Freedom

Part 3 – Seven Major Reasons All New Yorkers, Including State Senator Diane Savino, Should Lobby Against the Assisted Suicide/Death with Dignity Bill

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The last days we looked at 3 reasons to oppose this bill – For parts 1 and 2 click here – https://nycshepherd.com/2015/03/03/part-2-seven-major-reasons-all-new-yorkers-including-state-senator-diane-savino-should-lobby-against-assisted-suicidedeath-with-dignity-bill/. Today we explore two more reasons to call your representative and tell them to vote no on this bill.

  • The bill places too much trust in Doctors, Psychologists and Insurance Companies.

The language of this bill holds that a mentally competent, terminally ill adult with six months or less to live would have the option to request a prescription for life-ending medication. This requires that both a doctor and psychologist/psychiatrist be involved. Doctors aren’t God. Expiration dates only come from the Original Manufacturer. Haven’t all of us met at least one person who was told they have six months or less to live who lived much longer? Why? Medicine is not an exact science. Psychologists are not God. Mental competence is a matter of opinion. How many expert witnesses are called to determine one’s competence for trial or in an insanity defense? At least two and they usually have two different opinions. Psychology is not an exact science. Beyond that, I would argue that the situation of being diagnosed with a terminal illness has to cloud one’s judgment to some extent and the concept of mental competence then is compromised.

Let me also speak to another very difficult issue here. Those involved in treating people take an oath, The Hippocratic Oath, in fact. In its original form it states the following, “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.”  The essence of what it means to be a doctor is to facilitate healing. This bill promotes something in direct contradiction to this oath. Though a doctor is not required to provide the “death with dignity” option, capitalism will corrupt that and at some point the Law will require it. Beyond that, just like medical marijuana in California, the need for this drug will be nuanced. Physicians aren’t perfect people. They can and will be tempted to make compromises in regard to the Law’s definition of medical necessity. Many physicians in the name of patient’s right and the patient as consumer will give into the temptation and write a script that is borderline at best in regards to its necessity.  For this reason this bill should be opposed.

Added to this is the concern that comes from the role of insurance companies. I am sure that safeguards will be put into this bill to, on the surface, protect against their involvement. It is very easy though to imagine health insurance companies refusing or limiting payments for certain other drugs or services in order to encourage a terminally ill patient to pass as soon as possible. This could increase a terminally ill’s patients suffering and desire to die. This would be done in order to save money. They are going to die anyway, why waste our resources on them? Does anyone really believe this will not happen? This bill needs to be stopped in its tracks.

  • The bill puts wrongful pressure on the terminally ill and their families.

We live in a world of convenience. We live in a world where health-care is getting more and more expensive. A terminally ill person can cost a family a tremendous amount in time, money and emotional energy. Many terminally ill people, especially the elderly, don’t want to be a burden or bother to anyone. They could easily perceive that they are just that in spite of anything their loved ones may say. They may be depressed because they feel their worth is gone. They are angry with God, self, others and life. Do we want them making this decision?

The families of terminally ill patients are worn out. They are beaten and many times they just want it over. Once the holidays are over or the resources depleted both physically and financially these desires are often expressed. Do we want them advising these terminally ill individuals? They will. How can we know for sure the terminally ill are making an authentically free choice? We cannot know because many of these of the terminally ill are vulnerable and easily manipulated.  This bill should be defeated for this reason.

What’s more, if a terminally ill patient passes without using the prescription, what prevents that pill from finding its way to the black-market? I know it’s against the law but the pill is out there. It’s a commodity some people, who can’t get it legally, want to have to relieve their suffering. Others may want to use it to inflict suffering on others. Pills can be stolen, traded, lost or sold. It’s deadly. Nothing can stop this kind of abuse.

Please contact your representative to register your opposition

Andrew J. Lanza, State Senator
24th District
3845 Richmond Avenue  Island, NY 10312
Phone: 718-984-5151
Fax: 718-984-5737
http://www.nyssenate24.com/24/default.aspx

Diane Savino, State Senator
23rd District
36 Richmond Terrace, Room 112
Staten Island, NY 10301
Phone: 718-727-9406
Fax: 718-727- 9426
http://www.nyssenate23.com/

Nicole Malliotakis, Assemblywoman
60th District
586B Midland Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10306
Phone: 718-667-5891
Fax: 718-667-5879
http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=060

Matthew Titone, Assemblyman
61st District
853 Forest Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10310
Phone: 718-442-9932
Fax 718-442-9942
http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=061

Joseph Borrelli, State Assemblyman
62nd District
101 Tyrellan Avenue Suite 200
Staten Island, NY 10309
Phone: 718-967-5194
Fax: 718- 967-5282
http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=062

Michael Cusick, Assemblyman
63rd District
1911 Richmond Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10314
Phone: 718-370-1384
Fax: 718-370-2543
http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=063

Fourth of July Thoughts

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Today we celebrate the 236th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America. In the second paragraph of the Declaration the founders wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  Today let us reflect on these words and their meaning to us in our age.

We are living in an age of increasing dependence. No, not the good dependence that we know should exist between us and our God, or even between us and our fellow man. The dependence I speak of is between the citizen and his/her government. In area after area our government is asked to do more and more for us. Sometimes we invoke the government’s involvement because we want protection or help,  but oftentimes government gets involved on its own because it wants to protect us from ourselves and because it  believes it knows better than we do in a given area.

Surely there is a sense of security in relying on the government to take care of us. It is big, it has resources that we do not have, and it cares about us. Why not, then, ask the government to do more and more?  It protects us from all enemies foreign and domestic. why not also have it make sure the food we eat is safe and healthy? It provides for the seniors, poor and disabled, the most vulnerable among us, why not let it manage our healthcare and our hospitals too? Government funds all kinds of research and projects,  can it not also be trusted with the education of our children?

We all know that the more we entrust to the government the more it will want us to entrust to it , which brings me to the problem. Government, both state and local has begun to think of itself as the primary entity that we should depend on. It has begun also to see itself as the giver of our rights in the first place. In addition, our dependence on government looks more and more to me like the dependence we are to have upon Almighty God.  When government starts to act like God (seeing itself as the entity that gives us our rights) and is treated like God (we are dependent on it for so much) government becomes a god to us.

Please note again where the signers of the Declaration saw our rights coming from. They said that all men  equally  ”are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Note that in the founders’ eyes God gave us our rights.  The source of our rights was no one or nothing else other than God. Note also their view of government. They said “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.  Government is thus instituted by men deriving any power it has from the governed, i.e. men.

The founders, because of their experience with the King of England (remember we were but a colony of our cousins across the pond), knew first hand of the fragility of human government. Government is made up of human beings who are finite even when all are working together. In addition to being finite government is also subject to the depravity we all are subject to.  Government is made up of the flawed and fallen. We sometimes think of corporations and business as being greedy for money and thus evil. We often forget that governments are not immune to this. The same sinful proclivity is at work in the people who run government as those who run corporations and that the same lust or greed is at work as well.

At its core the Declaration of Independence is a proclamation of independence from the English government. It is a document that lets the world know that we are a people who are free from the tyranny of the long arm of fallen, broken, frail, flawed, finite government. It is also something else. It is a declaration of dependence on God Almighty. Listen to some of the last words of the Declaration. The founders wrote, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” The firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence speaks to where their trust for this endeavor was.   It was in God and God alone.

As we reflect on our freedom in the next few days, let us remember that our freedoms are rights from God. Let us also remember that much of what our country was founded upon was freedom from government and its intrusion in our lives. Then let us pray that we will always be a free people, ”one nation under God and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Blessings

Dave Watson

An NYC Shepherd