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(NewsNation) — The ongoing push to authorize what is commonly referred to as assisted suicide or euthanasia for terminally ill patients has ignited an ethical debate over the potential for abuse of the procedure.
The issue intensified after a 28-year-old Dutch woman with depression, autism and borderline personality disorder — but no terminal illness — was approved for euthanasia next month under more expansive Netherlands laws.
Ten states and Washington, D.C., currently allow those with terminal illnesses to obtain prescription medication to end their lives on their terms. Oregon was the first in 1997, while California’s 2016 law faces a pending proposal to include those with early-stage dementia and out-of-state residents.
Proponents argue that medical aid-in-dying laws grant compassionate relief from relentless suffering. Critics, including many disability advocates, fear the laws devalue human life and could be misused under coercion or societal pressures.
A Detroit Free Press piece questions if wider access could make suicide “contagious,” noting that, “Some right-to-die activists want everyone to have access to euthanasia — even young people with mental illness.”
In Maryland, terminally ill patient Diane Kraus advocates for the End of Life Option Act stalled in the legislature, telling NewsNation she wants to be free from “very painful and prolonged” deaths she witnessed in hospice care.
Ethics professor Charles Camosy of Fordham University counters such laws expand far beyond their original intent once passed, pointing to California’s potential changes as proof of a “slippery slope.”
“I’ve seen how people die. And I find that their deaths are often very painful and prolonged, and they’re in a semi-vegetative state,” said Kraus, a metastatic breast cancer patient.
Maryland’s proposed End of Life Option Act would permit doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill adults with less than six months to live if requested. Patients would have to be screened by two doctors to ensure they are mentally competent.
Kraus, who receives chemotherapy every three weeks, said she isn’t worried about the law being expanded too broadly, as critics fear has happened in Canada and the Netherlands.
“The majority of people who would use it are definitely terminally ill,” she said.
Camosy argued the Dutch woman’s case could lead to unintended consequences, citing how assisted dying laws in California and other states have been expanded after passage.
“It starts out one thing and then it quickly becomes something else,” Camosy said. “We’ve seen what’s happening … You won’t need to be dying, you could even just have moderate dementia and be eligible for this.”
Camosy argues that even in Oregon, which has maintained relatively strict criteria for its law since the 1990s, data shows the main reasons people pursue physician-assisted suicide are not due to physical pain and suffering from terminal illness, as is often cited.
Instead, he says factors like fear of losing autonomy, being a burden and inability to enjoy activities are driving people to access it — suggesting the law’s scope has already expanded beyond its originally stated intent.
Similar divisive debates have played out in other states considering aid-in-dying proposals, including New York, Connecticut and Minnesota.
