By Dr. Anthony Vigil
None of us is competent to make the decision when to end life. We just don’t, and never will, have all the data. Since we cannot see into the mind or the heart, we cannot weigh all the factors that may be going into a patient’s decision to end life. Patients are not obligated to fully disclose everything. We have no idea what is going on in the concious or unconcious of a person during the last moments.
When we artificially bring them to the last moment, we are interfering with that process.
In the Netherlands, mentally disabled newborns are being “mercifully” euthanized. The slippery slope there is long past and, again, there is no authority on Earth that has the competence to decide when life is better ended. Nazi Germany was able to legally, rationally, and “compassionately,” ”(grant a) mercy death [Gnadentod] after a discerning diagnosis” for those “patients who, on the basis of human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen], are considered incurable.” There is scarcely anything more dangerous in our world and in our world history as misplaced compassion.
Without a change to the current New Mexico law, the only thing hindering dying patients from committing suicide is their conscience. We have to ask: why is their conscience telling them it is wrong to commit suicide? With the current law, they are free to commit suicide in many ways. If the laws are changed they will be free to commit suicide in ONLY ONE MORE WAY!
The difference seems to be, then, a matter of lessening a guilty conscience by allying their conscience with the opinions of lawyers, lawmakers and other medical professionals who happen to agree with them on this issue. The act and the intent ultimately remains the same: causing death to relieve suffering.
The irony is that the current New Mexico laws allow the relief of suffering even to the point of HASTENING DEATH. It may seem a subtle point, but smart people for thousands of years have seen the wisdom of refraining from “… (giving) no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel,” as in the Hippocratic Oath of the 5th century B.C. It remains surprising that we think ourselves smarter and more compassionate than unanimously declared fathers of medicine who have refrained from this folly for thousands of years.
What about the hospice professionals? Are they competent in all else regarding incurable diseases — except the patient’s final day?
Finally, ask your physician this question: if your patient has received the prescription of Seconal that YOU prescribed and has made all his/her arrangements for death and he/she comes to your office and you find him/her on the ledge of the building; what are you, the physician, obligated to do?
Dr. Anthony Vigil is a general surgeon practicing in New Mexico.
Dr. Vigil is opposed to any action that has the intent of killing a patient or hastening their death. To me, the patient having control is more important as a patient’s comfort.
He has stated in personal communications with me, he accepts actions that we know will hasten the patient’s death but the intent was “pain control”. This has been referred to as “The Doctrine of Double Effect” or “Palliative Sedation”.
He has his beliefs and that is fine, but to me this is hypocritical.
He quotes from the Hippocratic Oath, a document with no relevance to today’s world. He talks about euthanasia in the Netherlands, Eugenics in Nazi Germany and tries to scare us about the slippery slope – again with no bearing on reality.
What is being asked for in New Mexico is a clarification of a law prohibiting assisting a person in good health in committing suicide. What we are asking for is a separation of that situation from that of a terminally ill patient. We are asking that it be made legal for a physician to prescribe a lethal dose of an orally, self administered drug to a terminally ill, mentally competent patient who asks for it.
Please do not confuse the issues.