On May 14, NDY’s attorney in New Jersey, Anne Studholme, squared off against New York Compassion & Choices Director David Leven on New Jersey’s “Dom Time” show, a news and call-in show hosted and moderated by Dom Giordano.
We first got to know Studholme when she represented NDY, ADAPT, NCIL, AAPD, NSCIA, Center for Self-Determination and Disability Rights New Jersey (the NJ protection and advocacy agency) in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in a major medical futility case.
This year a bill to legalize assisted suicide has been introduced in the New Jersey legislature. When the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee held a hearing on the bill on February 7, Studholme testified on NDY’s behalf. The bill passed that committee, but has still not been addressed by the full Assembly.
When Giordano proposed to devote a segment of his program to the assisted suicide issue, Studholme stepped up again. The show was posted to YouTube in three segments:
Dom Giordano’s Dom Time Show 031 Seg #1
Dom Giordano’s Dom Time Show 031 Seg #2
Dom Giordano’s Dom Time Show 031 Seg #3/4 Close
In the first portion, Studholme challenged the assumption many people have that pain is the problem addressed by legalizing assisted suicide. She pointed out that even in the rare cases in which palliative care is insufficient to relieve pain, palliative sedation is an available alternative.
The short sound bite format let the Compassion and Choices speaker make his simplistic point about “shouldn’t everyone have this right?” over and over. However, the bill does not create a new patient right, since suicide is not illegal in any state. The actual bill language is to legally immunize physicians and other participants who assist suicide. It carves out an exception to existing laws regulating doctors and other third parties.
The second segment included the best back-and-forth debate of the three parts. Giordano, the host, said he agreed that palliative care has come a long way, also noting the potential for pressures due to health care costs. Leven admitted that pain is not the issue. Giordano also acknowledged the concern, particularly among disabled people, that the message in assisted suicide is that some life has less worth. Studholme responded about the high level of elder suicide in Oregon (apart from the assisted suicide law there). She pointed out that people may fear loss of autonomy, being a burden, and fear being disabled because of how people are treated. She noted that people who choose assisted suicide tend to be male, educated and well off. Both guests admitted that the six-month prediction of terminality is not reliable.
In the third and shortest segment, Giordano alluded to the uncertainties of medical information and expressed concern about the risk of a snap decision. Leven replied that there is a two-week process, as though that is a sufficient time to consider such an irreversible decision. (These days, how many of us can get an appointment with a specialist for a second opinion in two weeks?) Giordano asked why not allow this? Leven said that a small number of people use the law, while Studholme tried to point out the problems with carving out an exception to current law for this small group. Studholme noted that the two witnesses (who attest that the request for assisted suicide is voluntary and not coerced) don’t even need to know the person. Then the clock ran out on the show.
New Jersey advocates who oppose the assisted suicide measure say that the legislative process could well extend into the fall and winter. If so, the discussion on “Dom Time” was just the beginning. Regardless, the disability community is in it for the long haul. – Diane Coleman
Yes! Suicide (or a form of suicide) is legal in all States and condoned and encouraged by the State because of the provisions of the 1991 PATIENT SELF DETERMINATION ACT that does legally permit patients to refuse life-saving and life-extending medical treatments to shorten their lives and thus shorten their suffering within the hospital setting and, of course, in the outpatient setting, as well.
The treatments that patients refuse to shorten their lives and shorten their suffering under the provisions of the 1991 PSDA DO NOT HAVE TO BE DEEMED “medically futile” by the physician/hospital or the State.
Unfortunately, since physicians and outpatient for-profit offices and clinics were NOT put under the provisions of the 1991 PSDA, those patients (mostly the elderly/disabled) who want to end their lives because of terminal suffering do not understand that they have a right to a form of assisted suicide. They don’t understand that they can exercise self determination to refuse food and water and THEN request Medicare Hospice help in the form of pain killers to ease their journey into a more natural death.
Assisted Suicide with a lethal dose is, of course, faster and easier and cheaper but it “cheapens” life and opens the door even wider to unilateral passive euthanasia of the elderly/disabled for purely fiscal considerations.