The debate over death

SUN CITY – End-of-life planning is a struggle for many seniors because it involves decisions that pass through many channels. Family, doctors, and religion often play a role in shaping the discussion along with the individual’s own beliefs.

Sun City resident Kurt Geier wants to start a group in the community to allow seniors to discuss this complicated issue among themselves.

He has invited Compassion & Choices, a Colorado-based agency, to lead a presentation on May 14 in Sun City on options for those considering how to handle their final days.

Geier, who aided his sister through the end of her life and is now doing the same with a close friend, understands the topic can be controversial, but hopes for an open discussion.

“There are some visceral parts to this; I’ve just seen too many people really suffering at the end of their lives, and it costs an arm and a leg to die, for God’s sake,” he said.

Compassion & Choices provides end-of-life counseling to clients, working alongside hospice providers to detail what a terminally ill patient’s rights and options are. They often help patients obtain advance care directives to be able to handle their death on their own terms.

Where the organization has run into controversy is in the issue of whether or not patients have the right to end their lives and how they can go about doing so.

Currently, the only states that do not punish doctors for knowingly helping or allowing patients to die are Washington, Oregon, and Montana. In those states, the drugs most commonly prescribed in such cases are lethal doses of pentobarbital, Seconal, or Nembutal.

Though the option is available in these states, it is not widely taken. For example, in 2012, Washington reported 44 written requests for medication to end a life.

In 2012 Oregon reported 115 prescriptions written for death-inducing medication. That year, 77 Oregonians died from taking those prescriptions.
Roland Halpern, Compassion & Choices community relations coordinator, said cases where a patient requests a lethal dose of medication but ends up not taking it are fairly common. In those cases, he said the patient is still better off having known their options.

“Just having that conversation and letting people know what is available often is invaluable,” he said.

In a state like Illinois, which does not allow for patients to take death-inducing medicine, Compassion & Choices can work with patients on advance care directives, as well as offer consultation on their ability to refuse medical treatment or nutrition to hasten death.

Another legal option in Illinois is palliative sedation, in which a patient takes a dosage of medicine to induce a coma, thereby ending pain before death.

“The theory behind that is the person dies of their underlying illness,” Halpern said.One of the largest critics of death hastening is the Catholic Church. Section 2277 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.” The church considers it a denial of God’s plan for a person’s life and a grave sin.

There are also advocacy groups like Not Dead Yet, which claims the issue is about the disabled, not the terminally ill. They claim “death with dignity” is wrong because it allows patients to choose to die when their illness renders them disabled.

Not Dead Yet’s website states: “In a society that prizes physical ability and stigmatizes impairments, it’s no surprise that previously able-bodied people may tend to equate disability with loss of dignity. This reflects the prevalent but insulting societal judgment that people who deal with incontinence and other losses in bodily function are lacking dignity.”

Bess Schenkier, coordinator of Compassion & Choices Chicago, sees no problem in aiding a person’s death so long as it is done legally.

“I don’t think it’s controversial to say that you want people to have a death that’s painless and peaceful at home if possible surrounded by their family,” she said.

She did acknowledge, however, that a fine line exists between what is legal and illegal with end-of-life options.

“We try to give advice only that would keep us within the boundaries of what is legal,” she said.

Compassion & Choices is also in a battle of words with its opposition. Each side seeks to define just what the issue is with their own terms.

Compassion & Choices uses the term “aid in dying” while other groups refer to the act as “assisted suicide” or euthanasia.

“When somebody is terminally ill and only has a few days or weeks to live, they’re not committing suicide,” Halpern said.

Compassion & Choices advocates for policy changes across the country on aid-in-dying, but Schenkier said there is no action in Illinois at the moment, as the organization does not currently see legislative change in the state as a possibility.

Geier hopes to play his part in educating people about the issue and advocating for the option to hasten death. He also hopes that a group in Sun City will connect like-minded people to that cause.

“I’m just one person; we’ve got a lot of talent in this community. We’ve got people with a wealth of experience in their backgrounds, and I’m really anxious to see how other people think about this concept and what they think should be done,” he said.

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