Democrat Rep Marjorie Smith has drafted legislation to legalize medically assisted dying in New Hampshire. In its current form (10 pages), it reads like boilerplate camel nose under the tent- assisted suicide, except that by law, you’re not allowed to call it that.
It’s not assisted suicide, but it is.
The bill includes protections for everyone involved and details an extensive list of rules for qualifications, including mental capacity and a terminal condition with six or fewer months to live. If you wanted to step onto the slippery slope, this is what you’d use to do that. Legislation focused on end-of-life care (compassion) with many guardrails that can, over time, be taken down as they have in every State or country where Medically Assisted Dying has become law.
Mechanically, it appears thought out, but so were all its predecessors, from whom I assume this draft was derived. As such, it will inevitably suffer mission creep like its older relatives.
I have a few textual objections beyond my standing opposition to the politicization of the practice in general. Section 14 prohibits listing the cause of death as anything but the underlying condition. The second objection (same section), as noted above, is the prohibition against designating this death as assisted suicide – an affectation that, in years to come, could protect the State from having to accept its role in the rising number of deaths resulting from the inevitable widening of permissions that may result in the state assisting people toward “medically assisted suicide.”
In Section 10 Prohibited Acts, Part C, 5, makes it a felony to coerce or exert undue influence on a qualified individual to prevent them from requesting or self-administering a terminal prescription. Part C, 4, rightly prohibits trying to convince them, but item 5, to my reading, could be misconstrued. Loved ones who object are likely to do so in a manner that could be mistaken for a violation. Neither undue influence nor coercion for the purpose of the legislation is defined, leaving it open to abuse, not that describing it would not do the same.
Related: Slippery Meet Slope: Doctors in The Netherlands Are Euthanizing People with Autism
If legal, the “patient” has rights, many of the outlined, but this point seems legally dubious.
Another significant issue arises in the proposed preamble, which the author, Rep Smith, is not sure should be included. If you’d like my opinion, Marjorie, and I know you don’t, try reading it in the context of your political party’s approach to Informed Consent and privacy rights during the pandemic. You’ll likely throw the whole thing out to avoid looking like the steaming pile of hypocrisy this represents.
Check this out, and make sure you are not drinking any liquids that you might snort out your nose.
Important for the topic at hand, but can you imagine how different March 2020 onward would have been if this was the guiding principle of patient rights and privacy in the Granite State? I was giggling the whole read-through, followed by a more sober thought. How many people were victims of medically assisted suicide (sorry) dying as a result of nothing in this preamble having any weight in those circumstances?
It makes for a stunning contrast.
This is a draft bill and not typically for public consumption, but someone who had seen several of my Slippery Slope pieces thought I’d be interested in having a look. A scanned copy awaits you below if you feel inclined to skim it.
Related: Slippery Meet Slope: When the State Decides That it is in Your Best Interest to Die
I would like to remind you (again) that this draft law makes clear that this is not “assisted suicide. It is medically assisted dying. The Acronym for that is MAD, as in MAD Marjorie’s Assisted Suicide Bill (Yes, I’m hoping that name sticks). It may also be referred to as Medical Assistance in Dying or MAiD. Medically assisted dying also happens when you die unintentionally at a hospital or because of a doctor’s treatment or protocol or refusal to provide one that might work.
We should also consider a libertarian perspective – the right to die. It might be a kindness to allow someone to kill themselves because of a terminal diagnosis to avoid prolonged suffering. There is room for that, but not in a proto-socialized healthcare system run by oligarchs pining for a government-run monopoly. That’s the slippery slope. When The State defines the rules, measured by state employees acting as therapists (or even doctors), things can go downhill quickly.
Break the hospital and health insurance cartels’ stranglehold on care in New Hampshire. Incentivize private practice and off-label use of licensed drugs. Open Let patients and doctors accept plans from out of state. All of this can inspire competition, improve quality, lower costs, and optimize outcomes.
Reduce government interference with limited licensing oversight. The State should follow up on complaints or take notes if a patient files a malpractice suit. Fraud or misconduct should include the risk of criminal prosecution. Otherwise, get the hell out of the way.
And yes, I understand that NH State Senators will need to find a new source of endless funding for campaigns if we break up the Hospital and insurance cartels and that this additions loop will make reform impossible. But the current professional political trajectory of what passes for care presents too high a risk to life if you legalize assisted suicide.
Vermont has Death Tourism. They have telehealth death tourism. We don’t need this, even if we could trust the healthcare cartels and the politicians, which we can’t. The Netherlands, Hawaii, Oregon, and Canada (In Quebec, you can pre-order death by doctor if ruled incompetent), and not long from now Vermont, have proven that. Remember, “Governments, especially ones that believe they should manage everything, tend to create the misery assisted suicide will inevitably relieve.”
Kill MAD Marjorie’s Assisted Suicide Bill. It is too much to risk.
This is only a draft and not the final bill to be considered.
NH Marjorie Smith Draft Assisted Suicide Bill
