Vermont Unlikely To Provide Safeguards If Assisted Suicide Legalized

Here’s some sanity in the assisted sucide debate in Vermont. 

HOW CAN A STATE WITH A PARTICULARLY POOR RECORD OF INVESTIGATING ADULT ABUSE COMPLAINTS EVEN CONSIDER LEGALIZING ASSISTED SUICIDE?

. . . . If assisted suicide were to become legal in Vermont, a patient requesting the poison would have to see two doctors, both of them required to be willing to write a prescription for a lethal overdose and give instructions for using it to commit suicide. One wonders why the requirement is not, on the other hand, that the patient get a second opinion from a doctor unwilling to prescribe poison for any reason but willing to offer alternatives to suicide. Would two doctors biased towards assisted suicide be alert for signs that a patient was being neglected or pressured by someone to commit suicide? That someone could be an heir, or just an exhausted caregiver. more