Docs Assisting Suicide With Splinters in Da Eye

Letter to Ephesians: Legal battles over physician-assisted suicide laws in Illinois & NY are unfolding as the “progressive” states implement or defend new terminal care statutes. Anyone asking whether we’re losing focus on SAVING lives by ENDING them?

I ask the $64K Q because as I enter the Fourth Quarter of Life with enough juice to still be a rabid Chicago Bears fan, I’m getting sick & tire of doctors & nurses urging me to “just think” about my “quality of life” rather than just fixing my sore back & addressing my arthritis. And even though I’m a retired lawyer with significant estate planning experience, I also do not appreciate the suggestion that “it’s never too early” to look into an “end of life plan.” Talk about cop outs. I’ll execute a “recommended” DNR when I AM GOOD & READY AND MAYBE NEVER. Forgive me for being old fashioned, but I am still pretty sure that a doctor’s Hippocratic & legal duty is to do everything possible to keep me alive until dead. I’ll deal with the inevitable pain of old age until the Archangel Michael’s call to take a walk with him through the pearly gates.

And yet, here folks are litigating over Illinois’s enacted “Deb’s Law,” allowing mentally competent but terminally ill adults with a remaining life expectancy of six months or less to “request” a doc for life ending “medication.” So now getting a doctor to help a person in pain to commit suicide is via “medication,” and not “Cruel & Unusual Punishment” under the 8^th Amendment? And if the dosage administered is wrong? Why not just dump the APPARENTLY dying patient out the hospital's sixth-floor window & be done with that sacred life? Similar moral & legal issues are supposedly addressed by lawsuits triggered by New York’s new “Medical Aid in Dying Act.” Fortunately, I have my Christian name (Darryl Van Duch) & a pen name (Davd Soul) for doctors & their legal advisors worried about malpractice to deal with. How fortuitous if not ironic. So, if I get the pros & cons of this end of life scenario right, I presumably will eventually have a DOUBLE medical & legal issue I can no longer delay or dodge, i.e., when Mighty Michael calls for both of me, hopefully later rather than sooner? Until then, docs, maybe just keep cracking my backs & feeding both of me Aleve.

Davd Soul