Kevorkian-esque: is law too lenient?
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As you know, I stay well informed of issues related to our residents. I regularly go to the Senior Citizen Center in Polson to visit with friends and learn things of concern.
Last January I wrote an article for this newspaper that addressed the perils and pratfalls of physician-assisted suicide in Montana. You might remember that a Great Falls lawyer and legislator tried to get a bill passed (it was called the “Montana Death With Dignity Act”) to allow for assisted suicides in our state. Well, the bill was defeated, but now new issues have surfaced.
Our Montana Board of Medical Examiners sets policies or “position statements” for our medical professionals. The board came out with position statement No. 20 (see it and others at http://bsd.dli.mt.gov/license/bsd_boards/med_board/board_page.asp).
Here’s what it says: “The Montana Board of Medical Examiners has been asked if it will discipline physicians for participating in aid-in-dying … In all matters of medical practice, including end-of-life matters, physicians are held to professional standards. If the board receives a complaint related to physician aid-in-dying, it will evaluate the complaint on its individual merits and will consider, as it would any other medical procedure or intervention, whether the physician engaged in unprofessional conduct as defined by the laws and rules pertinent to the board.”
Even though our law does not provide for physician-assisted suicide, the board might not discipline physicians for assisting in suicides in our state.
So, while the same perils and pratfalls exist, and despite the clear decision of your legislature not to provide for physician-assisted suicides in Montana, here it creeps in.
It’s in the executive branch of your government, both at the Montana Board of Medical Examiners and at the Attorney General’s website (the AG site mentions “Compassion and Choices,” a nod to the old Hemlock Society).
But, in the judicial branch, according to our Supreme Court’s decision in the Baxter case, doctors and others who participate in a qualified patient’s suicide are not given immunity from criminal and civil liability.
And in the legislative branch, I voted against it because, among other things: 1) legalizing it can lead to elder abuse, as case studies in other states has shown; 2) doctors who think a patient is terminal might be wrong, and have been wrong before; and 3) overall suicide rates go up when physician-assisted suicide is legalized (and Montana’s rates are already too high).
Please contact me anytime by phone at 849-6096 or e-mail jannataylor@montana.com. Never forget that I work for you.
