Confronting MAID: Misleading Language
This is a companion piece to Confronting MAID: Is it Autonomy?
by Ms. Boomer-ang
Project Censored observes that on some issues, the most commonly-heard voices “distract our attention from what we really need to know” and “keep us focused on minor or misleading parts of the story,” while “the important things…continue moving forward largely free from journalistic scrutiny and public debate.” This frames crucial public issues in ways that “marginalize critical and grass roots perspectives, shield the powerful from scrutiny, and discourage the public from understanding the deeper forces that are shaping their lives.”1 Whether the writers realize it or not, this applies to much discourse related to Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). Unfortunately, the misleading language is so pervasive that even some people speaking against MAID use it without realizing it can weaken their argument. Could confronting the language help keep the idea of living until one’s body dies naturally thinkable?
- We hear that “Laws against MAID force people to go to another jurisdiction to get killed.” But what about people going to another state or country to avoid death-hastening? The most-accessible media leaves the impression that that never happens. But in 2023, when a surgeon told a Canadian woman with abdominal cancer to consider MAID, she got treatment in Baltimore. Would this have been possible if Maryland had already had MAID by then? I don’t know what the woman will do if her cancer recurs. But this story shows what people now have to do to stay alive.
- We hear that MAID adds end of life options, but doesn’t it also take options away? For example, doesn’t it allow care facilities, doctors, and insurance companies to drop alternatives to death-hastening for people in certain conditions?
Some “heroic” efforts to prolong life put so much strain on the body that an individual could live at least as long without them. But what about letting nature take its course, supplemented when needed by help keeping clean, eating, dressing, doing enjoyable activities, and sometimes breathing? Are these tossed out with the “heroic” efforts?
Additionally, doesn’t the availability of MAID change people’s conception of what is appropriate and possible?
- We hear that MAID allows doctors, family members, and friends to stay with a patient until the end. But this implies that the availability of MAID allows the above people, many of whom would have stayed with the patient until the end before, to abandon or threaten to abandon the patient, if they stay alive beyond a certain point.
- The observation that, at least initially, a disproportionate number of people submitting to MAID have been white and not poor has been used to assure us that MAID won’t threaten people for being minority and poor. Actually, it tells us more about pressures within upper-class and upwardly mobile families, communities, and identity groups. Are these groups less likely to tolerate a member in certain physical conditions staying alive? Identity group and family can be at least as important as finances in determining life/death decisions.
- The observation that most people who “choose” MAID have insurance is used to assure us that MAID does not threaten people for lacking insurance. Actually, it says more about insurance policies. Having insurance doesn’t mean having all necessary insurance coverage.
- We hear assurances that in jurisdictions allowing MAID, under 5% of deaths occur that way. But what about boasts that death-hastening policies are “incredibly successful” and “popular”? Could the 5% refer to only the deaths following a strict Voluntary MAID protocol and the actual percent of deaths that are medically hastened be noticeably higher? Even a report written to assure euthanasia was rare acknowledged that in 1990 only about 23% of intentional medical killings were by voluntary euthanasia or “assisted suicide.” The others were by involuntary euthanasia or intentional overdoses of pain-control drugs.2
- Will the idea of a doctor who will not kill become, in most people’s minds, as ridiculous as a soldier who is unwilling to kill? How will the number of people that a typical doctor kills in a year compare with the number of people that a typical soldier kills in a lifetime of combat?
- Calling any religious or secular group that opposes MAID “oppressive” and “reactionary” doesn’t acknowledge groups that have become even more strictly uncompromising in favor of MAID.
- MAID advocates claim there is “no abuse” in places that allow it. But what about pressure to submit to death-hastening on people considered unworthy of staying alive? In fact, the word “abuse” is in danger of being flipped. Will helping a death-eligible person stay alive, even at that person’s request, be classified as abuse of that person? Is staying alive in certain conditions considered abuse of one’s loved ones?
- Though debates about whether depression alone makes a person MAID-eligible shouldn’t be ignored, they can detract attention from the quiet building of a consensus that death hastening is the only response to certain other conditions.
- Examples of people submitting to MAID because of economic desperation don’t necessarily turn people against death-hastening. Such examples can cheer some euthanasia supporters that their laws are working. Therefore, in addition, we need to publicize cases of people risking homelessness, bankruptcy, exile, and/or family disownment for continuing to reject MAID.
- Calling MAID an individual’s personal choice diverts attention from when it is blatantly not. Once euthanasia is legal, doctors can kill patients against their unambiguous requests. One woman reportedly was afraid to go to a hospital because of the danger of euthanasia, but her doctor assured her he would guard her. The woman went to the hospital, and when her doctor went home for a rest, another doctor walked into her room and killed her.3 Some victims fight or try to escape their killers. They’re subdued by sedatives. When someone calls MAID the individual’s choice, why do we not bring up cases like this?
- We hear that in a MAID jurisdiction, if you don’t agree with the doctor’s, care facility’s, or insurer’s policy toward death, you can switch. But are doctors and facilities that participate in death-hastening required to give patients on request a list of doctors who do not? Are insurance companies required to reimburse a person who goes out of state to find a non-MAID doctor?
When abortion was imposed, organizations of pro-life gynecologists sprang up. Are equivalent organizations being created for medical specialists who will not participate in MAID? Crisis pregnancy centers sprang up to help people carry pregnancies to term, even against their families’ wishes. Are there shelter homes for people who wish to stay alive comfortably, even against their families’ wishes?
For such shelters, hospice is no longer an appropriate name. Cancer patient Charlotte Allen has observed, “The hospice movement has historically opposed anything that smacked of euthanasia,” but that was before February 2007, when the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) came out for death-hastening, or at least “studied neutrality” on it. Neutrality implies there is room for hospices that let people live until their body dies naturally. But Ms. Allen pointed out that there are hospices that, when they cannot directly kill somebody, terminally sedate them. Like abortion clinics, many hospices are in the business of ending lives.
Before my state imposes MAID (probably soon), I want to line up non-participating doctors (whether in or out if state) to go to. I asked two pro-life organizations if they had a list of such doctors, and they did not. I asked a clergyman of a denomination known to oppose euthanasia, and he did not. Nor does he know anybody with my concerns. Now I don’t know where to turn.
In fighting against MAID, should not one try to steer distracting or misleading discourse back to a path that helps the public understand important aspects of the topic?
NOTES
- John C Collins, Nicole Eigbrett, Jana Morgan, and Steve Peraza, “The Magic Trick of Establishment Media: News Abuse in 2027-18.),” Censored 2019,(New York: Seven Stories Press, 2018), pp. 119-120.
- Wesley J. Smith, Forced Exit, Times Books (Random House), 1997, pp. 98, 99″
- Ibid., p. 101
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For more of our posts on euthanasia, see:
Figuring out Euthanasia: What Does it Really Mean?
Confronting MAID: Is it Autonomy?
Euthanasia by Poverty: Stories from Canada
How Euthanasia and Poverty Threaten the Disabled
What’s Cruel for the Incarcerated is Cruel for the Terminally Ill
Assisted Suicide as the Next Roe v. Wade: Time to Pay Attention
Assisted Suicide is Inequality, Just Like All Legal Violence



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