• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Signup for Emails
  • What You Can Do
  • About True Dignity
    • About the Board
    • Contact Us
  • Links
  • Report Abuse

True Dignity

Citizens Against Assisted Suicide

Ad example

Suicide is never death with dignity, and assisted suicide legislation threatens true patient choices at the end of life.

A Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Could Drastically Increase Assisted Suicides

July 9, 2011 by Administrators

Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston, scholars from the Hastings Center, have written a thought-provoking commentary published in Time.com. The article speaks about researchers currently developing a test to predict whether a person will develop Alzheimer’s disease.  The test will be used to predict the disease before it sets in, and long before the person shows any signs of the disease.  The article addresses the many moral dilemmas that the patients, and the families of the patients, will have to face in light of this new test.  It also talks about the difficult decisions that will result from the expanded availability of legalized assisted suicide in light of the new information.

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s, so early detection provides little else but more time for families to plan for the disease.  Wouldn’t our time, money and research be better spent finding a cure for the disease than providing a prediction with little benefit?

Parens and Johnston state that, “One of the prices we pay for our new powers of prediction is difficult conversations about still more difficult choices.”  More precisely, once people know that they will eventually develop Alzheimer’s disease, they will immediately begin the emotional torment of what to do about it. 

Some people who test positive would instantaneously begin contemplating or planning suicide.  The positive diagnosis of the future disease alone would cause such heartache.  Depression could reasonably result from such a diagnosis. There are so many saddening and worrisome factors to be considered with a positive Alzheimer’s diagnosis – the fear of losing yourself, the fear of not knowing your loved ones, the unwillingness to burned loved ones with the emotional and financial toll of the disease. Such a test could lead to many people planning and requesting assisted suicide before the disease even sets in, to avoid the entire disease at all.

Parens and Johnston point out that “… people who test positive cannot know with certainty what Alzheimer’s will be like for them. They cannot know whether the disease might actually bring a new form of happiness, a release from the shackles of normal cognition. They cannot know whether it might be deeply meaningful for their children or partner to care for them. They may be unable to imagine how heartbreakingly hard, if not impossible, it could be for a loving family member to help them die.”

Even if someone with a positive Alzheimer’s diagnosis does not want to consider assisted suicide, they will likely feel pressure to consider it because of the care they will eventually need and the fear of burdening others. 

We have seen the test for Down’s syndrome lead to 90 percent of Down’s syndrome babies being aborted. In the future, could such a test for Alzheimer’s pressure 90 percent of the people with a positive diagnosis to kill themselves before they require?

The Commentary can be found on Time.com at http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/08/as-tests-better-predict-alzheimers-patients-may-contemplate-their-right-to-die/

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Stay Active!

  • Get Action Alerts Emails
  • Make Calls
  • Write Letters

Vermont Government

  • Governor Phil Scott
  • Lt. Governor David Zuckerman
  • State Reps By District
  • State Senators By District
  • VT Legislative Directory

Stay Informed!

  • Join our email list

More to See

(no title)

January 16, 2011 By Administrators

PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS OR OTHER EXTERNAL SIGNS OF DISTRESS ARE SOMETIMES EXHIBITED”

February 28, 2022 By Administrators

ACTION ALERT

January 11, 2022 By carolyn

Tags

abuse Act 39 Another Defeat for Assisted Suicide coercion Letters to the Editor: Pauline Austin Opponents of Assisted Suicide Greatly Outnumber Proponents at Manchester Forum. S.74 safeguards Story of a person with disabilities opposing assisted suicide telehealth

Article Categories

  • Ablism (2)
  • Acceptance of Unintended Consequences (5)
  • Action Alert (3)
  • Administrative (4)
  • Agism (4)
  • Alerts (24)
  • Animal euthanasia argument (4)
  • Board (1)
  • Brittany Maynard (1)
  • California (4)
  • Canada (3)
  • Canada Supreme Court (1)
  • Cheapness of Assisted Suicide (5)
  • Choice Becomes "Duty" to Die (14)
  • Chronic Diseases Rendered Terminal by Non-treatment (3)
  • Classism and Assisted Suicide (4)
  • Colorado (2)
  • Commentary (27)
  • Compassion and Choices (7)
  • Conflict of Interest (4)
  • Connecticut (6)
  • Conscience Rights (2)
  • Cost Cutting Agenda of Barbara Coombs Lee (2)
  • Countering the PAS lobby (1)
  • Court rulings (1)
  • CT (1)
  • Damage to Family (3)
  • Damage to Helpers (1)
  • Death with Dignity (3)
  • Defeats in other states (10)
  • Depression (8)
  • Devaluation of Lives with Disabilities (32)
  • Disability Rights Groups' Opposition (30)
  • Doctor's Power (3)
  • Dying with Real Dignity (1)
  • Editorials (5)
  • Elder Abuse (25)
  • Election 2014 (3)
  • Error Possibility (2)
  • Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Contagion (2)
  • Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Two Sides of the Same Coin (8)
  • Exemption options (4)
  • Expansion of Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia (16)
  • Georgia (3)
  • Germany (1)
  • Healthy people helped to commit suicide (2)
  • Language manipulation (3)
  • Legal Opinions (7)
  • Legislative Efforts in Other Countries (3)
  • Legislative Efforts in Other States (10)
  • Legislative Testimony (1)
  • Letters to the Editors of Newspapers (13)
  • Letters to the Legislature (2)
  • Maine (1)
  • Maryland (1)
  • Massachusetts (3)
  • Medical Opinions (18)
  • Medical Power (5)
  • Medical Societies (6)
  • Montana (2)
  • Moratorium (2)
  • Murder Invitation (3)
  • Nevada (1)
  • Never Investigated (1)
  • New Jersey (5)
  • New Mexico (1)
  • New York (4)
  • New York (1)
  • Not a Peaceful Death (5)
  • Oregon (4)
  • Other Countries (3)
  • Other States (11)
  • Out of State/General (10)
  • Palliative Care (7)
  • Personal Stories (6)
  • Pharmacists (6)
  • Polls (4)
  • Pro Assisted Suicide (1)
  • Prognosis Inaccuracy (3)
  • Racism and Assisted Suicide (1)
  • Randy Brock (1)
  • Rationing (3)
  • Reasons to Oppose (3)
  • Rejections of Assisted Suicide in Other Countries (3)
  • Rejections of Assisted Suicide in other states (5)
  • Relatives Won't Know (4)
  • Religious "movement" (1)
  • Repeal Effort (4)
  • Richard Doerflinger (1)
  • Selfishness of Proponents (3)
  • Selling of Suicide (7)
  • Silencing Opposition (2)
  • Slippery Slope (23)
  • Suicide Contagion (23)
  • Suicide Increase (10)
  • Suicide Tourism (3)
  • Talking Points (2)
  • Testimony before non-VT legislative bodies (3)
  • Transparency Lack (1)
  • True Dignity (22)
  • Uncategorized (375)
  • Unused Drug Dangers (1)
  • Unworkability if Regulations Attempt to Make AS "Safe" (1)
  • Updates (1)
  • US (1)
  • Vermont (18)
  • Vermont Alliance for Ethical Health Care (5)
  • Vermont Governor (4)
  • Vermont Legislature (61)
  • Videos (24)
  • Vote Count on Passage (4)
  • Vote Results (5)

Footer

Tags

abuse Act 39 Another Defeat for Assisted Suicide coercion Letters to the Editor: Pauline Austin Opponents of Assisted Suicide Greatly Outnumber Proponents at Manchester Forum. S.74 safeguards Story of a person with disabilities opposing assisted suicide telehealth

Recent

  • (no title)
  • PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS OR OTHER EXTERNAL SIGNS OF DISTRESS ARE SOMETIMES EXHIBITED”
  • ACTION ALERT
  • S.74: A step down the slippery slope
  • Vermont’s Second Assisted Suicide Report Does Not Reassure

Search

Copyright © 2025 · True Dignity · Log in