Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF) Coalitions Director Jessica Rodgers enlightened the annual Conservative Party Conference on Monday, Feb. 3rd about assisted suicide.
On “Death with Dignity,” she rejects wholeheartedly the notion that a patient can go to their doctor and ask for a prescription of lethal drugs that they can overdose on to end their life.
An Oregon report often cited in PRAF’s greater research concluded suffering, disability, socioeconomic reasons like the rising cost of healthcare, and the desire to cease being a burden on their families any longer are the reasons why patients seek out assisted suicide.
PRAF estimates roughly 10% of elder adults are experiencing abuse in this country right now.
“There are many people, many of us in this room, and many of our loved ones, I'm sure, who have needed aid in the dying process,” Rodgers appreciates, while condemning the policy being put forward by New York State giving doctors the green light to help off their patients.
“This is a human issue that we all come at with very personal stories and personal feelings about what death does and what death should look like.”
A social worker with a background in gerontology, Rodgers cites watching her mom outlive a "six months to live" prognosis three and half years later as empassioning her on this path. Doctors cannot be blindly trusted because they are just not the best prognosticators, she says.
Now, she works with conservative and progressive allies alike to protect the rights of vulnerable people being conditioned to accept their fate without putting up a fight.
In 2023, one doctor wrote 76 prescriptions covered under the “Aid in Dying” policy, which Rodgers finds appalling. The policy language dictates a second doctor is required, and that dermatologists or psychiatrists are qualified to override a primary care provider who elects to ethically opt out of the assisted suicide process.
Nowhere does it state any doctor providing you the means to terminate your life must know you, your history, what you are facing at home, or what coercive pressures you may be facing.
Rodgers posits that the Hemlock Society-born notion that “anybody anywhere, for any reason, should be able to kill themselves” is running out of steam.
“If your family is making you feel like you're a burden, if the cost of healthcare is weighing you down, if you think that everyone around you would be better off if you were just dead, and when your state and your society are agreeing with you by carving you out as an exception to the suicide prevention that everyone else receives,” Rodgers asks, “can this ever really truly be an autonomous choice?”
“Or is it a gateway, frankly, for a lot of people to save money?”