opinion
Free to die and Free to Speak About It
W
hen the state of Georgia
arrested four Final Exit
Network volunteers, it
accused them and our group,
which advocates for the right to
die with dignity, of assisting in
suicides. In doing so, it drew
attention to a Georgia law that vio-
lates the First Amendment right to
free speech — and now FEN has
brought an action in U.S. District
Court to defend its rights.
Georgia’s prosecution has
revived a legal row likely to play
out across the country in the
months and years ahead.
“Assisted suicide,” as it is so often
and unjustly called, has been a
controversial subject since at least
the 1990s, when Michigan doctor
Jack Kevorkian was imprisoned
for helping terminally ill patients
die. Quite a few states have passed
laws against actively providing
“aid” or “assistance” in another’s
death. Ironically, Georgia’s statute
isn’t explicit on that point.
Rather, the state’s assisted sui-
cide law (O.C.G.A. 16-5-5) says
that anyone who “publicly adver-
tises, offers, or holds himself or
herself out as offering” to aid
another in “suicide” is committing
a felony. In other words, the law
bans talking about aid in dying.
That makes it unconstitutional
under the First Amendment. A
state has no more right to ban
speaking about assistance in death
f iNal E XiT
Jerry Dincin
than it does to outlaw political
speech or controversial books.
The fact is, a small number of
terminally ill patients, finding
themselves incapacitated or in
agony, choose to bring an end to
their suffering. It is unfortunate
that assistance in death is called
“assisted suicide” no matter what
the circumstances. The people
who rationally decide to terminate
irreversible suffering are not “sui-
cidal” and do not wish to die any
more than the next person. Their
decision should not be likened to
the tragedy of an untimely death
by real suicide.
FEN’s volunteers are deeply
sympathetic to the wishes of these
circumstances. However, no one
in our organization has ever
actively aided in another person’s
death. Aid in dying is now legal,
but only for a physician, in
Montana,
Oregon
and
Washington. “Physician aid in
dying” will not likely be legal in
other U.S. states
within the next
few years. But
it’s not what we
do: we do not aid
in dying and we
are not, most of
us, physicians.
Rather,
our
volunteers pro-
vide information,
counseling, and moral support to
terminally ill patients who are
considering ending their lives.
Usually they’re grappling with
conditions like Alzheimer’s, with
the same time, advances in med-
ical science are transforming the
way we experience death. It used
to be that dying was mostly natu-
ral, inevitable, and quick. Now,
medicines and machines make it
possible to keep a dying patient on
life support for years. Real choice
needs to become
a part of the
process.
And
when
death
becomes a mat-
ter of choice,
individuals
should have the
freedom
to
make it for
themselves.
Because of these demographic
and scientific shifts, we expect to
see the debate over the right to die
intensify. Meanwhile, more and
more people will seek out the
counsel of organizations like FEN.
As we undergo this change as a
society, let’s keep our constitu-
tional rights — and our freedoms
— in sight.
Georgia authorities were following
their state laws when they brought
charges against four of our members
people who rationally decide to
terminate irreversible suffering are not
‘suicidal’ and do not wish to die
patients, and believe that being
able to choose whether to live or
die should be a basic human right
for those under extreme medical
one by one; or inoperable pancre-
atic cancer, with its crippling
abdominal pain. Usually, those
patients have already explored all
known methods of treatment, in
vain.
FEN provides two services.
First, our volunteers give informa-
its slow, painful descent into
advanced dementia; Lou Gehrig’s
disease, in which bodily functions,
from speaking to swallowing, fail
tion on hastening death to those
who feel that an incurable medical
condition has made life intolera-
ble. Second, we provide compas-
sionate company in the final
moments. Technically, since our
volunteers share information on
how to induce death with certainty
and without suffering, Georgia
authorities were following their
state laws when they brought
charges against four of our mem-
bers in 2009. But that law should-
n’t exist in the first place. That’s
why FEN recently brought an
action against Georgia in U.S.
District Court, to vindicate the
free speech rights of our volun-
teers.
The U.S. population is aging. At
Jerry Dincin, Ph.D., is the
President of Final exit network
and a retired psychologist with
more than 30 years of clinical
experience. the website for Final
exit network is www.finalexitnet-
work.org.
the ‘Job-killer’ Lies About Health Care Reform
R
epublican leaders in the
House are trying to repeal
health care reform by
asserting that it is a “job killer”
and will cause the deficit to
rise. According to an array of
independent assessments, the
GOP is wrong on both counts.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) intro-
duced a bill aimed at killing key
provisions of the Health Care and
Education Reconstruction Act of
2010. Cantor’s 2-page bill says,
“This act may be cited as the
‘Repealing the Job-Killing Care
Law Act.’
But giving the bill a catchy
name doesn’t mean the description
is accurate.
“House Republicans claim that
the legislation (the Affordable
Care Act) is a ‘job-killer’ imply
that health care reform measures
will be a major drag on the econo-
my because they will allegedly
increase employers’ costs,” the
Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities noted. “But these claims
are not supported by the evidence,
and they are at odds with leading
non-partisan assessments of how
health care reform legislation will
affect the economy and labor mar-
kets.”
But an assessment by the
Congressional Budget Office con-
cludes that employers with 50 or
more employees – approximately
70 percent of the total insurance
market – will see their premiums
remain the same or decrease by up
to three percent in 2016. Smaller
employers may see increases in
the one percent to two percent
range, according to the CBO.
The Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities’ Paul Van de
Water observed, “Politico quotes
T HE c urrY
r EPorT
George E.
Curry
incoming
House
Budget
Committee Chairman Paul Ryan
… as stating that the health reform
law ‘is full of gimmicks that more
than erase the false claim of deficit
reduction’
made
by
the
Congressional Budget Office,
which has estimated that the law
will reduce the deficit by $143 bil-
lion over 2010-2019 and by some
$1.3 trillion over the following
decade. But the ‘gimmicks’ he
cites are nothing of the sort, as my
colleague Jim Horney and I
explained in a report we issued
when these and similar misleading
charges began surfacing nearly a
on Taxation have concluded that
the health reform legislation will
reduce employer spending on
health insurance, in part because
the new excise tax on high-cost
insurance plans will lead employ-
ers to shift some employee com-
pensation from health insurance to
cash wages. Workers will pay
Social Security payroll contribu-
tions and income taxes on the
additional wages.”
FactCheck.org asks, rhetorical-
ly: So what about the “budget-
busting” label that House
Republicans are also trying to
apply?
It answered its own question:
“The Congressional Budget Office
officially scored the new law as
self-financing, projecting that it
would actually reduce the deficit
over the first 10 years – and
beyond. And so it should surprise
nobody that CBO said Jan. 6 that
repealing the new law, as
Republicans propose, would
increase the deficit. CBO’s latest
... repealing the new law ... would
increase the deficit
year ago.
“According to Politico, Rep.
Ryan claimed that the Affordable
Care Act uses revenues from
Social Security and premiums
from a new long-term care insur-
ance to offset the cost of health
reform. In reality, health reform
reduces the deficit even without
counting these revenues. As our
report explained:
“CBO and the Joint Committee
figures project that repealing the
new law will increase the deficit
by a total of $230 billion over the
next 10 years (through fiscal year
2021). So keeping it in place
would help the budget, not bust
it.”
Republicans pushing for an
extension of the Bush tax cuts for
the wealthy and Democrats cham-
pioning continued tax breaks for
the middle class evidently were
not as concerned about the deficit
when they joined hands last month
to extend expiring tax breaks for
everyone.
The $860 billion measure signed
by President Obama, among other
things, extends unemployment
benefits for another 13 weeks and
ventive services or screenings,
such as mammograms, pap
smears, or prostate screening. In
turn, inadequate prevention and
screening increases the likelihood
of preventable illness, missed
diagnoses, and delays in treat-
ment.
Uninsured children are 70 percent less
likely than insured children to receive
medical care for common childhood
conditions
extends the Bush tax cuts for
another two years. The tax breaks
will cost $544.3 billion over the
next two years, including $81.5
billion for the top 2 percent of tax-
payers.
Largely missing in the debate
over whether the new health care
law is a “job-killer” is the amount
of deaths that will be caused if
Republicans are successful in
repealing what they derisively call
ObamaCare.
Mathematica Policy Research,
Inc. noted last April, “Estimating
the number of premature deaths
attributable to lack of insurance
presents methodological chal-
lenges, but some research indi-
cates that as many as 44,500
deaths per year in the United
States are linked to lack of insur-
ance.”
However, it is not methodologi-
cally challenging to measure the
disparity between those who have
health insurance and those who
don’t. According to Mathematica:
Uninsured adults are less likely
than insured adults to receive pre-
Uninsured children are 70 per-
cent less likely than insured chil-
dren to receive medical care for
common childhood conditions,
such as sore throat, or for emer-
gencies, such as a ruptured appen-
dix.
At-risk adults without insurance
have higher rates of stroke and
greater risks of death than at-risk
adults with insurance.
When hospitalized, uninsured
children are at greater risk of
dying than children with insur-
ance.
The question lawmakers should
be weighing is not whether the
health care bill is “job-killing,” as
Republicans claim. The real ques-
tion is: What about the needless
suffering and deaths that would
occur without health care insur-
ance being expanded? You can’t
put a price tag on that.
george e. Curry, former editor-
in-chief of emerge magazine and
the nnPa news Service, is a
keynote speaker, moderator, and
media coach.
january 12, 2011 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 5