Government

I received an odd piece of mail yesterday. A non-profit in Massachusetts is lobbying for assisted-suicide legislation. Compassion & Choices is the befitting name of the non-profit. 

There is a creepiness in looking to government to grant human beings "permission" to die at their own choosing. It reeks of religion and its imprint on politics. This is an indication of the insanity of overpopulation and the distancing of human beings from their own animal wisdom. 

Denial or mortality is a business in the U.S. and other so-called developed nations, which have been polluted for centuries by religious myths of immortality and reckonings after death. These myths are the basis of religious extortion of money for insurance against eternal damnation. Drug companies, medical suppliers and hospitals  have also exploited the fear of death for huge profits. Rather than educating human beings about the inevitability of death, the medical-industrial complex pumped billions of dollars into methods for exploiting fear of death. 

I was the clinical director of a hospice prior to my retirement. Hospices are lousy businesses in the U.S.. The reimbursement levels from government-funded insurance and private insurance are minimal. They do not cover the daily costs of residential hospices, where individuals can die without worry. They barely cover the cost of the daily expenses of home hospice. In other words, people who choose to establish and maintain hospices are very dedicated humanists, in my opinion, whether they would identify with my label or not. 

Relying on government to die is unnecessary. Death can be actualized by anyone with his/her wits in seconds. The preponderance of guns in American society makes this very simple for the determined. Yes, this is a messy way to die and a traumatic one for survivors. 

The criminalizing of suicide by government is both absurd and a measure of any constituencies level of development as socially responsible human beings. By this parameter, U.S. governments on state and federal level are medieval. I have lived with attempts of government control over my body. As a gay man, I was conditioned to loathe myself as a child. As an HIV-positive person, I was threatened with incarceration in the early days of the AIDS epidemic when government briefly debated imposing mass quarantine on HIV-positive people during the Reagan administration. 

As well as seeking government approval, I encourage the leaders of the assisted-suicide movement to educate the public on the inevitability of death and the personal nature of dying. More documentaries should be produced for public education. Subversion of the medical-industrial complex by posting readily available information on the Web about effective and less violent methods of suicide would help. This would be a practical and compassionate action for those who need answers and assistance now. One example: www.assistedsuicide.org.