Life & Death

With the nation's interest in the rights & wrongs of "mercy killing" quickened by the trial of Dr. Hermann Sander (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), a doctor in Cambridge, Mass, last week offered, in a letter to the editor of the New York Times, some purely professional objections to legalized euthanasia:

". . . Mercy killing would require the consent of the patient, a judge and a board of physicians . . .

"From personal experience I know how easily these patients can be influenced, debilitated as they are by a long illness . . . Aside from the inability of the patient to make an intelligent decision, knowing as he does nothing about the disease process and being too easily swayed by those about him, there is another situation which he faces that is not usually mentioned. The unselfish patients would feel a moral obligation to have themselves 'eliminated' in order that funds earmarked for their terminal care might be used by their families for other purposes; while the selfish patient, enjoying the sacrifices he imposed on his family, would never ask for his own death, merciful or otherwise.

"As to the judge, I am sure that the enlightened magistrate would leave the final decision to doctors and implicate himself as little as possible . . .

"It is stated that an impartial board of three doctors would pass on the evidence presented by the physician. The obvious drawback to this arrangement is that there doubtless exist communities where it would be difficult to find three doctors who knew enough medicine, were sufficiently unbiased and were willing to take the time to examine the data carefully so that their decision would be an independent one and not merely reflect the view of the patient's physician.

"As for plans which would introduce the relatives as a fourth party to the deed, it seems to me that they would give kinsmen who were eager to read the will an unfair advantage.

"One heinous result of this [proposed] legislation is something which the average layman has doubtless not considered. That is, what effect would the actual commission of the 'mercy-killing' have on the doctor who performed it? . . . Soon the medical profession would lose the healthy bloom associated with the bringing forth and maintaining of life and it would acquire some of the unsocial, morbid air surrounding the hangman's trade . . .

"Soon the indications for euthanasia would be broadened to include all cases which fell in the group of 'unbeatable' diseases. Children unable to see, speak or hear would eventually be included. I would rather help to support, even at great sacrifice, a thousand invalids than be partner in the demise of one Helen Keller."

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