In Michigan, assisted suicide is illegal. Legalizing assisted suicide really puts the decision of who lives and who dies into the hands of physicians to decide who gets the lethal drugs and who does not. This means the state is granting authority to doctors to decide who is worthy to die. Legalizing assisted suicide, but not providing treatments, like we have seen in Oregon with patients being denied cancer treatment, but will have their suicide drugs paid for, means those states are not serving the best interests of patients.
The issue of assisted suicide has largely disappeared in Michigan because of our state's aggressive work on pain management education and access to hospice care. Michigan has chosen the alternative to assisted suicide.
Brittany Maynard, the cancer patient who received national attention over her plan to kill herself under Oregon’s assisted suicide law on November 1 has taken her own life. That’s despite the fact that cancer patients and pro-life groups have tried to talk her out of the decision.
The Portland Oregonian newspaper first reported that Brittany died Sunday afternoon after taking her own life with legally-prescribed lethal drugs. People magazine confirmed her death an hour later in a news report.
FULL STORY
