Good morning. Here are three truths of Doctor Prescribed Suicide (DPS), as presented in February 2022, by Fitchburg resident Dr. Mark Rollo, a lifelong family physician. Dr. Rollo passed away suddenly a few months after sharing his remarks. It is on his behalf that I request that you keep assisted suicide out of our homes.
Truth #1
Doctor Prescribed Suicide damages trust in doctors. A physician cannot be both healer and killer and still maintain a patient’s trust.
Truth #2
Doctor Prescribed Suicide is dangerous.
- Doctors make mistakes in diagnoses and prognoses. For example, Stephen Hawking, the famous astrophysicist who discovered black holes, was diagnosed at age 21 with Lou Gehrig’s Disease and was given a “few years to live.” He lived more than 50 years after his initial diagnosis.
- Doctor Prescribed Suicide is a recipe for Elder Abuse.
- Doctor Prescribed Suicide is also dangerous because it puts a price tag on life. Required witnesses could have a variety of opportunistic interests in the patient’s death. And government payers like Medicare and Medicaid, along with private insurers, have significant financial incentives to approve Doctor Prescribed Suicide, because it is far cheaper than disease treatments.
There are many examples of cancer patients in states like Oregon who received letters from their insurance companies or their state’s health plan denying them further cancer treatment but approving inexpensive doctor prescribed suicide instead.
In 2016, just one week after California enacted assisted suicide, Stephanie Packer, a 33-year-old mother of four, learned that her private insurance company would no longer pay for chemo, but at a co-pay of just $1.20, Stephanie could obtain drugs to kill herself. Stephanie not only survived but testified before this legislature in opposition to assisted suicide; she testified in Maryland just last year, too – more than a decade after her initial 3-year prognosis.
Finally, Doctor Prescribed Suicide is dangerous because patients can come to feel pressure from organizations like Compassion and Choices (which used to be called The Hemlock Society). Patients will start to feel pressure as a result of social acceptance and because of support from elected leaders like you [members of the Public Health Committee].
Truth #3
Doctor Prescribed Suicide further corrupts the medical profession because it is legalized fraud. Doctors are prevented from listing suicide as the cause of death on a patient’s death certificate. Instead, doctors are required to lie and list the patient’s underlying diagnosis as the cause of death.
Once you legalize Doctor Prescribed Suicide, it becomes a medical procedure – a cheap medical procedure – that conceals the truth, stains the medical profession and betrays hope. It is not “compassion” it is abandonment.
Thank you for opposing this bill – and for supporting love and pain management over actively ending human life. Thank you for advancing excellence in patient care that is good, true and beautiful – even though life’s greatest challenges.
Read the proposed bill here: Bill S.1486
Oppose the proposed bill here: Legislative action center - Massachusetts Citizens for Life
Watch Dr. Mark Rollo’s 2022 Video Presentation here: Dr. Mark Rollo's Latest Video on Physician Assisted Suicide - Massachusetts Citizens for Life