Readers React: Call it ‘assisted suicide,’ not ‘death with dignity’ or ‘right to die’

To the editor: If there were a Pulitzer Prize for the most effective use of euphemisms, then this editorial on the “right to die” bill sitting on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk would be a contender. (“How the ‘right to die’ bill made it to a vote was wrong, but Brown should sign it anyway,” editorial, Sept. 15)

There is a very simple phrase to describe what this bill would legalize: assisted suicide. Yet nowhere do you use the words “suicide” or “kill.” Instead, you use the euphemisms preferred by the bill’s supporters. Rather than use the word “suicide,” you write that the bill “would allow terminally ill patients to hasten death along.”

Whatever one’s stand on this issue, journalists should not avoid the painful realities of assisted suicide by using pretty euphemisms.

Steve Mills, Glendale

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To the editor: Our nation’s Declaration of Independence speaks of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as “unalienable rights.”

Life includes the death of oneself and loved ones; liberty includes the right to choose how one lives and how one dies; and as for the pursuit of happiness, this is difficult when forced to take debilitating medical treatments or strapped to a machine that is artificially prolonging life.

How appropriate that on the anniversary of 9/11 — a day on which life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was stolen from 3,000 people — the California Legislature took a step toward fulfilling those rights by passing a bill allowing the terminally ill to choose the time, place and method of their passing.

Sign the bill, Gov. Brown. Sign the bill.

Chuck Crawford, San Diego

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