To the Editor:
Opinions and advocacy have a place in the Bar Bulletin. But let’s not fool ourselves: Margaret Dore’s “What Do We Advise Our Clients?” (May 2009) does not read like a truly professional piece of advice on how to advise clients facing “death with dignity” decisions. Instead, it resembles a campaign document or a brief against this law. For the campaign against the initiative lost and, for better or worse, the initiative is law. Vox populi, vox dei.
I know full well how grasping relatives or others in a position to exploit a vulnerable person can behave in the probate context. I just obtained a trial award for such conduct (against a banker, no less) for $333,000 and have litigated other, similar cases against the exploiter.
But were I to counsel such a vulnerable person the way Ms. Dore suggests, I would probably leave him or her more confused, frightened, and anxious than when I walked in the door. Taking a cue from campaign hit-pieces as a way to counsel a suffering and vulnerable client verges, in my inexpert opinion, on professional irresponsibility.
Full disclosure: I voted for — but did not donate to or work for — the “death with dignity” initiative. However, my eldest cousin, the bioethicist Leon Kass, is a prominent national advocate against such laws. Would that Ms. Dore have made such disclosure.
—Franklin W. Shoichet
Seattle
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To the Editor:
Thank you for running Margaret Dore’s article discussing the down sides of Washington’s new Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes physician-assisted suicide. I am a physician who has studied assisted suicide and euthanasia since 1988, especially in the Netherlands. I agree with Ms. Dore that patient “choice” is not always the case.
Dutch doctors have practiced assisted suicide and euthanasia for decades. Although the law calls for performing assisted suicide and euthanasia with the patient’s consent, it is often involuntary. The law also calls for obtaining a second opinion of another physician, but this is often never done.
By 1991, the Remmelink Report showed that 1,040 people (an average of three per day) were actively killed by Dutch doctors without the patient’s knowledge or consent. In addition, 8,100 patients died as a result of doctors deliberately giving them overdoses of pain medication, not for the primary purpose of controlling pain, but to hasten the patient’s death. This pattern continues to this day.
Early death can save money for health-care systems as well as for surviving family members. Once assisted suicide is accepted, abuses are possible and difficult to control. Those who believe that Washington’s new assisted-suicide act will assure their “choice” are naive.
—William Reichel, M.D.
Center for Clinical Bioethics
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Washington, D.C.
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To the Editor:
Was it a coincidence that Margaret Dore’s sobering article on Washington’s new assisted-suicide law appeared in the same issue as “The Case of the Defrauded Elder” and “Violent Crime Stats Raise Alarm: Elderly Women Most Vulnerable?” Each article describes the vulnerability of the elderly and ill and the difficulty of protecting even the wealthy and powerful from abuse. Ms. Dore’s article exposes the lack of safeguards in the so-called Death with Dignity Act, which provides a new mechanism for the worst form of abuse by those whose financial interests neatly dovetail with the expedited death of a loved one.
Sadly, Ms. Dore’s analysis is accurate. The strategic vagueness of the language in the statute has been largely ignored. With no requirement that the death be witnessed, or that the patient himself/herself administer the lethal dose, or even that the patient be competent at the time of ingesting the lethal dose, the dignified death promised by the statute’s title may be anything but.
——Theresa Schrempp
SONKIN & SCHREMPP, PLLC
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We received many letters in response to Margaret Dore's article in the May issue. We were not able to include them all, however, due to space limitations. We will run additional letters in our July issue.
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The Bar Bulletin welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should generally be no more than 350 words and must include the author’s name, address, and daytime phone number for verification purposes. They should be sent to Gene Barton, Editor, c/o Karr Tuttle Campbell, 1201 3rd Ave. Ste 2900, Seattle, WA 98101-3284; or email gbarton@karrtuttle.com. The Bar Bulletin has the right to edit all letters without notice to the author and the right to refuse to publish any letter. The views expressed in letters to the editor represent the view only of the writer and not the views of the Bar Bulletin, the King County Bar Association, its officers or trustees.
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