In an article on the language we use to cover our fear of death, Geoffrey Nunberg writes:
The choice of words makes a big difference in how people come down on laws governing the choice to die. In a 2005 Gallup survey, 75% of adults agreed that doctors should be allowed by law to "end the lives" of patients suffering from incurable diseases if the patient and his or her family requested it. But when the question was worded as permitting doctors to "assist the patient to commit suicide," only 58% of the respondents agreed. That's one reason supporters of the measures have shied away from talking about "assisted suicide" in favor of a battery of gentler phrases, like "aid in dying," "choice in dying" and "end-of-life choices."
That's a serious drop, to be sure, but the real news there is that even the negatively phrased version commands a solid majority. The prohibitions on physician-assisted suicide have always struck me as insane, an unconscionable and ineffective restriction on what's essentially the ultimate liberty -- the ability to say to life, "you can't fire me, I quit." The laws don't stop individuals from messily taking their own lives, or keep physicians from letting them die slowly and painfully when they refuse further treatment, they merely increase total pain and decrease the ability of the terminally ill to die on their own terms, with dignity and a minimum of pain.
I'd always assumed the laws remained in stasis because assisted-suicide provisions were unpopular with the public. That doesn't seem to be the case. Rather, which politicians really want to be associated with such a bill? Who wants to be the Dr. Kevorkian of the Congress? And given the intense opposition of pro-life groups, there's no upside. So props to California Speaker Fabian Nunez and the other Democratic legislators reintroducing the Compassionate Choices Act. There's no political upside for them, but it's the right thing to do.
