Physician-assisted Suicide

A week or two ago, the Supreme Court and stepped in to release an opinion that wasn't a split decision. By a vote of 6-3 (with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia and Thomas dissenting), the Supreme Court ruled with the State of Oregon and uphold the assisted-suicide law. Now, before the self-righteous condemn this decision as the Left Coast hippies finding ways to kill everyone who's either not born yet or about to die in some vague, poorly-defined quest for...something.

Which is the question that I've always wondered about for all the "pro-life" movement, be the issue abortion or physician-assisted suicide. I'm genuinely curious about what the motives assigned to doctors by those who oppose abortion or physician-assisted suicide are: power? A genuine desire to do harm? Homicidal rage?

But I digress. The main point is that the Supreme Court made the right decision in upholding the Oregon law, a few reasons of which I'll mention here: erring on the side of the 10th amendment, rewarding a carefully-written legislature's efforts to protect the system from abuse, and protecting the inherent rights of people who don't have full control over their bodies.

The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states the following:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

(From my pocket Constitution, provided free via the Cato Institute)

There is no provision in the Constitution giving Congress or the executive the sole power to regulate life and death, nor how they are applied. Obviously, Congress is empowered to create criminal codes, but so are the states. If a state makes a law that does not conflict with federal law, there is no conflict of so-called "federal question," the primary means by which lawsuits between the federal and state governments percolate up through the courts.

There is no such federal law that states cannot allow doctors to fulfill patients' requests for lethal doses. The question, then, is whether or not the doctors are guilty of murder, as it is they who provide the lethal doses. After all, what do you call it if someone asks you to kill them; murder or assisted suicide?

The Oregon law certainly seeks to resolve this question by placing the answer firmly in the latter camp. The Supreme Court clearly thought that the legislation had been crafted carefully enough to warrant deferring to the judgment of the representatives of the people of Oregon and deferred to their 10th amendment rights.

In the nine years since the "Death with Dignity" Law was passed, not one case has been found (to the detriment of the law's opponents and a boon to the methodical work of the doctors that implement it) where someone was terminated wrongly or without the possibility of a cure. The law requires that two doctors agree that the patient has no possibility of a cure and that the patient has less than six months to live. For this process to begin, of course, the chronically ill party must agree to begin the review.

What's amazing isn't even the simplicity of this process, but its difficulty in promoting abuse of the system and the fact that a legislative body made it. Since the process must begin with the patient and not the doctor, it's not as though a bunch of greedy HMOs can start killing off their most costly patients.

But there's a larger issue at work here and one that I've saved for last because it's the best:

People have the inalienable right to die if they please.

There are many who would argue that suicide is a sin; I'm not going to debate the merits of that claim here, mostly because I'm not exactly an authority on sin. To those of you who do view the "Death with Dignity" law as sinful, I have three counterpoints:

1) It's not in the government's business to make laws based on what is and is not a sin;
2) If you're utterly convinced suicide is a sin, it's probably not for you. That doesn't mean it might not be the right choice (albeit a tragic one) for someone else.
3) Where do you get the chutzpah to decide for other people what means they can use to die if they are going to anyway?

The merits of this law are that there are very stringent barriers set up in order to prevent abuse by HMOs and insurance companies while allowing those that want to die peacefully and without pain to do so if they please. This law does not give a legal umbrella to someone who wants to be a second for someone committing seppuku, for instance. They'd have to buy a plane ticket to Japan for that.

To the people of Oregon - congratulations. You have vindication from the land's highest court that your law obeys all Constitutional principles. Thank you for your leadership in branching out and letting all people reassert their right to die if they please, even if their bodies are crippled or ill beyond belief.

Public Monopolies

The public school system is more firmly and deeply established than it ever has in human history. For the better part of a century, state-funded schools have been the dominant institution in educating children. Nine out of every ten schools in the United States are funded by local, state, and/or federal taxes. In those nine out of ten schools, a similar proportion is mostly from local property taxes, which are based on a certain rate for each $1,000 their homes are worth. Some local districts are in dire fiscal straits, which leads to borrowing in the form of bonds and such to make up the deficits. However, local property taxes are the primary engine by which schools are maintained, teachers are paid, and textbooks are bought.

Local property taxes are raised locally and paid locally to local schools. If you live in a district with expensive homes, the district raises more money in property taxes and spends more on schools, teachers, and textbooks. If you're from a district with less expensive homes...well, you get the idea. Usually, there are only one or two schools close enough for a viable busing system to take students from their homes to school without costing the school too much money or take too much time to be realistic.

What do these transportation barriers mean? More or less, there are state-funded monopolies (or duopolies, as the case may be) in the market for education. Since only about 10% of schools are private, there isn't exactly a readily established infrastructure that can move in and build new schools quickly or easily to provide an alternative to the state-funded establishment. Now, I'm not knocking state-funded schools: I was perfectly satisfied with my Washington State K-12 Public School experience. However, I know that's neither the mood nor the experience of the aggregate; furthermore, simple satisfaction doesn't excuse the fact that we are talking about monopolies or duopolies here, and state-sanctioned ones at that.

There is only one other situation where the government can get away with something like a state-enforced monopoly: patents. In reward for developing something manmade, unique, and useful, the government allows an inventor a 20-year state-protected monopoly on a product. This reward is a temporary, direct recognition for one inventor's efforts. Public schools are permanent, indirect recognition for the efforts of progressive reformers a century prior. Put in that context, do public school officials really deserve the monopoly/duopoly that they've been granted by the state?

To be fair, public school officials don't directly gain "monopoly profits"; public schools, after all, don't obey the typical monopoly firm's returns. That being said, think of the non-monetary rewards: no competition from other schools (except in very rare circumstances), no incentive to develop a better product, or to cater to their "customers," or to cut costs...the list goes on. Industrial organization economists have entire models to describe efficiencies within public agencies - from the few I've seen, they aren't particularly flattering.

Getting back to the previous question - do public school administrators really deserve the security of a monopoly/duopoly situation they find themselves in? The straightforward answer is, of course, no. No one deserves complacency that they didn't earn.

After all this, what is the solution to low standardized test scores, expensive schools, large class sizes, a dearth of math and science excellence, and a lack of choice for parents and children?

The simple fact is that I can supply no certainties, only inferences. I've always mused upon just what would happen if every public school were sold at auction tomorrow. Think about what might happen: suddenly, there would be a rush (relatively speaking: it takes at least a year to build a new school, if not two or three) of new schools in upper-class neighborhoods, to maximize the profits from the high prices that wealthy parents would doubtless pay for their children to be educated. With new schools, suddenly there's a demand for new teachers. There aren't nearly enough teachers to satisfy the huge number of schoolkids; has anyone not read a news story about a school district that needs more teachers? They should honestly be making a whole lot more than they are now. In the short run, teachers should be making a whole lot more money. In the long run, more kids will see the high salaries teachers would/should be making and go into teaching, raising the supply and depressing the wages. As the cost of labor (teachers) falls, the costs of new schools falls accordingly, and suddenly it's profitable to open schools in poorer districts, opening the doors of oppurtunity for more and more kids at a sustainable rate without being a drain on state budgets. Of course, a plan like this would also deprive the state of an enormous revenue-raiser: with privatized schools means that the rationale behind property taxes is eliminated.

The story mentioned above is not foolproof, nor is it something that can happen overnight. Transitions like this are difficult and I have no simple plan for the students that are lost in the transition, nor can I make any guarantees for the finished product. Will privatized schools teach students better, or will they simple cut costs by hiring unqualified teachers? I hope against hope for the former, but I worry about the possibility of the latter.

This kind of experiment is not something that could be experimented upon easily; a large region would have to be entirely privatized and given enough time for competition to change school administration culture significantly in order to show some progress and I doubt that politicians are willing to wait that long. Statesmanship, not politics, is situated for the long term, and precious few statesman are in office nowadays.

Until we elect a few statesmen - or at the very least a few muster the courage to run for office and win - we'll have to settle for hypotheticals. The intellectual exercise is stimulating, but it simply won't satisfy the way decisive action will.

An Introduction

I want to introduce myself before I begin to examine the world in which we live and some of the issues that will be discussed on this blog. To be more specific, this blog will address whatever pressing issue that passes my fancy. These issues could range from school vouchers to the role of neighbors and local environments to physician-assisted suicide. So be prepared for posts which may or may not be related to each other.

At the time of this post, I am a student at American University. I'm majoring in political science and economics, minoring in math and philosophy. My primary focus is economics and I tend to interpret issues in that context, even if the issues themselves may not lend themselves to such a simple analysis. This is not true for every post that I plan to make, but many of them follow this trend, so don't be surprised.

Welcome to the Den.

Let There Be Posts

And the Penguin Roller said, "Let there be posts". And there were posts. And they were Good.