Powerful Op-Ed: “Assisted suicide corrupts medicine”

Our effort to defeat physician assisted suicide legislation in Maryland was undertaken by a broad coalition with a range of important concerns brought to bear.  Because of that breadth and depth of concern, we were able to defeat the legislation for now.  But make no mistake, the proponents of this legislation will be back, and more energized than ever.

That’s why we need to meet them with passion like what we saw in the op-ed we’re sharing with you on this blog today.

In the Chicago Tribune, Ryan Anderson of the Heritage foundation makes a point that so many made for us during our fight this session – a point that we need to keep firmly in mind as proponents try to work around and dodge our concerns.

The undermining of medicine itself is pretty hard to dodge, and that’s what Mr. Anderson sounds the alarm on in his piece.

The op-ed is worth reading in its entirety, but we think this line pretty effectively conveys the force of the piece: “Once you go down the road of saying some lives should be eligible for assisted suicide, the lethal logic is clear.”

That assertion is backed up by several physicians, and by cold, hard evidence with an unrelenting message that assisted suicide may ultimately call into question when or when not it is worth it for a patient to live or die.  As Anderson puts it, “Doctors may help patients to die a dignified death from natural causes and should administer palliative care, but that is very different from doctors killing patients or helping them kill themselves.”

This kind of commentary and thoughtful passion is what brought us to victory in Maryland this time around, and those victories will continue if we maintain this passion.

Please read this op-ed, and keep in mind that this battle is not over.