http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/letter_a_mistaken_prognosis_saps_the_will_to_live.html
Virtually every state’s chapter of the American Medical Association
is opposed to assisted suicide, the reasons for which were absent from
The Times’ recent editorial, “Death with dignity for the terminally ill
includes crucial safeguards” (Aug. 10).
Studies show that diagnoses of terminal illness are very often wrong.
A doctor may know someone has an illness, but determining how quickly
it might kill the patient or even if it will kill him or her is
difficult to determine. A wrong prognosis can easily lead patients into a
spiral of hopelessness and to give up on treatment unnecessarily,
thereby prematurely ending their lives.
In an age when almost every one of us knows someone who outlived
their terminal prognosis, it’s important to remember that legalizing
assisted suicide offers no second chances. No supposed “safeguard” can
protect patients from deciding to die based on a faulty prognosis.
-- Eileen Fisher,
Bridgewater
