Physician-Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts

One of the most important elections next week is Question 2 in Massachusetts, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide. I fear that approval of Queston 2 in Massachusetts--more than the previous approval of such initiatives in Oregon and Washigton--would make suicide for the terminally ill part of mainstream American legal and moral culture with disastrous results for the elderly and disabled. Ezekiel Emanuel set forth some basic arguments against physician-assisted suicide in Sunday's New York Times here. Ira Byock, Director of Palliative Care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and self-described progressive, speaks out in the Atlantic Monthly here. It is also heartening to learn that Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Senator Edward Kennedy's widow, has come out in opposition.