Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome back for the third time this
Speaker 1: week to the nonprofits. Delaware is now the twelfth US
Speaker 1: state to allow its citizens to choose to end their
Speaker 1: life with medical assistance. First proposed in twenty fifteen, House
Speaker 1: Bill one point forty, recently signed into law by Governor
Speaker 1: Matt Meyer, provides terminally ill citizens and Delaware the options
Speaker 1: to end their lives on their own terms. Critics of
Speaker 1: the bill, using what the article's author calls opposite day logic,
Speaker 1: lament that the new law provides quote no hope, no compassion,
Speaker 1: and no help end quote, preferring instead that the terminally
Speaker 1: ill continue to suffer needlessly, regardless of their own wishes.
Speaker 1: The bill allows preclusions for morally opposed doctors to opt
Speaker 1: out of performing the procedure, and it also protects unsuspecting
Speaker 1: and non non consenting patients from having the procedure chosen
Speaker 1: for them. And most fittingly, I think the law was
Speaker 1: named after Ron Silverio and Heather Block to Delaware patients
Speaker 1: who suffered to the end of their lives while waiting
Speaker 1: for this bill to become law. This story is from
Speaker 1: The Friendly Atheist by him and Meta on May twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. So Eli, I'm going to come back
Speaker 1: to me. How well informed are you on this? Eli? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm far from well informed on this, but I have
Speaker 1: lost friends who have chosen to end their own lives before,
Speaker 1: and not in a medically assisted way. And as hard
Speaker 1: as it is to, you know, to process sudden losses
Speaker 1: like that, mostly they're almost always unexpected, I think, but
Speaker 1: just by the nature. There's also something I think I
Speaker 1: want to say, like cosmically altruistic about allowing people to
Speaker 1: end their lives on their own terms. I think, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: people should have the right to choose when and how
Speaker 1: their life ends if that is what they want to do,
Speaker 1: and for all practical purposes, we do have that choice.
Speaker 1: I'm only aware of one conviction in the United States
Speaker 1: for an attempted suicide, and that was in Maryland in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Now, even though that person was convicted, they
Speaker 1: were given a deferred sentence and probation instead of serving
Speaker 1: jail time. But I still think that that's kind of
Speaker 1: disgusting thing to do, because you have people who are
Speaker 1: either you know, suffering physically or you know, however it
Speaker 1: may be, that have decided that not being allied was
Speaker 1: a better option, and even I think there are plenty
Speaker 1: of cases in which that is a temporary feeling in
Speaker 1: which people can come away from that feeling, and I
Speaker 1: think should be encouraged to seek that sort of treatment
Speaker 1: to help them feel better about wanting to live, rather
Speaker 1: than making ultimate, you know, extremely definite choices like this.
Speaker 1: But this person in particular was dragged back into the
Speaker 1: world that they had chosen to leave and then punished
Speaker 1: for making that choice, and I think that that violates autonomy.
Speaker 1: But then all being said, I've been talking for a while,
Speaker 1: so Kelly, do you have any ideas about why there
Speaker 1: is such opposition to things like this? Like I mentioned
Speaker 1: in the intro, why is it such a big deal
Speaker 1: to any person if a completely different person wants to
Speaker 1: end their own life.
Speaker 2: You know, I have a lot of thoughts about that, honestly.
Speaker 2: One of the things too though in the intro you
Speaker 2: mentioned that it was to their own their life on
Speaker 2: their own terms, and I don't know if the bill
Speaker 2: allows that. Actually it does kind of allow you to
Speaker 2: make the decision, but I don't it's not really on
Speaker 2: your own terms. There's a lot of things you have
Speaker 2: to go through to do it, and it has to
Speaker 2: be done under certain conditions. So but let's drop that
Speaker 2: for now. I was thinking of back in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: I'm so fucking old. Back in the nineteen seventies, there
Speaker 2: was a movie called I Will Fight No More Forever,
Speaker 2: and it was about the Nez Pierce Indian War. And
Speaker 2: there's a scene where, you know, the whole tribe is
Speaker 2: trying to get away from the the US military. It's
Speaker 2: based on a true story, and they're just marching to
Speaker 2: crowd hundreds of miles and there's an older woman and
Speaker 2: she realizes she's slowing up her family, she's slowing everybody up,
Speaker 2: and she just walks off by herself, out into the woods,
Speaker 2: you know, away from everybody else, and you know why
Speaker 2: she's doing it, you know, and you look at you
Speaker 2: you watch the scene and you and it's sad, but
Speaker 2: it's also like this noble sacrifice she's making, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's that's but that's not the way Christians think,
Speaker 2: that's not the way Muslims think. You know that it's
Speaker 2: a sin to take your own life, because that's one
Speaker 2: more person that can't give glory to God. Right, So
Speaker 2: I think that's that's really where this opposition comes from.
Speaker 2: It's religious, it's not anything else. It's and it's really
Speaker 2: sad that people have to suffer. I mean, at my age,
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of people suffer when they really
Speaker 2: didn't need to. Most of the polls show that everybody
Speaker 2: agrees with these kind of laws. Why because nobody wants
Speaker 2: to suffer except the Catholics of course. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean that's a seventy one percent. That's a huge amount
Speaker 2: of people, you know, I mean that's I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think we've gotten that many people all together for
Speaker 2: one thing in a long time.
Speaker 1: You know. Why?
Speaker 2: Why is it always it's there's always like thirty percent
Speaker 2: of the people in a poll that are on the
Speaker 2: wrong side, like one in three those like every pole, right,
Speaker 2: Have you ever noticed that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but two out of three ain't bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But it doesn't matter what the poll is about.
Speaker 2: There's just always this one third of people who are
Speaker 2: always against it. I just never figured that one out anyway.
Speaker 2: That's about it. I'm hoping that we can see the
Speaker 2: end of these like archaic religious prejudices. And I mean
Speaker 2: that's because that's what's holding holding people back and making
Speaker 2: people suffer.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And the suffering I think is the primary
Speaker 1: issue here because we are thinking of suffering as like
Speaker 1: if and the people who are affected by by you know,
Speaker 1: these opportunities to end their life medically are thinking of
Speaker 1: you know, physical stuff in life, in the real world,
Speaker 1: in their bodies. And the opposition I think is arguing that, well, no,
Speaker 1: you're going to suffer for eternity. You're not ending your suffering.
Speaker 1: You're you know, you're not reducing harm. But aj, I
Speaker 1: want to become to you, now, do you I think
Speaker 1: we kind of would all be in agreement, But like,
Speaker 1: do you think that there's a strong argument here to
Speaker 1: be made that this does reduce harm?
Speaker 3: I do think so, And I think it has a
Speaker 3: like what color just mentioned that it seems like Christians
Speaker 3: are very much against it, and it maybe think, you
Speaker 3: know what, the only people that I have talked to
Speaker 3: so far who agree with this or that fellow atheists,
Speaker 3: one of them being and she has spoken about this publicly,
Speaker 3: so I am pretty sure it's great to talk about this.
Speaker 3: But Cindy Plaster, who's a fellow non profits, recently has
Speaker 3: begun the process and it's a very lengthy process, but
Speaker 3: ultimately I've never seen a Christian who has agreed with it.
Speaker 3: And I think the reason is that us as atheist,
Speaker 3: we embrace humanism, and humanism is all about the reduction
Speaker 3: of harm. I wanted to mention that right now, there's
Speaker 3: currently more than ten states that allow assisted that generally,
Speaker 3: and you know this work in similar ways similar ways
Speaker 3: around the world. There are requirements that someone has to
Speaker 3: meet in order to qualify for the assisted that process,
Speaker 3: and that's the case on what they're doing. In Delaware,
Speaker 3: for example, patients are required to have first mental health evaluations.
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's more than one. There is a waiting period
Speaker 3: between that and doctor appointments. Then they have to have
Speaker 3: physicians diagnosed and repeated diagnosed for this specific thing. Then
Speaker 3: they also have to self administer the medication. I know
Speaker 3: that in some places they also have to have, like
Speaker 3: I said, you know, more than one doctor that that
Speaker 3: actually gives them not just a diagnosis, but the mental
Speaker 3: health UH to say, hey, you know, this is a
Speaker 3: terminal illness. This is going to cost you unbearable suffering.
Speaker 3: There's no reasonable treatment, we don't have any hope for
Speaker 3: you to recover. And so that's what they have to
Speaker 3: go through. And that's what people don't understand. They think
Speaker 3: it's just a super quick process and you know that's it.
Speaker 3: Then then your doctor is going to inject you with
Speaker 3: something and you're gonna die. But it's not even like that.
Speaker 3: Like I said, you have to administer that otherwise it's
Speaker 3: considered murder.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: They also have to make sure that the patient is
Speaker 3: mentally sound to make that decision. It's not quick, it's
Speaker 3: not easy, and in my opinion, yeah, I have to
Speaker 3: say that it is about reducing heart and we continue
Speaker 3: to talk about this in the human community. And you know,
Speaker 3: if this includes reducing the suffering at the end of
Speaker 3: your life, because we do it throughout our entire lives,
Speaker 3: why should it be different at the end of your life.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a hard topic to talk about, but
Speaker 3: I think that the more we bring awareness to it,
Speaker 3: the more people will understand why we support it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the word harm, of course, is
Speaker 1: kind of central to this. And when there's a lot
Speaker 1: of can when the word harm comes up, especially in
Speaker 1: medical contests, people really like to talk about the hippocratic oath, right,
Speaker 1: and how that applies. And I remember being told like
Speaker 1: the first line of the Hippocratic oath is first, do
Speaker 1: no harm. And I thought that up until earlier this
Speaker 1: week when I was like, is that true? And no,
Speaker 1: it isn't. And that's where I think a lot of
Speaker 1: confusion comes in for people about like what what does
Speaker 1: the Hippocratic oaths mean? And what does it not mean?
Speaker 1: And what is it really And I think it probably
Speaker 1: does have you know, just as much of a factor
Speaker 1: and the opposition to this as as you know some
Speaker 1: of like the religious beliefs that we've talked about. There
Speaker 1: was language. It's in the original like oath in the
Speaker 1: original Greek that says, you know, I have it written
Speaker 1: down here, I will use diets for the benefit of
Speaker 1: the sick according to my ability and judgment, I will
Speaker 1: keep them from harm and injustice. And so that is
Speaker 1: included in the original version. But most medical schools anymore,
Speaker 1: they're not They're using versions of it that don't include that.
Speaker 1: There's not a standard, you know, universal version. It's more
Speaker 1: ceremonial and you know, optical rather than actually ethically or
Speaker 1: more exactly, and many physicians choose to just forego the
Speaker 1: oath altogether. As I understand it, So the now there's
Speaker 1: language as well, and it's because of the specific language
Speaker 1: that the original both has regarding euthanasia, because it does
Speaker 1: discuss that in some small part. But now, Kelly, you
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier that there was seventy one percent of
Speaker 1: people polled were in favor of physicians assisting with end
Speaker 1: of life via painless means. And what I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: about this study that was cited in this article is
Speaker 1: that the researchers were like, well, because there is some
Speaker 1: phenomenon to be accounted for here that if you say
Speaker 1: things like end of life with painless means versus assisted suicide,
Speaker 1: that's going to change the way that the recipient interprets
Speaker 1: the question and that might change their answer. So they
Speaker 1: did it both ways, and they said, how do you
Speaker 1: feel about doctors being allowed to assist a patient with suicide?
Speaker 1: And the number only dropped by like seven percent from
Speaker 1: seventy one to sixty six, which means that even when
Speaker 1: you use a word like suicide that invokes so much
Speaker 1: negativity and repulse, there's still two thirds of those polled
Speaker 1: that are in support of medically as a dying. So
Speaker 1: people don't want to suffer exactly. But now with that
Speaker 1: being the case, we seem to have a majority without
Speaker 1: a consensus. How do you think that's the case, Kelly?
Speaker 1: Do you do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, our chaic laws, archaic laws. I mean, let's face it,
Speaker 2: laws get a lot of a lot of ale. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna admit it right now. Some of our laws are
Speaker 2: based on Christian idealism, and this is one of them.
Speaker 2: To make suicide illegal. There's no reason for it, especially
Speaker 2: if for a terminally ill patient who is suffering. There
Speaker 2: is absolutely no harm being done to anyone, anyone. You
Speaker 2: are reducing that. You are ending the suffering of the patient,
Speaker 2: you are ending the suffering of those closest to him.
Speaker 2: This is the way that things should be able to
Speaker 2: be done on. But our forefathers, in their infinite ignorance,
Speaker 2: decided to follow Christian morality on this and made and
Speaker 2: created these really archaic laws. And once you put along
Speaker 2: in the books, it's really hard to get it back off.
Speaker 2: I mean, look how hard it was to get rid
Speaker 2: of the the the buggery laws that were so prevalent
Speaker 2: in that restate, and some of them are still on
Speaker 2: the books. I think Texas is if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2: You know, it can't be upheld. The Supreme Court has
Speaker 2: knocked them down, but the laws are still there. And
Speaker 2: that's what's going on with this one, except that we're
Speaker 2: still in forcing this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It it seems to come from like just this
Speaker 1: sort of it's a it's a sense of I guess ethical.
Speaker 1: It's this idea of there being things that are objectively
Speaker 1: good or bad, and and in life falls under objectively
Speaker 1: bad in those worldviews. Now, and I think too that
Speaker 1: it's really important we have a little bit, but it's
Speaker 1: important to distinguish between like the fail safes. I guess,
Speaker 1: so the safeguards that you mentioned earlier, age that like
Speaker 1: this isn't intended for somebody to like call up their
Speaker 1: doctor and say, hey, i'd like to die on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Do you have an opening? It doesn't hepen like that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's.
Speaker 2: What iant That's why I mentioned I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's on your own terms, because there's all these things,
Speaker 2: all these hoops got to jump through, right, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's why I mentioned earlier too, because there there
Speaker 1: are plenty of circumstances in which a person might feel
Speaker 1: that this is the best option or the only option
Speaker 1: for them, in which truly they have other options available
Speaker 1: that can not only end what they view as or
Speaker 1: what is I shouldn't say what they view because their
Speaker 1: suffering is their suffering as they label it, not only
Speaker 1: in their suffering, but enjoy life beyond like after the suffering,
Speaker 1: and then that there. It may not always be necessary
Speaker 1: to end of the life to end of the suffering,
Speaker 1: and that's that's a really important distinction to make, but
Speaker 1: it does, ultimately, I think, come down to autonomy, and
Speaker 1: we haven't really touched super we haven't gotten really in
Speaker 1: depth about autonomy in this discussion. I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of a central focus of the law. I think that
Speaker 1: with like recent sort of changes in like autonomy and
Speaker 1: like medical autonomy, especially for like especially for women or
Speaker 1: people who are capable of getting pregnant, I should say
Speaker 1: it seems like this is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: shift I think in that sort of autonomy war or
Speaker 1: autonomy like atmosphere, AJ did you have more like did
Speaker 1: you have thoughts about that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do, and I have to agree it has a
Speaker 3: lot to do with autonomy. I think that like from
Speaker 3: this specific toority takeaway is that We always discuss topics
Speaker 3: of balterly autonomy when it comes to like you said,
Speaker 3: abortion or trans people, and a lot of people who
Speaker 3: identify as women on their goal, like really expensive and
Speaker 3: extensive surgeries to have firmed their gender. You know, do
Speaker 3: things like slow down their aging surgeries like breast augmentation implants,
Speaker 3: go with Tommy Jack's life perception, get those jobs, they
Speaker 3: get netlifts, whatever feeling of the outer layer of the skin.
Speaker 3: Like I know someone who actually had that done recently.
Speaker 3: It was like they look like a completely different person.
Speaker 3: So we do the same for trans people, right, we
Speaker 3: advocate for them to have the same kind of dignity
Speaker 3: to be able to choose what kind of badding modifications
Speaker 3: they do, and justifiably they should have that right. And
Speaker 3: as I mentioned earlier, including abortion as a bodily autonomy issue,
Speaker 3: you know, things like my buddy might choose as a woman,
Speaker 3: like we don't want to be forced to sustain another
Speaker 3: life against a will. That would be like against the
Speaker 3: allowed to do that, you know, if they sustained life
Speaker 3: was that of an adult or like even a child,
Speaker 3: that not not an onborne like because it's a human right,
Speaker 3: and so we have to give that same dignity to
Speaker 3: people at the end of their lives, their liberty to choose.
Speaker 3: So if they are when we talk about end of life,
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about somebody who is older, because if
Speaker 3: it is somebody who is younger and has a terminal illness,
Speaker 3: then you can call that the end of their lives.
Speaker 3: Right if they have something that is untreatable that they
Speaker 3: cannot their doctors don't see any way for them to recover,
Speaker 3: So to be able to end their life with the
Speaker 3: same considerations regarding the freedoms of what they get to
Speaker 3: do with their bodies, even if that means choosing to
Speaker 3: permanently cease to exist, they should have that ability to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. You said something that made me really think
Speaker 1: about it. It was about, like when it comes to
Speaker 1: abortion laws or things like that, we talk about how
Speaker 1: like you cannot force somebody to use their body to
Speaker 1: sustain a life against their will, and I think that
Speaker 1: that should also apply to their own life. And I
Speaker 1: can't stress enough, you know, I I don't always think
Speaker 1: that end of life is the best option in all circumstances,
Speaker 1: but the other people, everybody has the right to choose
Speaker 1: that for their for their own I don't think it
Speaker 1: should be punishable or shit.
Speaker 2: Let me let me ask you a question. We're talking
Speaker 2: about using an end of life option to end suffering, right,
Speaker 2: medical suffering, and I think I think all three of
Speaker 2: us start thinking of a physical medical problem, what about
Speaker 2: a psychological one?
Speaker 1: And I've kind of I've kept that in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind the whole time, and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: That is what gives me slight pause about this, and
Speaker 1: that's why I'm glad, like I mentioned earlier, the safeguards
Speaker 1: are in place, and I want to know what you
Speaker 1: think about this too, exactly because there are I think
Speaker 1: you know, I'm speculating because I'm not an expert, but
Speaker 1: that being said, I feel you know, a license to
Speaker 1: speculate wildly. I think probably like nine out of ten times,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about psychological suffering, you you're talking about
Speaker 1: someone who there are some options for at least helping
Speaker 1: that person feel better or live a more satisfying life.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't require, like imaged earlier, the end of
Speaker 1: life to end the suffering. I think. So that's I
Speaker 1: just you go ahead.
Speaker 2: I just I was just gonna say, I just thought
Speaker 2: it was an interesting aspect to look at it, you know,
Speaker 2: because there are I mean, there are people I myself
Speaker 2: have known somebody who is Actually I've known two people
Speaker 2: that it just suffered with severe bouts of depression their
Speaker 2: entire life, you know, and it was and a lot
Speaker 2: of different things didn't help them.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: They went years and years and years and years and years.
Speaker 2: One of them I know did eventually find something that
Speaker 2: worked for them and has advocated for it through his
Speaker 2: own nonprofit. I've been at CNN, and I think that's
Speaker 2: freaking awesome. Yeah, you know, so, yeah, but it's it's
Speaker 2: it just makes me wonder that if you get somebody,
Speaker 2: you know, somebody who is just has spent thirty decades
Speaker 2: suffering from something like depression, is it viable to let
Speaker 2: them do use this as an option as well?
Speaker 3: And I do think it is. And I remember when
Speaker 3: when Cindy spoke to Eton Michaels on the show about
Speaker 3: this topic, and somebody asked that question and she she
Speaker 3: did mention that the process is very tough about that,
Speaker 3: because they have to show that they have drived so
Speaker 3: many different methods and that none of those methods that
Speaker 3: are currently available have worked so it has to be
Speaker 3: all types of different medications, different therapies. So there it
Speaker 3: isn't just like hey, you know, I'm feeling the rest
Speaker 3: today like you said earlier, and you call your doctor
Speaker 3: and you tell them you want to you want to
Speaker 3: end your life next week or something like that. You know,
Speaker 3: it can sometimes it can take more more than just
Speaker 3: a few months, So it can take like up to
Speaker 3: a year or more than that. So it really depends
Speaker 3: on case by case. And what I'm thinking is we
Speaker 3: are thinking of the people that actually go through with it,
Speaker 3: but we are not thinking of the ones that are
Speaker 3: denied because they do not qualify. Ultimately that they do apply,
Speaker 3: but to not qualify because you know, like we're saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: no you haven't tried this, so you haven't tried that,
Speaker 3: or you know, your diagnosis while bleak is not completely
Speaker 3: you know, untreatable or terminal or.
Speaker 1: Like, there's new research being done that could result in
Speaker 1: a new treatment, so let's wait and see. And then
Speaker 1: that person ends their life suffering waiting for either a
Speaker 1: treatment or the option to end their life, and they
Speaker 1: just have to suffer the whole time. And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's so much nuance to it. I really think, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Easy, it's it's a very complicated topic for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I think it was one that
Speaker 1: that merits and deserves a lot of care and attention.
Speaker 1: But I did learn that there there is legislation in
Speaker 1: the works in my home state in Missouri for for
Speaker 1: patients that might be in the same position. So hopefully
Speaker 1: good news soon for for for those patients, UH and
Speaker 1: in a few more states here in the country. Now, UH,
Speaker 1: all that being said, don't forget to check out the
Speaker 1: UH Nonprofits store at tiny dot c c slash merch
Speaker 1: a c a