Interesting article and point of view on the assisted suicide set of laws that are spreading across our country. In WA, the Death with Dignity Act is a strange law that prescribes how not stating the facts is the mandated.
"The certificate may not reference the Death with Dignity Act, mention the drug used to terminate life or contain terms such as suicide, assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide, mercy killing or euthanasia. The manner of death must be certified as natural.
The writer of the article points out that she does not disagree with the prospect of assisted suicide but objects to the lying and cover up. Interesting point.....If any death certificate fails to comply, the Washington state registrar will reject it and require the medical certifier to sign an “acceptable correction” before issuing a permit allowing burial or cremation – “acceptable correction” meaning a misstatement of the facts."
3 comments:
The writer simply fails to understand the need to differentiate between this and ordinary suicide.
The only "lie" is writing on the death certificate that the underlying illness was the cause of death. Well, that actually is party true. Perhaps to be perfectly true/clear the death certificate should cite the illness and note the assisted suicide.
I guess that is her point...that if assisted suicide is acceptable by law why the cover up on the death certificate. List the death as suicide and the underlying disease as secondary condition.
Her complaint is actually two fold Susie: One, why even involve a physician. And two, why the "cover up" on the death certificate?
There is good reason to include a physician so that it is regulated and people are not using this to cover up a homicide or to leave insurance money from an ordinary suicide.
I think the reasoning behind the death certificate again has to do with life insurance , but could also be to address confidentiality. If the person was going to die from the illness and that is why they chose assisted suicide, the thought might be to respect their privacy by just listing it as the illness.
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