Advantages
of the Premature-Death Approach to the Right-to-Die
Prevents
Attempts
to Ban the Right-to-Die
Using Drug-Laws
The federal government of the United States
once attempted to overturn the Oregon
Death with Dignity
Act
by use of federal drug-control laws.
The Attorney General of the United States
claimed that Oregon physicians were misusing drugs.
Only physicians can prescribe controlled substances.
And the drugs Oregon doctors were prescribing
were never intended to cause death.
Therefore, these physicians were violating the Controlled
Substances Act.
They were distributing drugs illegally.
The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately decided in favor
of
Oregon,
noting that such an interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act
went well beyond anything intended by Congress.
The legislators thought they were
proscribing the illegal use
of recreational drugs,
not making laws to direct what licensed doctors could prescribe.
Other countries of the world might not have the same
outcome.
If doctors in less developed countries
—which
might be operating within more religious cultures—
were permitted to prescribe drugs to cause death,
such practices might easily be overturned
by means of laws intended to control drug-trafficking.
And even in the USA, there might be attempts to
change the federal laws
to prohibit drugs licensed for health care from being used
to cause
death.
Individual states might also use such
drug-control
legislation
to outlaw the practice of physicians prescribing drugs
to bring the patient's life to a peaceful and
painless end.
Such methods of trying to control choice-in-dying
would
be
useless
if the primary law permitting wise life-ending decisions
intends to prevent premature death.
Then the opposition will not
focus on controlled
substances.
But they will know that each end-of-life decision
might fall under the law against causing premature death.
Doubters will have to show that the death was premature
not that controlled
substances were used.
Outspoken opponents of the right-to-die
will not be
permitted to examine the
specifics of
each case.
But they will know that the doctors, patients, & proxies
were all operating under specific
public safeguards
that were created to prevent premature deaths.
If any life-ending decisions might have resulted in
a premature death,
then law-enforcement can examine the death-planning process.
Were the most appropriate safeguards fulfilled?
If not, then it is possible that someone caused a premature death.
A criminal investigation might be opened
under this new section of the homicide law.
If anyone is found guilty of causing a premature death,
he or she will be punished appropriately as defined by the new law.
Laws against causing premature death
focus on the harm or benefit to the patient
rather than the particulars of how death might be achieved.
Laws intended to control
recreational drugs are
not relevant
when making bedside, end-of-life medical decisions.
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