THE QUESTION OF DYING By
CHARLES ZHANG BUSHRA AKBAR (Editor)
Introduction
Christine Fong was a mother of three, a diligent and a hardworking individual who immigrated from China as an adult to raise a family of her own. But she was also a woman with late stage bone cancer a fact that became more and more apparent as her fragile years drew on. Pain became not an occasional discomfort, but a persistent reminder of her mortality as her vertebrae vaporized beyond recognition. Although Christine’s cancer entered remission, she reflected on how the treatment drained her physically and destroyed her mental state. Never again, she would say vehemently after each chemotherapy session. So when her blight inevitably rose again, she chose to embrace that which she had run away from for so long. On a warm afternoon in fall of 2017, Christine’s legally-planned departure succeeded as she drank the concoction that snuffed life out of her frail body – with a content smile on her lips, as her daughter Elaine had remarked. Christine’s story is one of the many that illuminate a historical taboo in medical science. Avoided, rightfully, because it blurs the
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lines of morality and undermines hundreds of years of Hippocratic advance. And yet in a society where medicine is evolving at an all-time high, the option to abandon treatment and end it all has gained significant traction. Assisted death, termed “medical aid in dying” by proponents and “assisted suicide” by denouncers, is perhaps one of the most controversial practices in the medical field. It is outlawed in the majority of the states, neutrally authorized in five, and at least by virtue of polls, supported by most practicing physicians. Pro-choice organization such as Death with Dignity and Compassion and Dying have surfaced to challenge America’s perception of how, when, and why someone should die, with equal opposition to boot. So how did the conversation turn from one of preserving life to bestowing death?
The Sin of Medicine
Doctors have always believed that they can save their patients. As an aspiring medical student, even I live with the hope that with the right treatment and research, my mother, friends, and future patients can live without ailment.
The mistake is believing we can overcome death. Since the foundation of Hippocratic ideals in ancient Greek times, medicine has been thought of as an objective science. Objectivity lends to certainty after all, and when dealing with precarious life-and-death situations, we want to be sure that treatments will cure disease. But where scientific medicine has ushered in reliability and rapid evolution in health care, it has also brought hubris and pride. If vaccines kill measles and antiviruses defeat Ebola, then perhaps we can cure anything at any given time. The belief that preserving life is a practitioner’s chief priority has sentenced many incurable patients to prolonged agony as they instill treatment after treatment to no avail. It’s ironic to think that the public health crisis of excessive suffering before death is a result of our attempts to save our patients, but this contrast may serve to better understand why medical aid in dying has risen in prevalence. In two recent studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), researchers amassed statistics that suggested terminal
