Letter to the Editor: The Elderly and Vulnerable Must Be Protected From Assisted Suicide

by Dr. Daniel Benz

As a medical doctor working in a state psychiatric hospital in Michigan, encountering people with mental illness who say they want to commit suicide is an unfortunately common occurrence.

Those who have suffered terrible traumas will often battle thoughts of self-harm. In this scenario, an entire team that includes a psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker working with our nursing staff, will swing into action to ensure patient safety and consistency of care. Then, a personal care assistant will shadow the patient 24/7 to ensure they cannot harm themselves. And each day, psychiatrists will ask: “Tell me three reasons why you do not want to hurt yourself.”

Eventually the crisis passes.

But imagine if you will, a physician who believes Assisted Suicide (AS) is just another cure, asking that same patient if they’d like to kill themselves? “Suicide? Excellent choice. All set? Great!”

We must protect our patients from the bait and switch that these reckless public policies driven by professional activists, politics, and profits. To tell people living with disabilities, the elderly and the marginalized that their lives are not worth living because of their vulnerability, is a betrayal of their human and civil rights by we who have sworn never to do harm by taking life.