Other opponents of change argue that patients seek to hasten death because of the high cost of medical care. They say we must postpone legal reform for death with dignity until we reform the health insurance industry. And some argue that dying patients who speak of hastening death are mentally ill and should be treated for depression. All these arguments ignore the fact that end-stage terminally ill patients choose to end suffering largely because they are simply worn out by the process of deterioration and further deterioration will leave them unable to make their own decisions. According to reports from Holland and our own experience in Seattle, pain is rarely the reason for wanting to die.
Families encourage dying patients to hang on regardless of the cost.
Some doctors mistake exhaustion for depression, suggesting psychotherapy when the body's basic organ systems are already shutting down. And finally, those who come to welcome death as a final release do so not because they lack a respect for life, but because they insist upon the inherent worth and dignity of their own lives. Peter Singer is another Australian with insights on this subject. The new medical ethics being forged today will revolutionize our attitudes toward everything from fertilized zygotes to comatose bodies. Out of it should come a heightened respect for persons and personhood, and just in time.