Contrary to several detractors, our “Live Free; Die Free” act (House Bill 1283) does not “legalize physician-assisted suicide”: it, in effect, simply removes a current law that prevents the dying from buying medicine that they want.
If the dying further chooses, it would be the dying – and no one else – who would self-administer that medicine. It is more accurately thought of as “Right to Buy” – but only for the almost dead, and only if we just can’t stand the pain any longer.
The state currently cruelly prevents us who are suffering horrible deaths from obtaining medicine that could help us die peacefully, in our sleep, quietly, and (my personal preference) amongst friends & family. Instead, the state, righteously wielding its violence of law, forces us to continue to be tortured by our disease, to stretch out our pain, indignity, desperation, and loneliness for days or weeks, even though the end for which we may be long past ready is inevitable.
Oh, its apologists will offer to us (with a whisper and a wink) “other ways” to end our misery – ways that are less successful, less peaceful, more scary, and/or more painful. You see the state graciously countenances us, the desperately dying, to starve ourselves to death, or to refuse water until we dehydrate to death, or (the most commonly suggested alternative) to “accidentally clean” our guns. The state’s benevolence certainly accepts our suffering and our screams. (“But not too loudly, dear! After all, there are other patients on this floor.”) Or it will tolerate drug-comas to quiet our cries (until we wake up, panicked, pressing our call button).
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What would we do without its compassionate over-lording? Surely, we, the dying, are too feeble-minded, too unaware of the disease consuming our bodies! Should we not be thankful to be so selflessly served by such wise and courageous white knights?!
You see, the righteously ruling ultimately don’t see us, the dying, as equal to them. During the last days of our lives, when we are most vulnerable, they steal our bodies from us, patronizing us that they know better than we (who are actually suffering inside those very same disease-wracked bodies). They even have the audacity to argue that this hard-hearted violation of our most basic self-ownership is not evil but an actual kindness to us!
But here’s their error: granite staters are no one’s slaves, not even when we’re dying.
Even we, the dying, have the right of self-ownership. You see, no matter how much busy-bodies busy their bodies, our bodies never magically become theirs. The state has no right to torture us – not for sadistic ritual or political posturing. The decision over my body, especially at my life’s end, is mine, not theirs. (And over your body? At your life’s end? It’s yours, and still not theirs.)
Whether we, the dying, decide to buy the medicine or not (most of us will not), whether we, the dying, decide to ingest our purchased medicine or not (at least 15% of us will not), is not the human rights issue at the center of House Bill 1283.
Its central human rights issue is: “Who decides for this human being’s body right here?” Is it the person trapped inside that anguished body, or is it some outside master? May I – now that I am dying for sure – buy something I desperately need? Or does that pitiless master own my body more than I do, remote-controlling my suffering from his bureaucracy?
In New Hampshire, the freest state in the world, we should be free to not only live free, but also to die free, not on our knees begging a master for relief.
Dennis Pratt lives in Dover with his wife Carol of 43 years, and their two dogs. He is head of “Die Free,” a liberty-based group for recognizing end-of-life sovereignty, and has worked for the last two years with the grass-roots organization NH Options on House Bill 1283. He has written over 1800 essays on libertarian ethics and is the Chair of the Judicial Committee for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. Sure, he’s sparring with cancer, but don’t think that makes him a wuss.
