Colorado’s a lot like Montana. Not just because we both have high peaks and big skies, but because politically, both states are half schizophrenic, half just-plain independent.
In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Montana 59 percent to 39 percent. For good measure that year, Montanans passed a ban on gay marriage. But they approved the use of medical marijuana. And today, their governor and both senators are Democrats. (Sound familiar?)
That’s why Coloradans might want to know about the hot topic on the table in Montana right now: assisted suicide. If, because of an illness or an injury, someone wants to take his or her own life but is physically incapable of carrying it off, someone else can help. Because Montana’s constitution guarantees “personal dignity” and “individual privacy,” the state Supreme Court was asked this year to make assisted suicide a right.
It’s a tough call. On the one hand, why should the state say that if you’re suffering unbearably but can’t kill yourself alone, someone can’t help you die? On the other hand, at what point does compassion amount to murder? And where do you draw the line between someone terminally ill and someone depressed over a love affair gone bad?
In Switzerland, they draw no line at all. It has the world’s most liberal laws on assisted suicide. The only thing the law prohibits is assisting someone’s suicide for personal gain. Otherwise, it’s legal no matter why someone wants to die, and it’s accessible whether or not you live there.
The biggest Swiss organization that helps people die is called Dignitas, Latin for “Dignity.” When I interviewed the founder, he defined the service as “self- chosen, risk-free, pain-free; assisted suicide as a human right.” He has helped more than 1,000 people do it.
In the United Kingdom, I met a woman who wants to die. Debbie Purdy says she loves life today, but multiple sclerosis is eating away at her body, her eyesight, and her independence. Because of the path MS sometimes takes, she fears the day will come when she will be gasping for breath, and screaming to end her life. Under British law, her husband could be prosecuted simply for pushing her wheelchair onto a plane to Zurich, let alone seeing her through to the end. She sued for an assurance from the country’s chief prosecutor that it would be OK. She got that promise.
What Purdy intends to do when the time comes is “suicide tourism.” Which brings us back to the U.S. In Oregon a dozen years ago and in Washington state last year, voters approved “Death with Dignity” laws requiring that two doctors diagnose a terminal illness, and that the patient declares twice, at least two weeks apart, that he or she wants to die.
But that’s not where they’re going in Montana. Affirming assisted suicide as a constitutional right might mean no one — not legislators, not voters — can put limits on it. Then, opponents argue, the state might become the “ultimate destination” to die, no matter who, no matter how.
Greg Dobbs is a correspondent for “World Report” on HDNet and a contributor to The Denver Post.
