There is an article in today’s online version of The Cape Cod Times about an op ed piece in the same news source by Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s widow (http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121027/NEWS/210270322&cid=sitesearch). This is a news article, not the opinion piece, which is not yet available online. Below, in italics, is a section from the article quoting Kennedy..
The ballot question endorses suicide as a way to deal with pain and financial burdens at the end of life, writes Kennedy, whose representative did not respond by the Times deadline to a request for an interview.
“We’re better than that,” Kennedy writes. “We should expand palliative care, pain management, nursing care and hospice, not trade the dignity and life of a human being for the bottom line.”
Edward Kennedy died at age 77 in August 2009 after fighting a brain tumor known as a malignant glioma for more than a year.
Kennedy takes issue with the ballot question’s specification that it apply to those with a life expectancy of six months or less.
“When my husband was first diagnosed with cancer, he was told he had only two to four months to live, that he’d never get back to the United States Senate, that he should get his affairs in order, kiss his wife, love his family and get ready to die,” she writes. “But that prognosis was wrong. Teddy lived 15 more productive months.”
During that time period, he voted in the Senate, spoke at the Democratic Convention and attended the inauguration of President Obama, whose candidacy he’d championed, she writes.
“When the end finally did come — natural death with dignity — my husband was home, attended by his doctor, surrounded by family and our priest.”