RESPONSE in opposition to the legalization of Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS)
by Alan Carver
In the past 20 years, there have been numerous studies that have revealed how little physicians trained in the United States are prepared to care for their dying patients. Due to a paucity of attention paid to the subject in medical school and residency curricula, there is a large gap between the needs of patients with advanced disease and their families, and the lack of readiness of their physicians to meet those needs. Deficits in pain education, doctor/patient communication, and the basic tenets of palliative medicine have been well documented. Why then the clamor to support the legalization of PAS? The discussion should not be about whether or not we permit doctors to kill their patients, but whether or not we as a society and medical community are meeting our legal, moral, and ethical obligations to providing competent end of life care.
In permitting doctors to treat their patients aggressively, if required, for symptom relief, “even to the point of unconsciousness and hastening death,” the Supreme Court of the United States has already answered the question. (1). It is not legalization of PAS that we need; it is competent care of the dying. Previously, the World Health Organization endorsed palliative care as an integral component of a national health policy and “strongly recommended to its member countries that they not consider legalizing PAS and euthanasia until they have addressed the needs of their citizens for pain relief and palliative care.” (2).
In Discussion Piece #2, Ender Ricart understandably expresses concern about “quality of life and quality of death.” She would likely support Daniel Callahan’s conclusion that, “It is not death that is the enemy, but a painful, impaired, and unhealthy life before death…Death will always be with us. We cannot change that fact. But we can change the way people are cared for at the end of life.” (3). Dying patients are best cared for by physicians and other care providers with the knowledge and training to help their patients live as well as they can for as long as they can. Our culture seems so concerned about patient’s rights, yet we neglect one of the most fundamental of all – the right to competent care by a physician near or at life’s end.
I concur with Frances Norwood’s RESPONSE in concluding that, “We need more options that support the social and medical needs of the person, focusing not just on minimizing risk, but maximizing social connection and the value of life as defined by the person.” She supports consideration of PAS only “in states where enough options for palliative care, humane long term care, and balanced social and medical supports exist.” Let’s start there, and put the discussions and debates surrounding legalization of PAS off for the day when we are truly meeting the needs of our dying patients. Dr. Kathleen Foley wrote, “Death is an issue that society as a whole faces, and it requires a compassionate response. But we should not confuse compassion with competence in the care of terminally ill patients.” (4). Exactly.
Alan Carver, MD
Assoc. Attending Neurologist
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Assoc. Clinical Professor of Neurology
Weill Cornell Medical College
New York, NY
References
1) Vacco v Quill & Washington v. Glucksberg, 117 S. Ct., 1997
2) Cancer Pain Relief and Palliatieve Care. Geneva; World Health Organization, 1989
3) Callahan D., N Engl J Med., March 2, 2000.
4) Foley, K., N Engl J Med., January 2, 1997.
Right to Die: RESPONSE by Frances Norwood
Right to Die: PROVOCATION by Ender Ricart
