I am writing in response to Dr. J. Eric Rommen’s Tuesday letter opposing physician assisted suicide.

Years ago, my parents and I kept a vigil at my grandfather’s bedside as he was dying. Grandpa was 87. My father, who was a doctor, took me aside one day and told me, “I could give him a shot that would end this in 30 seconds, and he wouldn’t feel any pain. But I’d go to prison for it.” As a result, we had to watch my beloved grandfather suffer for three more days. What difference would three more days have made after 87 years?

Years later, my father suffered a stroke and spent about 10 years in a vegetative state. He would never have wanted to exist that way, but we couldn’t legally do anything to stop it. He endured one health crisis after another. My mother finally had Dad’s doctor discontinue his tube feedings. It took almost two weeks for my father to starve to death. That was the legal way to do it.

My father practiced medicine for decades, but in the end, medicine did nothing to end his suffering. I don’t see the sense in this.

The Hippocratic Oath says, “First, do no harm.”

I do not see the harm in speeding up something that’s inevitable. Death comes to all of us eventually. Why can’t we make it more humane?

Jody Nice Harnish

Everett