The Los Angeles Review of Books examined Katie Englehart’s new book “THE INEVITABLE”
Here is an extract; the entire review is worth reading
The Dignified Exit
July 23, 2021 • By Elena Saavedra Buckle
Opponents of assisted death have long argued that the practice will fall down a slippery slope of exploitation. Poor patients and the elderly, critics say, will feel pressured to die rather than rack up medical costs for their families. People with depression will choose it over trying more treatments. Historically, voluntary euthanasia and eugenics attract similar supporters, and today, some disability rights groups warn that the practices are “fatally tangled.” (One doctor Engelhart speaks with wants to create machines that can provide assisted death more easily than drugs; he sheepishly describes one of his coffin-like prototypes as “a little Auschwitzy.”) So far, though, there is no evidence from Oregon or other states that the laws have caused disproportionate deaths in any demographics. In fact, the opposite might be true. Engelhart spoke to doctors who knew of patients who qualified under the laws, and who wanted to die, but who could not afford the drugs. “Poor patients sometimes had to live,” she writes, “while richer patients got to die.” (end extract)
Read the entire review at
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-dignified-exit/
