Source: Not Dead Yet
by Anita Cameron
I sometimes hear these thoughts and feelings expressed, so I want to share my responses.
1. I want the freedom, choice and the right to end my life when I want to.
That freedom and choice already exists. When the pain of an illness gets to be too much, you can decide using a number of methods to end your life. Suicide is not illegal in the United States.
What you want is the freedom to doctor shop until you find a doctor who will give you suicide pills, even if it means that the choice to live will be taken away from some elders and people with disabilities who do not want to die.
It’s especially incomprehensible to argue for a right to assisted suicide as an accepted medical treatment option when we don’t yet have a right to health care, and the threat to such health care access as we do have is growing. For Blacks and People of Color, the racial disparities in health care are too great for us to be fooled into believing that we should have the “option” of assisted suicide as a medical procedure. As the cheapest procedure, it’s not a benefit but a threat.