I am doing a debate on Assisted Suicide "why it should not be legal" please post any hard facts?

Question

I need data and political facts that supports why it should not be legal....although I am a very religous person, please don't post religous facts(it won't be a hard argument in the debate).


Thanks

Answer 1

This is what the other side is saying.....find things to counter it!
Should an incurably-ill patient be able to commit physician-assisted suicide?
In a Nutshell
Yes
Tremendous pain and suffering of patients can be saved.
The right to die should be a fundamental freedom of each person.
Patients can die with dignity rather than have the illness reduce them to a shell of their former selves.
Health care costs can be reduced, which would save estates and lower insurance premiums.
Nurse and doctor time can be freed up to work on savable patients.
Prevention of suicide is a violation of religious freedom.
Pain and anguish of the patient's family and friends can be lessened, and they can say their final goodbyes.
Reasonable laws can be constructed which prevent abuse and still protect the value of human life.
Vital organs can be saved, allowing doctors to save the lives of others.
Without physician assistance, people may commit suicide in a messy, horrifying, and traumatic way.

Just about every year assisted-suicide advocacy groups insist that they are on the verge of their next big legalization breakthrough. In 1998 it was supposed to be in Michigan, via a voter initiative. Early polls showed the proposal leading by a wide margin. But when the smoke cleared, the measure lost by a whopping 71-29 percent.

Then, in 2000, a Maine initiative was going to prime the legalization pump and get the new assisted-suicide laws flowing. Polls showed strong public support for permitting doctors to prescribe death for their patients. Unlike in previous state referendums, supporters of assisted suicide were better financed than their opponents, making their success a likelihood. So urgent was their desire for victory that Oregon activists, where assisted suicide is legal, even sent missionaries to promote the measure — including then-Governor John A. Kitzhaber. Yet, when the votes were cast and counted, Maine had rejected assisted suicide by 51-49 percent.

The next big threat came in Hawaii in May 2002. Pushed energetically by then-Governor Ben Cayetano, an euthanasia enthusiast, the Hawaii house of representatives passed a legalization bill 30-20. It appeared stuck in a senate committee when, in an unexpected tactical maneuver, the bill reached the senate floor and passed on a snap vote, 14-11. But the measure needed a second affirmative vote to be sent to the governor's desk. Opponents pressed the lobbying pedal to the metal, accelerating from zero-to-100 in less than 24 hours. The next day, the bill failed 13-12, and the legislative session ended. A disappointed Governor Cayetano left office and the danger ebbed.

In recent months, assisted-suicide advocates buzzed — and opponents worried — that Vermont was going to be "the place." To prepare for the "Death with Dignity Act," proponents lobbied the Vermont Medical Society to drop its opposition. They were almost successful. The group took a vote of its members and, essentially, decided not to advocate any law.

That could have helped promote passage. After all, the neutrality of the Oregon Medical Association was key in getting 51 percent of Oregon voters to approve assisted suicide in 1994. But it now appears that the early optimism of assisted-suicide advocates has, again, been dashed. The Rutland Herald reported earlier this month that the bill was dealt a "death blow" when "the heads of both the House and Senate Health and Welfare Committees said they won't take up the measure."

All of this begs a crucial question: Why have American euthanasia activists, who triumphed so spectacularly when Oregon voters legalized physician-assisted suicide, been so spectacularly unsuccessful ever since? The answer, I think, is found in the following Rutland Herald description of what led to the apparent downfall of the Vermont bill:

The move comes after the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights, an advocacy group for the disabled, joined the Vermont Medical Society and Vermont Center for Independent Living [also closely affiliated with disability rights] in opposing the measure. It is also opposed by the Vermont Right to Life Committee and Burlington's Catholic Diocese.
Note the prominence given to disability-rights activists; ten years ago, such a sentence would never have appeared in a media report. Then, opponents of assisted suicide were almost exclusively (if inaccurately) depicted as religiously motivated — even though medical, nursing, and hospice professional organizations also almost universally opposed legalization.
This misleading stereotype aided the assisted-suicide cause; it gave credence to euthanasia advocates' political strategy of casting their opponents as religious fanatics seeking to impose sectarian beliefs upon secular society. Toward this end, Oregon euthanasia activists ran a distinctly anti-Catholic political campaign on behalf of Measure 16. One radio ad featured an angry Oregonian accusing the Catholic Church of "putting out garbage" about the measure and "trying to control my life." Another falsely accused the church of imposing upon "every Oregonian" the religious belief that "suffering is redemptive and preserving physical life is always valued higher than relief of suffering."

After Oregon's law passed, both opponents and supporters of assisted suicide anticipated that this demagogic advocacy strategy would effectively break down what seemed to be weakening resistance among the public to the legalization of assisted suicide. But then, just when the situation seemed most bleak, disability-rights activists — who see disabled people as the prime targets of the euthanasia movement — powerfully entered the fray. And the tide began to turn.

In 1996 disability activists formed NOT DEAD YET after Jack Kevorkian was acquitted after assisting the suicides of two women with non-terminal disabilities. (The group takes its name from the hilarious "Bring out your dead", scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) NDY immediately made news by picketing Jack Kevorkian's home and conducting a sit-in at the Hemlock Society's Denver headquarters. (The Hemlock Society, like a leopard trying to change its spots, recently renamed itself "End of Life Choices.") Since then, eleven other national disability-rights groups have joined NDY in opposing legalized assisted suicide, and chapters have protested and taken other political actions against the euthanasia agenda throughout much of the country.

The energetic commitment of the disabled-rights community, more than any other single factor, has thwarted the assisted-suicide movement. Because disability-rights activists are generally politically liberal, distinctly secular in outlook, and often supportive of abortion rights, the media can no longer caricature assisted-suicide opponents as religious busybodies. Moreover, people who would jump head first off a skyscraper if pro-lifers told them not to will listen to the opinions of disability-rights activists with open minds. As a result, some polls now show a sharp drop in the support for legalizing assisted suicide.

This "ecumenical" approach is now being applied to other issues that threaten the sanctity and equality of human life in the U.S. The disability-rights community has been deeply engaged in the struggle to save the life of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who a court determined should be dehydrated. They are also prime opponents of the neo-eugenics that permeate the bioethics movement. They have, for example, vocally opposed "futile-care theory," which would permit doctors to unilaterally refuse a patient's request for life-sustaining treatment, based on the perceived "quality" of that patient's life.

Political conservatives and pro-life advocates will not always agree with the public-policy positions taken by the disability-rights community, and vice versa. But both realize that they have shared interests when it comes to some of the most important sanctity- and equality-of-life issues of our times. The political maturity exhibited by their willingness to work together on issues on which they agree — without demanding that deeply held convictions on other issues be sacrificed — is a winning political strategy. Just ask the assisted-suicide movement: It's licking painful political wounds at the very time it expected to be enjoying electoral triumph.

ASSISTED SUICIDE AND DEMOCRACY:
Why An Oregon Federal Judge Was Right To Overturn Attorney General Ashcroft's Assisted Suicide Decision
By J. PAUL OETKEN
----
Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2002

Last week, Oregon Federal District Judge Robert E. Jones reaffirmed the validity of Oregon's assisted suicide law. He did so by formally overturning Attorney General John Ashcroft's prior decision that the Oregon law conflicted with federal drug laws.

While many have couched this dispute in terms of federalism, it is really about democracy--as Judge Jones correctly recognized.

Ashcroft's Decision: An Effective Federal Ban on Physician-Assisted Suicide

In November, Ashcroft effectively adopted a federal ban on physician-assisted suicide, by ruling that the federal drug law prohibits that practice. Legally, the decision is an interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act, which is intended to prevent drug trafficking.

The Act says that regulated drugs may be prescribed by a physician only "in the course of professional practice." This phrase, in turn, has been interpreted by courts and agencies to mean that drugs may be prescribed only with a "legitimate medical purpose."

Dispensing drugs outside the course of professional practice--without a "legitimate medical purpose"--subjects a physician to revocation of her DEA license and a possible felony conviction as well. The obvious target of the Act is a physician's knowing prescription of a regulated drug to a drug dealer or drug addict who lacks a medical reason for using the drug, and is motivated instead by profit or addiction.

Nevertheless, Ashcroft found in the Act's general language a prohibition of assisted suicide, even where a state has legalized and carefully regulated the practice. His interpretation is questionable in light of the Act's purposes, which have nothing to do with assisted suicide.

It is also particularly questionable in light of the fact that federal law has traditionally left the regulation of medical practice to the states. Indeed, the drug law specifies that it is not intended to override state law unless there is a direct conflict between the two.

The state of Oregon has legalized the practice of assisted suicide in narrow circumstances: where a terminally ill, mentally competent adult has been examined and interviewed by two independent physicians. Thus, the state has determined that assisting in a suicide, in strictly defined circumstances, is part of the "course of professional practice," and can be legitimate as a medical practice.

Column continues below ↓ Disagreeing that the practice can ever be legitimate, Ashcroft read the federal drug law as overriding the law passed by Oregon's voters. Now, however, Judge Jones has overruled him, preventing enforcement of Ashcroft's interpretation (at least until Ashcroft appeals, as is expected).

Judge Jones, who was appointed by the senior President Bush, rejected Ashcroft's reading of the federal drug law as unfounded.

Specifically, he concluded that there is nothing in the federal law that "demonstrates or even suggests that Congress intended to delegate to the Attorney General or the DEA the authority to decide, as a matter of national policy, a question of such magnitude as whether physician-assisted suicide constitutes a legitimate medical purpose or practice." Instead, Judge Jones reasoned, that decision--as is traditional with medical practice issues--has been left to the individual states.

The dispute between the U.S. Attorney General and the Oregon Attorney General has been widely viewed as a dispute about federalism--about the power of a state versus the federal government. But in fact, it not federalism that is at the heart of this debate.

It is true that Ashcroft's November decision reflects a robust view of federal power--which is ironic, given his usual solicitousness for states' rights, and no doubt explained by a commitment to pro-life political values. But as Judge Jones recognized, what the case is really about is democracy and political accountability--about the power of our elected Congress versus that of unelected executive branch officials.

Why the Executive-Judicial Conflict Here Concerns Democracy, Not Federalism

It is Congress that has the power to make law, and Congress simply had not authorized the reading of the drug law that was adopted by Ashcroft. Rather, Ashcroft distorted beyond recognition a law designed to target illegal drug trafficking, attempting to transform it into an anti-physician-assisted suicide law.

But as Judge Jones observed, "the fact that opposition to assisted suicide may be justified, morally, ethically, religiously or otherwise, does not permit a federal statute to be manipulated from its true meaning to satisfy even a worthy goal." Debate over assisted suicide belongs in legislatures, state or federal. It should not be silenced by executive fiat.

Indeed, opponents of assisted suicide, led by many members of the pro-life community, have been lobbying Congress for three years to enact a law that would prohibit assisted suicide. So far, they have been unable to rally the necessary political support for their bill.

Ashcroft attempted to hand them the win they have not been able to achieve. He tried to short-circuit the process of changing the law, along with the country's opportunity to debate and resolve the issue democratically, by interpreting an unrelated law purportedly to resolve the issue. But this fight should stay where it belongs, in the legislatures.

Another consequence of Ashcroft's misuse of the federal drug law would have been to create a more heavy-handed enforcement tool than the democratic process would have produced--and as a result, potentially to put many patients, both terminal and non-terminal, in jeopardy.

Recent bills introduced in Congress have included the caveat that physicians' efforts at pain management, even palliative care measures that hasten death, would not be subject to criminal prosecution or license revocation. Ashcroft's novel reading of the law had no such safe harbor.

As a result, the law as interpreted by Ashcroft would not only have prevented physicians in Oregon from assisting in suicides, but could potentially have had a chilling effect on physicians nationwide who seek to relieve their patients' pain. Since untreated pain itself has been shown, in some instances, to impede recovery, Ashcroft's decision would not only have caused patients needless suffering, but actually could have harmed their ability to get well.

Laws passed by Congress are always subject to interpretation. But Ashcroft's decision regarding assisted suicide, albeit phrased in terms of legality, lacked support in the law written by Congress and amounted to lawmaking by the Justice Department.

The federal district court has correctly resolved this dispute by assigning the thorny problem of whether to allow, and how to limit, physician-assisted suicide to its proper forum: the "laboratories" of the states. Their varied approaches to the issue may, over time, aid in forming a national consensus, making it possible for Congress to resolve it through national legislation.

Answer 2

It might be difficult to find what you are looking for. In America, we tend to prefer personal choice in matters regarding family, rather than legislation. There is little support for laws against assisted suicide. It is legal in only one state, but there the law is accepted.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

It looks like you may need to do some research. This site can help:

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal

This is the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center). Search "Assisted Suicide". This should help. Good luck to you.

Answer 5

If the person is in a lot of pain, they may say they want to die but you don't know if it is the pain (or meds) talking.

If the person signs a waiver before their disease is advanced that if they are terminally ill they would like assisted suicide, how do you know whether or not they have changed their minds (due to the first statement).

Answer 6

I don't think it is right to help someone kill thmselves. It is just like murder. You knew they were going to do it and you helped them and did nothing to save them.

Answer 7

Sorry, can't help you...I think it absolutely should be legal.