It’s not suicide per Pat

In your Oct. 18 article on the court case to allow terminally ill Montanans to request physician aide with dying, we are introduced to Robert Baxter and Steve Stoelb, Montanans with terminal illnesses; these men have filed a lawsuit to establish their right to ask their physicians for medications they could self administer to bring about a peaceful death if their dying process becomes intolerable to them. Unfortunately, the reporter refers to this as “assisted suicide,” an emotionally charged and inaccurate term.This is not “suicide” in any normal sense. While it has, in the past, been inaccurately used to describe physician aid in dying, “suicide” has been rejected by patients and by leading health and medical organizations, including the American Public Health Association and he Oregon Department of Human Services, where the practice of aid in dying has been legal for a decade.Those opposed to aid in dying on personal, moral or religious grounds will continue to use the incendiary and inaccurate term “assisted suicide;” I’m hopeful that journalists will give this issue the dignity and respect it deserves by using the term agreed to by professionals working in the emotionally charged arena of death and dying.

Pat Tucker
500 Jorgy Way
Hamilton