Sunday Poll: Should Missouri join states, like Oregon, allowing physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill?
The controversial topic of right-t0-die was in the news again recently:
The “death with dignity” movement marked a victory in California Friday when the state Senate passed a bill allowing terminally ill patients to end their own lives with the help of a physician.
The End of Life Option Act, which passed in the state Assembly Wednesday, would allow patients to seek aid-in-dying options so long as they are given six months or less to live by two doctors, submit a written request and two oral requests at least 15 days apart and possess the mental capacity to make their own health care decisions.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who attended a Jesuit seminary prior to his political career, has yet to indicate whether he will sign the bill into law. (Huffington Post)
I thought this would be a great policy subject for a Sunday Poll.
The poll is open until 8pm, the choices are randomized.
— Steve Patterson
While I personally do not support physician-supported suicide, I’m convinced that Missouri should offer it as an option for those who do. Catholics and many Christians have traditionally felt the issue shouldn’t even be open for debate. And they’re probably right–from their prospective and as it applies to them, since they believe that Christians don’t have a claim over death, that death has a claim over them. But other Christians and non-believers may feel the opposite and believe that government shouldn’t attempt to legislate our moral standards, despite Republican attempts over the years to do so. In the end and if the bill passes, many Catholics and Christians (and probably many non-believers) will ignore it and continue to live their lives by their conscience, since legalization will likely not change what they know in hearts and minds to be right. And other Catholics, Christians and non-believers will choose euthanasia to solve their end-of-life issues. And they should have that right.