MONTPELIER, Vt. — If right-to-die advocates get their way, Vermont could become the second state in the country to legalize physician-assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill.

The Vermont Patient Choice and Control at the End of Life Act (H. 44) was approved by the House Human Services Committee on March 2.

The law, if approved, would allow terminally ill patients, who have a prognosis from two doctors of six months or less to live, to obtain a prescription to end their life.

“This is not a political issue, but a human issue,” said Barbara Roberts, former governor of Oregon, in support of the bill before the committee. “The biggest issue for the terminally ill is loss of personal choice.”

Opponents of the bill, however, suggest that passage of such a bill would open the door to abuse and active euthanasia.

“If such proposals become law, there will be a dramatic reversal of the healing role of medicine in society,” stated the National Catholic Bioethics Center in a press release. “A medical professional has an obligation always to act in the best interest of the patient, even when the patient’s own requests contradict that aim.”

Portland physician Charles Bentz said he has seen the dangers of Oregon’s law firsthand. Bentz diagnosed a 76-year-old man, whom he had known for more than a decade, with malignant melanoma. Bentz referred him to medical and radiation oncologists for evaluation and therapy. As the man went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy, he became increasingly depressed, ultimately expressing his desire for physician-assisted suicide. The attending oncologist sought a second opinion from Bentz, meaning he needed someone to sign off on a prescription for lethal drugs for the man.

“This second opinion can be done over the phone with someone who has never met the patient,” he said. ”This is completely voluntary and there is no oversight, peer review or quality management. In fact, we have had cases of active euthanasia that have been called ‘assisted suicide’ documented in the public record here.”

Bentz, who is president of the Portland, Ore.-based Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation, told the oncologist it was inappropriate for him to ask for a “second opinion” and that he did not concur. “I told the oncologist that addressing his underlying issues would be better than simply prescribing a lethal medication.”

Bentz’ concerns were ignored, and two weeks later his patient was dead from a lethal overdose prescribed by the oncologist. Yet, the death certificate listed the cause of death as melanoma.

“My patient did not die from his cancer, but at the hands of a once-trusted colleague,” said Bentz.

9 Years in Oregon

The Vermont decision comes on the heels of Oregon’s annual report on physician-assisted suicide, which has been available to patients under the state’s Death With Dignity Act for the past nine years.

According to the report, the number of patients who utilized the option increased last year. Thirty-five patients took medication to end their lives, and 11 others used prescriptions made out in previous years, bringing the total number of suicides to 46 during 2006. That’s eight more than in 2005. Since the law was passed, a reported 292 patients have died under the terms of the law.

Bentz said that the annual report doesn’t tell the whole story, however. Reporting, he noted, is voluntary, and in many cases — such as with his own patient — the cause of death is listed as something else by the presiding physician.

Physician-assisted suicide proposals are under consideration in Arizona, California and Washington. Similar efforts have been rejected elsewhere, such as Wisconsin.

Pro-life groups and disability rights organizations have opposed the legislation. The Vermont Medical Society said that no law should be passed on the topic.

“This is the most dangerous thing to happen to our profession,” said Bentz. “All of the major health care systems in Oregon that were initially opposed to it are now neutral. They realize the law is here to stay and have made their peace with it.”

Whether the law is legal or not, requests for aid in dying put physicians in a difficult position.

A 2005 survey from the Journal of Pain Management found that 57% of oncologists and 25% of general practitioners have had such requests made of them by patients. The same survey found that approximately one-quarter have helped patients to die illegally.

According to an analysis of research studies performed by Dr. Kenneth Stevens, emeritus professor in the department of radiation oncology at Oregon Health and Science University and vice president of Physicians for Compassionate Care, many doctors who have participated in euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide have been adversely affected emotionally and psychologically by their experiences.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator” (No. 2277). Illness, states the Catechism, can be a way of conversion. “The prophet intuits that suffering can also have a redemptive meaning for the sins of others (No. 1502).

That’s a belief that right-to-die advocates disagree with.

“I don’t have a strong belief in the redemptive value of suffering,” said Robert Ullrich, president of End-of-Life Choices Vermont, a member of Compassion and Choices, a national network of organizations supporting physician-assisted suicide. “I think that’s asking an awful lot of people.”

War of Words

As the battle rages in the Legislature, another battle is being fought over how such practices are described in language.

The American Public Health Association has announced a new policy urging all health care providers, journalists and policy makers to avoid using the term “suicide” or “assisted suicide” to describe a terminally ill patient’s decision to self-administer medication to hasten death. Instead, they recommend using terms such as “aid in dying” or “patient-directed dying.”

“Using pejorative language such as ‘suicide’ reduces the number of people who support such legislation,” said Ullrich.

A 1996 study published by Duke University demonstrated that only 39.9% of the elderly support assisted suicide, while 59.3% of their younger relatives favor it.

Others say that just as in abortion, the language used wins the battle before it’s even fought.

According to St. Louis University professor of social work William Brennan, linguistic warfare that implements euphemisms and dehumanizing language has facilitated massive oppression against the world’s most vulnerable populations — women, the disabled, Jews, American Indians, blacks and the unborn. That was the subject of Brennan’s 1995 bestseller Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives.

Brennan described the parallels between language used by mainstream doctors in Germany leading up to the Third Reich and the language being used today to justify euthanasia as “startling.”

“Euphemisms — such as ‘releasing or delivering a person from suffering’ — were used to cover up what was actually going on,” said Brennan, who is working on a book tentatively titled Killing in the Name of Healing: Raw Medical Power Run Amok. “It’s being repeated today.”

Those who oppose physician-assisted suicide say that proponents are now trying to redefine medical killing.

“The attempts to legalize physician-assisted suicide epitomize the marketing of evil — the perfuming and packaging of evil to make it appear good,” said David Kupelian, author of The Marketing of Evil. “Very simply, these people are selling death, but packaging it as ‘compassion’ and ‘self-determination.’ It’s the same with abortion proponents who appeal to us with talk of ‘reproductive rights’ and ‘freedom to choose,’ while their actual ‘product’ is dead babies and hurt mothers.”

Tim Drake is based in

St. Joseph, Minnesota.