Colorado's Governor causes a furor on the issue of dying
The words seemed calculated to provoke an uproar. Elderly people who are terminally ill "have a duty to die," declared Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, 48, at a meeting of the Colorado Health Lawyers Association last week in Denver. "Like leaves which fall off a tree forming the humus in which other plants can grow, we've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts, so that our kids can build a reasonable life."
An uproar is just what the Governor got. In Washington the American Life Lobby, an antiabortion, anti-euthanasia group, quickly called for Lamm's resignation. Florida's Representative Claude Pepper, 83, Congress's leading advocate for the aged, accused the Governor of "downgrading the elderly." Lamm was confronted by angry older citizens in Denver. "I used to think the world of you, but I hate you for what you said," declared Lilian Bono, 76.
Lost in the ruckus was Lamm's original intent: to call attention to the alarming fact that "medical science is replacing God in deciding when we die," and to encourage discussion of the implications. "We can prolong our lives a few months or a year, but at what price?" Lamm asks. The Governor insists that he did not intend to endorse mercy killing: "In euthanasia, somebody else makes the decision. [ am merely saying people have the right :o die without medical science intervenng." In addition, he notes, the "falling leaves" metaphor was an attempt to paraphrase an article in the American Scholar by University of Chicago Philosopher Leon Kass: "It was unfortunate that it suddenly became my quote."
However infelicitous his phrasing, Lamm was praised in some quarters for broaching one of the most sensitive issues of the day. Medical technology has become increasingly successful at keeping frail and withered leaves on the tree long after nature would have let them fall. Today, 80% of Americans die in hospitals or nursing homes, generally in the course of receiving some sort of medical treatment. Doctors no longer speak of death by "natural causes." Because physicians have the capacity to extend life, they often feel obliged to use it, observes Dr. Bernard Towers, who helps direct a U.C.L.A. program for the study of medicine, law and human values. "Most people fear dying in the midst of electronic gadgetry," he says, "but it looks like there may come a time when we will not be allowed to die without an I.V. tube running."