that before California’s new law passed if someone took a lethal dose of drugs it would be ruled a suicide. But the new law states that “death resulting from the self-administration of an aid-in-dying drug is not suicide.” This, according to Shaw, “leaves a question about how to classify” a physician-assisted death.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement