I'm not done talking about end-of-life options

CT can't pass a simple medical-aid-in-dying bill, to the confusion of all thinking people

This week, I wrote a column for CT News Junkie (a website name I will always love) about a promising medical-aid-in-dying bill that will — once again — be left in committee.

As I said in the column, this is Connecticut legislators’ 15th attempt since the mid-’90s to pass such a bill. Ten states (and D.C.) already have such an option, but not Connecticut.

Why?

I love my adopted state. I do. But there runs just beneath the surface a thick vein of puritanism, a sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God mentality that rears its head at the most inopportune moments. (Interestingly, the original Puritan church has long since left that theology to be the vanguard on some of the most Christ-centered and progressive policies out there — including but not limited to being open-and-affirming toward all, paying off medical debt, welcoming in immigrants and so, so much more. Well done, UCC.)

Weirdly, for Christian believers (the ones who seem most vocal in Connecticut about keeping this option off the table, death is to be embraced, is it not? We are leaving this mortal coil and going to our eternal reward. If God is calling me home, can I answer Her just a few weeks earlier than everyone expected?

Meanwhile, given some legislators’ inability to see the big picture, terminally ill patients who don’t have time to waste will wait another year without the option of conferring with their medical team, and choosing to stop the suffering of themselves and — vicariously — of their loved ones. Another year will be spent in agonizing pain and for what. For. What?

Seriously: Everyone is just one bad death away from supporting medical-aid-in-dying. You only have to sit at one bed and hear the anguished cries of one person who isn’t granted a swift and quiet leave-taking before you start to reexamine your stance. I have been at precisely one death bed where the person surrounded by loved ones requested that all measures — reasonable and otherwise — be taken to keep that person alive. We all just looked at one another and then we set about to ask for all measures — reasonable and otherwise — to be taken. We were furious but trying to honor the wishes of a dying woman.

In every other instance — every other instance — the person on the way out has asked to be released as quickly as possible. I am having a difficult time wrapping my mind around the arrogance of the people who say “No. Stay. I want more time with you.”