We are teetering on the edge, and proponents of assisted suicide are reaching out to help pull us back up, not to push us down. If, in North America, the right to control our bodies and our lives is further eroded in any significant way, physician-assisted suicide would certainly never become available. Dressing up hospice care is a panacea, and the only moral alternative to physician-assisted suicide is unhelpful, and inaccurate. This issue is not simplistic. Reforms must happen in a context where we continue to promote alternatives, where we understand that several things can be true at the same time.
Hospice care is wonderful for some.
Physician-assisted suicide is a valid choice for others. People will always seek to influence the vulnerable and the sick. With freedoms come responsibilities. Disabled rights activists, and indeed those of us in the hospice movement, know that it is not just the state which can coerce people to make unwanted or unnecessary choices. Family members, friends, peers, can also put subtle pressures on loved ones to choose a path which is better for the well person than for the sick.