Suicide

Watch "Suicide Tourist" here.

Here in Massachusetts a referendum to legalize physician-assisted suicide was defeated at the polls yesterday. This is an unfortunate denial of compassionate release from suffering for many terminally ill human beings. It verifies that the religious still maintain power over the lives of all citizens here in Massachusetts. The largely Catholic opposition to the referendum was well funded by national pro-life groups.

 

On the same Massachusetts ballot, voters chose to mandate that all car repair outlets have access to previously proprietary software to repair all makes of cars. Voters also chose to recommend legalizing medical use of marijuana. Interesting in juxtaposition.

 

I will grant that a relatively painless suicide can be achieved with adequate planning without the help of a doctor. But this was not the point of the battle from the pro-life position. Their point was based on their perceived divine right to control my body and my choices about my body. These are the same reactionaries who oppose gay marriage, oppose women's rights to choose and oppose sex education. And they've won another victory. Even here in Liberal Massachusetts.

 

Decisions about suicide, even remote decisions in a private voting booth, raise fear and loathing of death in a populace still lulled into denial of mortality by centuries of religious indoctrination. It was easy to mobilize that fear into yesterday's decision. The cost will not not become evident to a fairly large number of voters until they themselves inevitably confront terminal illness. Deny now; pay later. This has become the American way.

 

As a humanist and a human being, I reserve the right to responsibly maintain and to responsibly end my life according to my informed values. The majority have deprived me of a more humane avenue to deal with my terminal disease(s) when my ability to cope has become exhausted. The majority, prejudiced by religion and conformity, have often been less than compassionate to me as a gay man with HIV and cancer. Yesterday's vote does not come as a surprise, but it does come as a disappointment in the growing secular wisdom and skepticism of my fellow Massachusetts citizens.