This republished article first appeared in the National Review

Most of the media are in the tank (remember Brittany Maynard?) for the assisted suicide/euthanasia agenda and, as a consequence, are primarily interested in reporting on stories of “good deaths.” That criticism does not apply to The Atlantic, which recently published a scathing exposé of the cruelties inherent in Canada’s euthanasia regime. Now, staff writer Elizabeth Bruenig has published an important piece detailing how a mentally ill 31-year-old woman named Eileen Mihich was able to access poison drugs by writing herself a fraudulent prescription for death, which was filled unquestioningly by a willing pharmacy.

Eileen apparently had no discernible diseases but …complained about severe abdominal pain. From, “It Was Too Easy for Her to Kill Herself“:

Mihich had told her family that she was debilitated by a mysterious abdominal pain and was interested in a medically assisted death. But her suicide still shocked her two closest relatives: her cousin Sarah (who asked to be referred to by her first name, to protect her privacy) and aunt Veronica Torina…Nearly a year on, they are still trying to solve the mystery of her death. . . .

At the medical examiner’s office weeks later, they received her phone, her wallet, and pharmacy receipts for prescription drugs commonly used to end the lives of patients with untreatable illnesses.

They also learned that Mihich’s body bore no signs of illness. Mihich had been suffering, but she had not been on the verge of death.

This is not the first time I have heard of such tragic cases. One of Jack Kevorkian’s early victims, a woman named Marjorie Wantz, was emotionally disturbed and suicidal, complaining of pelvic pain, for which doctors could find no cause. Indeed, her autopsy report determined “no pathological diagnosis.” Kevorkian didn’t care. He was interested in hastening deaths.

But, “Wesley,” you say, “Kevorkian was acting without legal regulations.” Indeed he was. But the regulations in Oregon that were supposed to protect Eileen were about as porous as his conscience:

When some people in severe distress imagine a peaceful end to what feels like unbearable pain, the availability of medical assistance in dying may shape their thinking, and current safeguards do not seem sufficient to prevent tragic outcomes.

Torina suspects that her niece would still be alive had it been just a little harder for her to secure lethal medication. “She didn’t really want to die, but she felt that she was powerless to create a life worth living.

Eileen had a tough life, with negligent parents. She made a claim of rape against her father that was never pursued legally, lived in multiple foster homes, and suffered from mental illness. She lived on disability and was occasionally homeless. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Eileen obtained a phony prescription pad and wrote herself a poison script. And it was filled! Here is something about which I was unaware that made an illegal lethal prescription obtainable by a mentally ill and unhappy woman:

Mihich was able to carry out her fraud with publicly available information and relative ease. Unlike conventional pharmacies, which sell only FDA-approved pharmaceuticals, compounding pharmacies are able to sell customized formulations that are not FDA tested and approved.

Compounding pharmacies are the only places capable of dispensing medications that allow for a more peaceful death, as this involves mixing various sedatives, painkillers, and muscle relaxants into something more easily ingested and absorbed. Yet few pharmacists agree to supply these drugs, largely for ethical reasons. Jess Kaan, a Washington-based doctor who works with people seeking end-of-life care, told me that many of her patients have trouble finding a pharmacy that sells this medication, which can make such transactions particularly lucrative for those that do.

She apparently paid $2,500 for the poison. Compounding pharmacies. Imagine the regulation-avoiding possibilities. Breunig believes there are lessons to be learned:

Mihich’s method of suicide was clearly illegal in Oregon, Washington, and elsewhere in the United States, where medical assistance in death is available only to adult patients who are terminally ill, have six months or less to live, and are mentally capable of making their own health-care decisions. But her ability to access fatal drugs is concerning, as the spread of laws allowing medical assistance in dying makes it likely that incidents like this will happen again.

No question. And here comes the slippery slope:

Mihich’s case also raises pressing questions about whether access to an assisted death should extend to people with persistent and severe mental illness — a category of disease that may not be terminal but can be debilitatingly painful. Patients who are suffering from severe psychiatric disorders can already legally seek medical help to end their life elsewhere, including in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and, beginning as soon as 2027, Canada. Yet establishing which psychiatric patients are worthy of this assistance has proved complicated.

That’s the logic. Please allow me to add a few more thoughts:

• Some might say that Eileen was in pain and her assisted suicide was therefore justified. Okay, but that means assisted suicide isn’t about terminal illness but about eliminating suffering by eliminating the sufferer. And since suffering is subjective, there is no limiting principle on how far that right to be dead will extend.
• Strict guidelines don’t “protect against abuse.” They depend on doctors’ self-reporting after the event, and even cases of known abuses do not result in prosecution or medical discipline. After more than 30 years of opposing this agenda, I am convinced that guidelines are not really meant to be effective. Rather, they exist as a sop to justify legalization and provide false assurance that all is under control.
• Just how do you control privatized killing? How do you effectively prevent the “wrong” people from accessing poison pills? How do you control ideologically driven doctors who are willing to prescribe lethal drugs or lethally inject patients they have just met, as often happens? One doctor in Canada has killed more than 400 people!
• The ultimate destination of this movement is the creation of a fundamental right to die for whatever reason and in whatever manner and to get help in so doing, i.e., death on demand. The highest courts in two countries— Germany and Estonia — have already so ruled. And with almost all jurisdictions that have legalized hastened death continually loosening eligibility standards — such as doing away with residency requirements, allowing nurse practitioners to prescribe lethal drugs, shortening waiting periods, and even allowing assisted suicide by telemedicine — the death agenda will continue to expand.

I see only one way to prevent this scenario. Refuse to legalize assisted suicide. Say no to euthanasia.

In jurisdictions where it is already legal, doctors and pharmacies should refuse to participate, no matter the profit margin. Engage suicide prevention rather than facilitation in every death request. If we are asked to validate the assisted suicide of a loved one by attending it, don’t go, but say, “Here is what I will do, because you I love you and you are not alone.” Improve access to palliation and mental health treatment for everyone. Make necessary reforms to hospice care so that suffering people know they can face the end with high-quality symptom control under the care of professionals who value their lives. Good grief, in the U.K., the hospice sector is collapsing, and yet the government is still pushing the legalization of assisted suicide.

This much, from the story, is absolutely true:

The policy debate over medical assistance in dying generally concerns statutory changes, but new laws are encouraging a shift in social norms.

The question we have to ask ourselves: Are these new social norms what we really want? Because if the current trajectory holds, they are precisely the consequences we will get.