Medical aid in dying isn’t suicide. Suicide occurs when a person ends their life because they are severely depressed, or suffering from other mental health conditions, unrelated to whether or not they are terminally ill. In contrast, terminally ill people might request medical aid in dying not because they’re depressed but to ensure they have the option to end suffering if it becomes intolerable and to die in a place and circumstance of their choosing.
The Massachusetts End of Life Option Act would authorize medical aid in dying to end intolerable suffering for mentally capable, terminally ill adults with a medical prognosis of six months or less to live.
Safeguards in the bill to protect terminally ill people are highly effective. For example, the Journal of Medical Ethics concludes that the safeguards in the eight states like Oregon, where this option is authorized by law, and which are the model for the Massachusetts End of Life Option Act, prevent abuse: “Rates of assisted dying in Oregon … showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured … people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations.”
In this COVID-19 era we are reminded of the tragedy of death and that people with terminal illness want their care wishes respected at the end of life. That is what this compassionate end-of-life option care provides.
It is why 70 percent of Massachusetts residents support the End of Life Options Act, including a majority of people across the gender, geographic, age, and racial spectrum, according to a 2019 Boston Globe-Suffolk University poll. I hope that the Legislature listens to the majority of Massachusetts residents and passes this law during its post-election session this year.
Larry S. Rankin, MD, FACC, is a retired cardiologist and internist who lives in Florence.