by Jon Fuller

About the author: Jon Fuller is the assistant director of the Clinical AIDS Program at Boston Medical Center and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

The contemporary physician-assisted suicide movement has been propelled by the fear that unless a suicide “escape hatch” becomes available, one’s dying could become a painful, alienating experience characterized by inappropriate use of technology, even against one’s expressed wishes.

The Dying Are Treated Poorly

Unfortunately, an avalanche of data suggests that these fears are well founded. For example, despite the five-year, $25 million SUPPORT [Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments] study designed to identify and correct problems associated with end-of-life care, post-intervention observations showed little improvement in physician skills regarding...