The act's fans might try to distance themselves from Kevorkian. He was too weird, too impolitic. That's the message of author Wesley Smith, who was in town recently to focus on what he sees as the facts of assisted suicide here rather than press releases of its boosters. The nature of the illness or disability is irrelevant to the request for death. Doctors with no long-term ties to the patients write the lethal prescriptions.
Assisted suicide is based on ideology, as opposed to medical urgency.
Physician-assisted suicide becomes active killing by doctors. Safety guidelines are meaningless. Public indifference prevails. Disabled people may need help living for their entire lifetimes and elderly people for decades. Six of the patients had a 15-day relationship with the doctor who prescribed the lethal pills.