Is This Suicide Or A New Way Of Dying?

When terminally people end their own lives with a lethal prescription obtained from a doctor, should it be called a suicide?

Barbara Coombs Lee and others in the right-to-die movement don’t think so.

The chief author of Oregon’s assisted-suicide law says now that it has become a reality and people are using it, the news media and the rest of society should think of a new way to describe it.

“Physician-assisted dying” is one possible alternative suggested by Coombs. Or. “the terminally ill hastening their own death,” she said.

“‘Assisted suicide’ is the language of a crime and it is error to describe legal activity in criminal terms,” Coombs Lee said.

Aside from the legal ramifications, Coombs Lee said she thinks it’s unfair to label it a suicide when a terminally ill person obtains and uses a lethal prescription of barbiturates.

Patients who choose to end their own lives by refusing food or water aren’t labeled as committing suicide, she said.

“It really is a stigma for patients and their families,” she added.

A leading opponent of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act said Coombs Lee and others are trying to play word games with the law.

If someone ends their own life with a lethal dose of drugs, said Bob Castagna of the Oregon Catholic Conference, “then in the dictionary definition, that is a suicide.”