Naming assisted suicide for what it is

The interview on the future of assisted suicide (“Devalued to Death,” Dec. 26 issue) asks whether it is inevitable that assisted suicide will become common and legal in this country. The answer may depend upon the success of marketing techniques that separate the idea of assisted suicide from the idea of killing. 

What the California Medicine Journal wrote about abortion in 1970 is relevant today with suicide: “Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing which continues to be socially abhorrent…”

Today, the new ethic associates assisted suicide with autonomy and compassionate care. Like abortion, it is put forth under “socially impeccable auspices.” But the back story needs to be told — the targeting of people with disabilities, the elderly, and inconvenient others. Assisted suicide needs to be recognized for what it is — a threat to vulnerable populations, an affront to human dignity, and a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.

— Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley, New York