CV NEWS FEED // A national nonprofit is launching Assisted Suicide Watch, an initiative that will raise awareness of dignified end-of-life care and oppose the assisted suicide and euthanasia industry, colloquially known as “Big Death.”
Aging with Dignity announced the initiative in a Feb. 27 press release that outlines several proven arguments against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Among other arguments, the nonprofit states that the deadly practices normalize suicide, discriminate against disabled persons, and destroy the relationship between the patient and the doctor.
“They’re saying to you, ‘We won’t help you live, but we’ll help you kill yourself,” Jim Towey, the Catholic founder and CEO of Aging with Dignity, stated in the press release. “The assisted suicide and euthanasia movement is based on a lie that pain cannot be managed, that suffering can’t be alleviated and that you are a burden to others.”
Assisted Suicide Watch will provide analysis on the consequence of legalized assisted suicide, according to Aging with Dignity’s website. The webpage provides harrowing data on physician-assisted suicide deaths around the world.
More than 2,300 people died by physician-assisted suicide in 2023 in the United States. Worldwide, more than 60 people have been euthanized for anorexia, an eating disorder. Canada’s “medical aid in dying” (MAiD) euthanasia program is currently the fifth-leading cause of death in the country, and a mere 3.5% of MAiD requests were denied in 2022.
The release notes that the “Big Death” industry uses emotional arguments and euphemisms such as “death with dignity” to claim that suicide is the answer to suffering and illness.
Assisted Suicide Watch “will challenge the well-funded effort to convince people that suicide-affirming care is a social good,” the release states. Assisted Suicide Watch will monitor and work against state and national pro-assisted suicide and euthanasia efforts. It will also provide accessible and up-to-date information on the issue’s status across the nation.
Assisted suicide is currently legal in Oregon, California, Hawaii, Vermont, and several other states. Illinois and Delaware are currently considering legislation that would legalize this deadly practice.
Aging with Dignity emphasized in the release that physicians and hospitals should invest in compassionate and holistic palliative care, accounting for the person’s spiritual and physical needs.
“If America’s health care system routinely offered such humane services,” Towey stated, “public support for the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide would nearly vanish.”