Access to Life-Ending Services, Clause 2 wrote:Member nations must provide free assisted suicide services to eligible patients within their jurisdiction seeking assisted suicide. In areas where assisted suicide services are not locally accessible, member nations must arrange and pay for eligible patients in those areas to travel to the nearest clinic within WA jurisdiction that provides assisted suicide services.
Why should assisted suicide be free? I'm not familiar with extant WA law, so I don't know if other resolutions require that this be the case for other medical procedures (would love some clarity on that). If it's not required of medical procedures more generally by other resolutions, what makes assisted suicide special? I'm under the impression that assisted suicide is quite expensive: Dignity in Dying (a UK advocacy group for the "right to die") notes that "The cost of an assisted death in Switzerland [where many Britons go to receive assisted suicide] is, for many, prohibitively expensive. Based on our calculations it costs anywhere between £6,500 to over £15,000 to have an assisted death in Zurich..." While this could be an argument for making assisted suicide free in some countries, surely there must be other countries that have bigger public health concerns? A poor nation battling an epidemic may not be able to afford to make assisted suicide free to people when they currently struggle to maintain health infrastructure as is.
Access to Life-Ending Services, Clause 1.a.ii wrote:the recipient has an incurable medical condition, whether mental or physical, that directly causes permanent suffering or drastically and permanently reduces their quality of life as determined by the individual in question, and
Our delegation isn't comfortable with the broadness of this clause, particularly with regards to mental illness. Many people with mental illnesses may indeed see their quality of life deteriorated in a way they consider substantial and in a way that's permanent. We note that reductions in quality of life for those with mental illness often come as a consequence of intense social stigma, and the same is true of those with developmental conditions. Port Ames is committed to fighting ableism in all its forms, and we're worried that this clause slips into unintentional ableism because it's so overbroad.
Access to Life-Ending Services, Clause 4 wrote:No person, group of persons, or member nation may deliberately pressure, coerce or require an individual to seek or receive assisted suicide. Similarly, it is prohibited for any person, group of persons or member nation to deliberately coerce an individual against seeking or receiving assisted suicide.
What counts as "coercion" here? What should count as "coercion" here? It may seem straightforward at first, but perhaps an example would help. Every year, the State of Oregon releases reports on the implementation of its Death with Dignity Act, a bill that legalized assisted suicide statewide. 53.1% of patients in Oregon expressed concern that they were "a burden on their friends and family members." A smaller contingent expressed concerns about the "financial implications of treatment." (6.1%) Do either of these qualify as coercion? These matters aren't simple enough to be legislated away with the word "coerce": the coercion that most anti-euthanasia advocates are concerned about is often much subtler.
Another note, on the question of coercion. This will also tie back into Clause 2's provision that all assisted suicide treatments be covered for free by the government. Unless there's extant WA law on this point (let me know if there is!), passing this resolution results in a situation whereby assisted suicide would be free but continued medical treatment may not be. Is this not a form of financial coercion for some low-income folks?
Access to Life-Ending Services, Clause 6 wrote:A medical professional that has publicly communicated a bona fide objection against performing assisted suicide, without external coercion or incentives, may not be required to perform assisted suicide if, and only if, that professional refers patients seeking assisted suicide to easily, readily, and locally accessible assisted suicide services.
What qualifies as "external coercion or incentives"? Let's take the example of an observant Catholic doctor, for instance. I use that example because of this clause's massive intersection with questions about the obligations of Catholic hospitals, in the US and beyond. It's possible that a Catholic who performs assisted suicides would be in a state of mortal sin, in which that person would not be able to receive Communion. Communion is, of course, a big deal to observant Catholics, who consider it the literal body and blood of Jesus and all that jazz.
Is the Church "coercing" doctors in Catholic hospitals to not perform euthanasia? Probably (even if those same doctors also have bona fide objections as well!). That means that this resolution possibly requires Catholic doctors with religious objections to euthanasia still perform euthanasia anyways, kind of defeating the point of the resolution. We're uncomfortable with this and believe that the clause's protections should be broadened.
We're also of the opinion that there isn't much of a reason for this clause to exist if you're still going to require doctor's with bona fide objections to "refer patients seeking assisted suicide to easily, readily, and locally accessible assisted suicide services." Doctors will still be asked to violate the dictates of their conscience: it feels highly unlikely to me that conservative doctors would be not okay with providing assisted suicide directly, but would willingly refer patients to someone else who can do it. That is to say, I don't get why this clause is in here as currently written: if you wanted doctors to violate their consciences to perform euthanasia, why would you bother with a "bona fide objections" clause at all? Conversely, if you didn't want doctors to violate their consciences to perform euthanasia, why do you require that they do so anyways?
We understand the delegate's urge to ensure that there's a sufficient supply of doctors to perform a procedure they consider vital to end of life care. Port Ames trusts that this will happen with or without a conscience clause. For evidence, we once again turn to Oregon, which doesn't require objecting doctors to refer patients to doctors who will perform assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is alive and well (apologies for the arguably distasteful pun) in Oregon: the number of DWDA deaths has increased steadily and substantially since the Act's implementation. We urge the authoring delegation to reword the clause in question as follows:
Access to Life-Ending Services, Clause 6, amendments in strike wrote:A medical professional that has publicly communicated a bona fide objection against performing assisted suicide, without external coercion or incentives,may not be required to perform assisted suicide.if, and only if, that professional refers patients seeking assisted suicide to easily, readily, and locally accessible assisted suicide services.
Ultimately, we're neutral on this draft. We understand the arguments that have prompted this resolution, and we can empathize with them. That said, euthanasia is a complicated and controversial issue in Port Ames, and our government doesn't want to give the impression that we're on one side or another. Our delegation represents all of our citizens. Even if that's the case, we of course hope our comments help and wish the authoring delegation the best of luck in their endeavours.
). They are not providing, accessing, or assisting in assisted suicide. They are merely directing individuals to it. If I, for example, was a doctor and had to provide an abortion (since I generally lean anti-abortion), there is no way that I would provide an abortion, but I would be happy to direct patients to where to recieve abortions. If conscienciously objecting doctors were permitted to refuse to direct their patients to assisted suicide if they won't do it, that creates an unreasonable burden on patients that may result in them being unable to recieve assisted suicide.
