Bradley Williams’ short and pointed testimony in the Montana Senate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYfQEjhbUVI) helped defeat a bill to legalize assisted suicide there. Like the defeated Montana assisted suicide bill, the Vermont bill puts the elderly and disabled in danger of abuse. Williams points out that all the so-called safeguards in the bill only deal with requests for medication. In other words the bill protects doctors, not patients. There are no safeguards after the patient receives the medication, nothing at all to prevent a patient’s being forced to take the lethal dose. The Vermont bill does not require witnesses at the time of death. Another person could force the patient to take the lethal dose against his will or even administer it to a struggling person. Who would know? Even if the bill were amended to require disinterested witnesses, it would not protect an elderly or disabled person from pressures from caregivers, children, or “friends”. An isolated victim would probably never find the courage to risk losing the only human contact he or she might have by reporting abuse. The Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services estimates that only 1 in 5 cases of elder abuse are ever reported (http://www.ccvs.state.vt.us/pub_ed/index.html). Because much abuse is financial, affluence is no protection; it may be the opposite (http://www.elder-abuseca.com/stateResources/vermont.html. Is fulfilling a very few people’s fantasies of control worth putting vulnerable people at risk? And make no mistake. We will all be elderly, sick and dying some day, and we are all vulnerable.
Citizens Against Assisted Suicide
Suicide is never death with dignity, and assisted suicide legislation threatens true patient choices at the end of life.