Reflections on End of Life Choices in Montana

[Humanities Roundtable]

With funding from Humanities Montana, the ACLU of Montana is organizing a community discussion about the important issue of physician assistance at the end of life. End of Life Choices: A Community Conversation will take place on April 10 at Carroll College in Helena.

If you have thoughts or questions about this issue, please share them with the Roundtable community here.

[Ken Egan]

I had the good fortune to attend the End of Life Choices Conference at Carroll College in Helena yesterday.

The conference organizers did a brilliant job of gathering multiple perspectives on physician assistance at the end of life. (One of the central themes of the conference: There is no agreed-upon language for this process--physician-assisted dying or physician-assisted suicide?). I learned so much from the many presenters, representing a diversity of professions: lawyers, physicians, medical ethicists, ministers, advocates for the disabled, and more. I discovered that the Montana Supreme Court ruling in the Baxter case now protects physicians from prosecution if they prescribe a lethal drug to a dying patient, as long as that patient provides credible consent. However, there is so much ambiguity surrounding that ruling that the lawyers in attendance (and many others) urged the Montana Legislature to craft clear guidelines for when and how such aid should be administered (not surprisingly, Oregon was mentioned often as an example, since that state has an established law that defines these parameters). Physicians presented contrasting views of aid in dying, one emphasizing the need to be compassionate toward the suffering, another arguing that "we're talking about doctors killing patients." We saw a range of reflections from ministers representing three faith traditions: United Church of Christ, Jewish, and Catholic. We heard from physicians and a disability rights advocate about possible threats to vulnerable populations, including the disabled, the poor, and the undereducated.

This conference is only the beginning of a much-needed Montana-wide deliberation on these crucial questions. ACLU of Montana, organizer of the conference (and much deserving of credit for its balance and depth), anticipates extending this conference to the entire state by distributing a film summary of the proceedings. Humanities Montana will explore providing presenters from its Speakers Bureau to lead follow-up discussions on end of life choices.

[Randale C. Sechrest, MD]

Ken,

Thanks for helping make this conference a success.

This discussion is just beginning in Montana. The issues are profound.

While on the surface this seems to be a "health care" issue, it will not be resolved through or by the science of medicine. It will require an ongoing conversation exploring the different values inherent in a pluralistic society such as ours.

Thanks for starting the process of sharing these stories.

Randale Sechrest, MD

[Clair Leonard]

I have mixed feelings about euthanasia, about 20 years ago, I met a woman who did jail time for assisting her husband to die. He was a renowned doctor who was suffering from Alzheimer's. I was working in the Coffee Dock at TCD in Dublin at the time and studying Russian and German. She was a wonderful, little old lady who was at the University for a conference.

I buried my father, George Rickard last August. Daddy suffered from many illnesses over the years; about two years ago they discovered bladder cancer so the list got longer. I know Da's life was tough for many years after retiring in his fifties. However, having stood in the little room in the regional hospital and rubbed his feet for hours and watched him not breathe a few times in the course of our only real conversation before he died, I wouldn't change it. I know there were miserable days and I was here in Montana while my mother and siblings were there with him. I know there were dark moments when he cried into the handset because he was hard of hearing and he couldn't hear what I was trying to tell him in the middle of the night Mountain Time, while he was stuck in some room in a rest home. I know it took them four days to contact me because we were in the mountains, and when I got home to Limerick on the fifth day and went straight to the hospital to see him in a room with lots of other patients, just trying to die, while everyone else was just trying to live. He didn't move or talk from the medicine, he was pale, his mouth was open and he stared into beyond.

Everyone's experience of life/death is different, my upbringing has left an indellible mark on where I stand. That does not mean, I don't see the other sides and empathize. Discussion is important. A choice like that is way too BIG even for me, not my place to determine.