Aid-in-Dying and Dementia

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/opinion/aid-in-dying-dementia.html

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To the Editor:

Re “The Nazis’ First Victims Were Disabled” (“Disability” series, Sunday Review, Sept. 17):

I am dismayed by Kenny Fries’s description of my views, essentially equating them with those of the Nazis. I am an advocate for aid-in-dying for people with advanced dementia if they request this in writing while still of sound mind. Mr. Fries seems to conflate a pretty broad range of disabilities, while I consider advanced dementia to be in a separate category from the others he cites. The issue here is whether people can have a quality of life that is meaningful and valuable to them, and I would never favor cutting short such a life.

My remarks about money being part of the conversation were only within the context of what a particular patient might want as he weighed the costs of being kept alive for years once his dementia had robbed him of much of what made life fulfilling. He should have the right to ask for his life to be shortened, and the money that might be put to better use than lengthy care could be one, but not the sole, consideration.

And, unlike Nazi euthanasia, aid-in-dying should always be completely voluntary, as all of the states that now allow for it have specified.

(REV.) SUSAN M. FLANDERSWASHINGTON