Tomorrow, voters will decide whether Colorado will join Oregon, California, Washington, Montana, and Vermont in the nation's assisted suicide club.  They had better think twice; the proposed law, modeled after Oregon's, is susceptible to bizarre consequences.

In liberal circles, assisted suicide is one of the current crusades.  In 2010, PBS aired a Frontline show called "The Suicide Tourist," which was a one-sided endorsement of suicide as our fourth unalienable right.

Admittedly, there is ample precedent for this view.  Societies as diverse as Rome and Japan have not only tolerated, but even extolled suicide as the honorable thing to do when your life becomes a burden to yourself or your society.  Even now, several European countries have assisted suicide laws. 

Christianity and Judaism stand virtually alone in condemning suicide as an act not so much of cowardice as of ingratitude.  They hold that life is a gift from God and therefore that suicide is tantamount to throwing an unwanted gift in the Giver's face, thereby insulting both God and the human race.*

But the Christian view is irrelevant now.  Our POTUS has declared that we are not a Christian country, and he may be right.  The ethics of our politicians and CEOs, the sexual antics of our celebrities, the moral level of our movies and TV shows, and our 60,000,000 abortions would hardly persuade an impartial observer to consider us a Christian nation.

So, refraining from any moral or religious arguments, let's consider the practical inexpediency of legalizing suicide.  The main problem is that, as you grow old or chronically ill, a lot of organizations will want you to die, including your health insurance and pension underwriters, federal and state estate tax agencies, and programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare.

A century ago, Stevenson wrote a story about the promotion of suicide as a financial scheme.  Now we may begin to experience it.  Taking Washington's "Death with Dignity" Act as an example, consider the following hypothetical cases:

(1)  Joe Jones has metastasized cancer that will probably kill him within six to twelve months.  He tells a doctor he doesn't want to wait, goes through a second interview and waiting period, and receives a prescription for suicide pills.  Two weeks later, the doctor reads in a newspaper that Joe's wealthy wife died in her sleep, apparently of heart failure.  Somewhat troubled, the doctor contacts Joe about the pills.  Joe replies that he got the prescription but decided against suicide and threw the pills away.  Joe lives lavishly for a year and dies in a luxurious clinic.

(2)  Sam Smith, with a bad heart and a pile of debts, is so depressed that he asks his doctor for a prescription for suicide pills.  He goes through the legal procedure, receives the pills, and dies a month later.  The doctor, as required by Washington law, fills out the death certificate citing "heart failure" as the cause of death.  Since Sam had a huge insurance policy with an exclusion clause for suicide, the insurance company contacts the doctor and asks him whether the real cause of death was heart failure or suicide.  The doctor refuses to answer on the grounds of physician-patient confidentiality.  The insurance company refuses to pay.

(3)  Betty Blue has advanced cancer that has in other cases responded to chemotherapy.  She wants to try the expensive treatment but is advised by her health care insurer that they will not pay for it.  However, they assure her, they will pay for alleviation of her pain by assisted suicide.

(4)  Mike Miller, a wealthy older man with an attractive young wife, suffers from a case of emphysema that may kill him in a year or two.  His wife insists that he go to Dr. Johnson, who specializes in respiratory diseases.  The doctor's prognosis is not good, and he suggests suicide as an option, which Joe refuses.  The doctor's prescriptions do not seem to help, and Joe is hospitalized.  The doctor takes Joe off painkillers and puts him on stimulants "to strengthen his immune response."  After a week of this ordeal, a barely conscious Joe finally agrees to assisted suicide.  After the estate is settled, the widow donates $100,000 to Dr. Johnson's research foundation in gratitude for his care of her ailing husband.

Do these sound far-fetched?  Let's take a look at the facts:

(1)  An assessment of Washington's "Death With Dignity Act" revealed that 29% of the suicide prescriptions issued are unaccounted for.

(2)  Instances have been cited when insurance companies have done so.

(3)  One such bit of cost-cutting happened to Barbara Wagner in Oregon.  Apparently, insurers there refuse to pay for hospice care and life-saving drugs and instead offer to pay patients $100 to terminate their life.

(4)   Replace Mike's wife with the Obamacare administration.  An integral and oft-stated requirement is a drastically unrealistic and unsubstantiated reduction of Medicare costs.  When all else fails, the terminally or chronically ill will inevitably become a prime target.  Old people who should die to balance the budget but who selfishly refuse to die could easily be persuaded to cooperate by appropriate reductions in allowed treatments.

Permit me to wonder why a bill that's supposed to be about health care insurance includes a provision for mandatory "end of life" counseling.  Sarah Palin was derided for calling this new institution "death panels," but that is what they could very easily become.  Those advisory panels might be suitably staffed by thanaticians.

If Colorado voters don't watch out, the new fourth freedom will become part of the progressive revision of our society – and a much needed cost-saver for Obamacare's unrealistic budget.

* Kurt Vonnegut understood this aspect of suicide when he had his Bokononists in Cats Cradle proclaim, as they killed themselves, "now I will destroy the whole world."