The New York Times recently a run an op-ed consisting mostly of anti-choice propaganda (see http://opinionator.blogs.
Robb Miller, Executive Director
To the Editor:
Never in 60 years of reading the NY Times have I read an article so false and misleading as Emanuel’s “Four Myths about Doctor-Assisted Suicide.” He is wrong on every count.
Patients don’t seek assisted dying because they are having pain, but because they want to avoid pain, shortness of breath, vomiting and other forms of suffering in the last days or weeks of life.
To reject the role of advanced technology in extending end-of-life suffering shows a gross misunderstanding of modern medicine.
No one claims assisted dying will improve the lives of everyone–it is an option to allow patients, not doctors and machines, to choose how and when to die.
Studies show assisted deaths are more peaceful than lingering to the end, and in four years under the law in Washington state we have had only three complications, none causing additional suffering.
The myths are in Emanuel’s article.
Thomas A Preston, MD
Prof of Medicine, retired, University of Washington