It is a knee jerk reaction to what some in Congress see as a problem with physician-assisted suicide. The problem is it will not accomplish that goal, because many non-controlled substances can be used as substitutes. What it will do, without a doubt, is inhibit the practice of aggressive pain management and increase suffering of the terminally ill and others in great pain.
Careful research shows that severely ill patients commit suicide for several reasons.
Chief among them are severe and chronic pain, depression, fear of being a burden, and no access to palliative and hospice care. This bill does nothing to attack these huge and complex problems. The appropriate response to suffering terminally ill patients is intensive palliative care, which is the opinion offered by hospices. Hospice is about maximizing the quality of patients' lives and alleviating their pain and symptoms, clearly a better option. Instead of trying to prevent assisted suicide by threatening doctors with license revocation, the Oklahoma State Hospice Association, and hospice organizations across the country, encourage Congress to engage in a dialogue on how to promote broader access to palliative and hospice care for the more than one million terminally ill Americans who die every year.