Assisted suicide, or helping the infirm or terminal to die, is touted as being kind and merciful. But it is not progressive. It is not new. It was a routine practice by physicians in times past. And it was not always kind or merciful. It was not even always the choice of the person being helped to die. Sometimes it was the choice of someone else with a vested interest in one’s passing.
Hippocrates, father of western medicine, is believed to have died in 370 BC. He felt strongly that physicians were to be healers. ONLY healers. But even that long ago, physicians were under pressure to act otherwise. You may have summoned a doctor with the thought that they would do their best to help you get well. But they may have been paid by someone else with a different goal in mind. The potion you thought would help you maybe didn’t. It maybe wasn’t meant to .
The oath named for Hippocrates was an effort to change that fact. Physicians would take an oath that they would not succumb to any force that would influence them to harm a fellow human being. In its original form it states “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.”
So again, today’s push for assisted suicide is nothing new. It is not an idea put forth by enlightened men and women, but rather the resurrection of an old idea that was resisted by honorable men of the past. Recently, on November 8, when the state of Colorado voted to allow legally assisted suicide, it stepped back in time.
I want people to think about one thing. When choosing a physician, it may be wise to ask how they feel about legally assisted suicide. Right now you may be healthy. You may not currently have a severe disability. You may not have those close to you who wish you gone. But tomorrow may be different! Your situation may change. If that happens, how will you feel about a physician who, If you get sick enough, or depressed enough, or inconvenient enough, would be willing to snuff you out?
