One can hope that the widespread legalization of assisted suicide does not travel to America, but it is only a stone’s throw from current abortion messaging.
Swiss police made several arrests after a woman died recently using a new suicide technology called the Sarco pod, developed by assisted suicide advocacy group The Last Resort.
The woman was an American Midwesterner. She sought the service in Switzerland, as the country legally permits assisted suicide. It differs from euthanasia, which is illegal even in Switzerland, primarily in who administers the means of death: For assisted suicide, the patient does so himself, with help, while euthanasia involves an outside party doing the killing.
At its heart, assisted suicide expresses a desire for complete control over one’s body. Life and suffering have been sufficient, an advocate would say, and now it is up to the person to decide how to enact a calm, quick death.
If the concept sounds familiar, it is. In the United States, 10 states and the District of Columbia hold assisted suicide as legal. For Hawaii, legal assisted suicide was signed into law in 2018. The ruling came through a bill called the “Our Care, Our Choice Act,” a title almost identical to the “my body, my choice” mantra of the pro-abortion movement.
Of course, it is the case that bodily autonomy arguments animate the defenses of abortion and assisted suicide. The desire to exert control is a general human tendency. Vice President Kamala Harris has made the center of her campaign exactly this message — that with her, you have complete control.
She has done so by focusing on abortion, particularly. Harris hammers on “reproductive rights” time after time. Both candidates have made attempts at populist appeal this election season by exploiting the common human motivator of control.
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In some ways, the strategy lines up with the very tight race they are running. Former President Donald Trump is competing for many of the same states as Harris. These states are uncertain, and they are crucial to a presidential victory. The easiest way to stir up support is by promising some means of control and contrasting it with the current state of affairs, be it abortion or grocery prices.
The method is successful at gaining public support for a candidate, but it is not without consequences. With assisted suicide in the picture, it is clear there is room for overconvincing on the autonomy front. It may well be that public opinion grows flippant on the ethics of assisted suicide in favor of the bodily autonomy to which they have become acculturated. The more that bodily autonomy becomes a partisan talking point, the more the switch is likely to happen.