This article, published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, is based on a study of the three forms of assisted dying in use: euthanasia, assisted suicide, and capital punishment. All were found to have significant problems that result in what the authors call “inhumane” deaths, including very painful ones. They recommend the use of continuous medically-monitored anesthesia.
The need for continuous monitored anesthia would require assisted suicide and euthanasia, which are True Dignity’s concerns, to take place in a medical setting, yet assisted suicide has been legalized on the premise that it will enable death at home, with only the family present. In Oregon, doctors are present at very few assisted suicide deaths. In our experience of asking questions at meetings, we have encountered resistance to a requirement that they take place in hospitals. Most hospitals want nothing to do with assisted suicide, and, we reiterate, the push for it has largely been based on a revulsion to dying away from home and connected to medical apparatus.
True Dignity has always maintained that assisted suicide’s proponents’ promise that it brings about peaceful, “beautiful” home deaths is belied by what we know about pharmacology and what the records show.