Burlington Free Press

Letter to the Editor: Death with dignity no social experiment

April 3, 2007

I absolutely, vehemently disagree with your editorial March 23 and your stance 
on the "death with dignity" bill, just defeated in the Vermont Legislature. Your 
view is that the bill would "allow doctors to become an active participant in a 
patient's suicide." I think of it as doctors acting with compassion to help a 
person in agony, with no quality of life left.

You write that "the resources of the Legislature would have been better used on 
issues with a broader impact." If the legislation would impact only a few of us 
who would choose not to spend our final days in a personal hell, why not pass 
the legislation quickly and be done with it? The law giving power to dying 
persons would impact those particular people very deeply.

You write of "interest groups looking for a laboratory for all sorts of social 
experiments." This is not a social experiment. This issue, according to polls, 
is of great concern to many Vermonters, and passage of the bill was supported by 
a large majority of citizens.

Although the other issues you mention are important for the Legislature to 
attend to, so is the issue of how we will die. All of us will die, so this bill 
could be important for everyone. However, if you do not agree with this law, you 
do not have to use it. Please, Legislature, bring this bill up again in the near 
future and pass it.

JULIA BLAKE
Jericho