SLOPE

Assisted suicide is illegal in 40 states, Massachusetts among them. In 2012, Bay State voters rejected a “death with dignity” ballot measure that would have ...

It’s only a small step from the idea that some people should have the right to be helped into the grave to the conviction that some people ought to be helped into the grave. [testified](https://thepostmillennial.com/canadian-paralympian-veteran-offered-suicide-by-trudeau-government-after-asking-for-in-home-chairlift) that a government caseworker turned down her requests for a wheelchair lift to be installed in her home but offered assistance in dying as an alternative. The government is considering whether the right to assistance in dying should be available to “mature minors.” And there is growing evidence that the more the practice has been normalized, the more patients are being pressured, coaxed, or invited to avail themselves of it. To legalize assisted suicide is to endorse the view that an early death is a reasonable solution to life’s most painful problems. [top nine causes of death](https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html) for Americans between the ages of 10 and 64, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were [47,646 deaths by suicide in 2021](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220930.htm) — an average of one every 11 minutes. There would have to be both an oral request for life-ending drugs and a separate written request after a 15-day waiting period. And once it becomes a doctor’s job to facilitate suicide, the circle of death is apt to widen far beyond those who are already at death’s doorstep. Last month, the Supreme Judicial Court [upheld the state’s ban](https://compassionandchoices.org/docs/default-source/legal/sjc-13194_slip_opinion_wm.pdf). [ballot measure](https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Question_2,_Physician-Assisted_Death_Initiative_(2012)) that would have authorized doctors to supply lethal drugs for the terminally ill. Healey’s spokesperson says the incoming governor would favor a measure to “allow medical aid in dying, provided it includes sufficient safeguards for both patients and providers.”