“Assisted Suicide Advocates Seek to
Euthanize the Rule of Law”
I was asked to write a piece for an online magazine called The Church
Report. I decided to expand my criticism of the lawsuit in
Connecticut
to redefine the word “suicide” in the assisted suicide context to “aid
in dying.” The suit wants a judge to rule that when the suicidal person
is terminally ill and is assisted in self-killing by a lethal
prescription from a physician, it is not assisted suicide, in short, a
blatant attempt to legalize by lexicon that which could not be done by
legislation.
I get into the history of “aid in dying” as an advocacy term coined to
overcome poll results showing that people have a negative attitude
toward suicide. From the column:
Never mind that it is accurate. The dictionary definition of “suicide”
is “the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and
intentionally.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suicide And
forget for the moment that fear of stigma can save lives. C & C is
blatantly promoting a postmodern word engineering scheme that would
sacrifice accurate and precise legal lexicon on the altar of emotional
personal narratives.
Lest you think such subterfuge cannot succeed, it already has.
Under
Washington State’s newly legalize assisted suicide regime,
participating doctors are legally required to lie on the death
certificate by listing the cause of death as the underlying disease
rather than the prescribed suicide drug overdose.
Redefining the term in order to legalize assisted suicide by judicial
fiat would have consequences:
Consider the surrealistic possibilities: If the lawsuit succeeded and I
gave a terminally ill friend in Connecticut an overdose with which to
intentionally end his life, it would remain a crime. But if my friend
consulted a doctor he doesn’t know who is affiliated with Compassion
and Choices to obtain the overdose—as happens with most assisted
suicides in Oregon— it would merely be legal “aid in dying”—this, even
though the act, the motive, and the lethal consequence would be
precisely the same in each instance. That’s not only nuts, it is
blatantly Orwellian.
But the issue is bigger than just assisted suicide:
It is also dangerous beyond the issue of assisted suicide. The United
States, we are often told, is a nation of laws and not of men. If
we
are to be governed by the rule of law, words have to matter and
definitions must be capable of being relied upon. But if a commonly
understood term can simply be tossed out in order to legalize what the
people’s elected representatives made a crime, why couldn’t a judge
similarly criminalize an otherwise legal act via the same sleight of
hand machination? Indeed, should judges decide they can
unilaterally
change the rules by simply redefining terms, what law could permanently
be relied upon?
The case should be a slam-dunk, the lawsuit thrown forcefully out of
court. But the way things are in the courts today, you never know
what
will happen. In this sense, the assisted suicide lawsuit in Connecticut
not only threatens to remove a vital legal protection from vulnerable
patients, it is a lethal threat to the rule of law itself.
And frankly, I don’t think that assisted suicide advocates much care.
Contact: Wesley
J.
Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish
Date: October 19, 2009
Link
to this article.
this article to a friend.
The IFRL is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in
Illinois. A non-profit organization, that serves as the state
coordinating body for local pro-life chapters representing thousands of
Illinois citizens working to restore respect for all human life in our
society. The IFRL is composed of people of different political
persuasions, various faiths and diverse economic, social and ethnic
backgrounds. Since 1973 the Illinois Federation for Right to Life has
been working to end abortion and restore legal protection to those members of the
human family who are threatened by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Diverse though we are, we hold one common belief - that
every human being has an inalienable right to life that is precious and must be protected. IFRL is
dedicated to restoring the right to life to the unborn, and protection
for the disabled and the elderly. Click here to learn more about the IFRL.