[Published in The Commons, March 23, 2011]
“Death with Dignity” Bill Promises Only Indignity
The least costly treatment for any illness is lethal medication. –Walter Dellinger
When I was younger, I fully supported physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill people. I believed that people who are dying should be able to decide when and how the end arrives, and that physicians should be able to make the process as painless and as dignified as possible.
After all, isn’t the decision to end one’s life a personal one? Doesn’t the right of self-determination dictate that one should have control over deciding the manner of one’s death?
If physician-assisted suicide had no consequences beyond the life of the person in question, the answer to both questions would be a resounding “Yes.” But living in society means that when a decision has a serious, negative impact upon the lives of others, we must limit a person’s ability to carry it out.
And so, as I reflect upon the consequences of legalizing physician-assisted suicide, I now find myself against it. The so-called “Death with Dignity” bill before the Vermont Legislature, if passed into law, would have a profoundly negative impact upon the lives of people who do not wish to avail themselves of its provisions.
In reading the bill, I find myself deeply troubled by the criteria by which one is eligible to choose physician-assisted suicide. So long as the patient is fully competent to make an informed decision, the only requirements are that he or she “must have a terminal illness and must have fewer than six months left to live.” A terminal condition is defined as “an incurable and irreversible disease which would, within reasonable medical judgment, result in death within six months.”
Now, in almost all discussions that I have ever had in my lifetime about this issue, proponents of physician-assisted suicide have always argued that it is simply inhumane to allow a human being to live in a state of agony, and that physicians must provide a quick and painless way out. The possibility of unendurable pain has always formed the basis on which most people have argued for the right to die.
But the “Death with Dignity” bill says nothing about ending one’s physical pain. This omission may derive from the fact that most kinds of physical distress can now be managed by medication; except for certain kinds of neuropathy, it would be difficult to identify a condition that would cause untreatable levels of pain. If such is the case, why would someone with six months to live want to end his or her life prematurely?
The answer lies in the word “dignity.” The bill’s proponents argue that one should be able to maintain one’s dignity in the dying process. And what are considered the barriers to dignity? In reading the words of those who support physician-assisted suicide, I have learned the following: It is considered undignified to be unable to toilet oneself. It is considered undignified to wear a diaper. It is considered undignified to be in a wheelchair. It is considered undignified to be dependent on the care of others. To some, it is even considered undignified to no longer be able to participate in so-called “normal” activities.
By implication, the bill suggests that finding oneself in any of these conditions is a perfectly valid reason to commit suicide.
I find this kind of reasoning both dangerous and deeply insulting. There are many, many disabled people who are unable to toilet themselves, who wear adult diapers, who use wheelchairs, who depend upon the care of others, and who cannot participate in the activities that typically able-bodied people take for granted. And, as should be obvious to all thinking people, their lives have the same inherent dignity and meaning as the lives of other human beings.
That we equate dependency and the wrong undergarments with indignity is nothing more than our own cultural blindness. It is a choice that we make as a society, and nothing more.
To equate disability — especially severe disability — with indignity is dehumanizing. And to imply that any of these conditions is a reasonable basis upon which to commit suicide is to devalue the lives of people who live with these conditions for years, decades, and lifetimes.
This kind of devaluation is the greatest possible indignity that a disabled person can suffer, and it leads to all the many indignities with which disabled people so often must contend: isolation, exclusion, indifference, resource scarcity, financial insecurity, and vulnerability to abuse. Such indignities have nothing to do with a state of being disabled. They have everything to do with a society that devalues human beings who are not typically able-bodied.
In such a society, we must not avail people the option of ending their lives because they have internalized a fear and hatred of disability. Instead, we must love and support people through the process of dying, a process that comes to all of us.
After all, the decision to end one’s life does not take place in a vacuum. It takes place in a society that devalues those who are fragile, dependent, and vulnerable. If, as a society, we communicate that disability is undignified, that true worth derives from independence and “productivity,” and that we support suicide for those on the “wrong” side of the equation, how many people can bear up against that sort of thinking and make a truly independent, empowered decision at the end of life?
How many people, in the midst of the dying process, are even aware that the value system in play is arbitrary and prejudicial?
Certainly, there are provisions in the proposed bill that seek to ensure that people make decisions free of outside pressure, but realistically speaking, such safeguards provide no guarantees. A person in a weakened physical condition, dependent upon family members for housing, medicine, transportation, and care, is unlikely to tell a doctor that the people upon whom he or she depends are exerting pressure to end it all.
This kind of pressure can become magnified when money is at stake; family members have been known to feel that it is better to safeguard an inheritance than to spend it on expensive care.
Given that family members can feel this way, imagine what pressure the insurance companies would bring to bear upon a person when suicide is an option. When people who are non-ambulatory and dependent are considered to have lives without dignity, it is not unreasonable to assume that, in a healthcare economy of scarce resources, cost-benefit analyses will come out in favor of those considered “more deserving” — that is, those who have the potential to survive and to become “productive” once again.
Treatment will be denied people considered unworthy of it, but suicide will always be covered.
Would such decisions contribute to the dignity of anyone with a serious medical condition? Not by a long shot.
A number of Vermont disability and healthcare groups oppose physician-assisted suicide, including the Vermont Center for Independent Living, the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights, the Vermont Medical Society, the Vermont State Nurses Association, the Vermont Organization of Nurse Leaders, and the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare. National organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and Not Dead Yet also oppose it.
Please add your voice to the chorus of opposition to the “Death with Dignity” bill. Let your legislators know that its provisions threaten to deny each of us the dignity that we deserve at the time of our greatest need for the compassion and respect of others.
We are all fragile. We are all vulnerable. And we all deserve to live in a society that respects and safeguards the inherent worth and dignity of every life.
© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
I believe social skill deficiencies are enhanced by the changing attitudes and behaviors in society. In the old days social skills involved saying please and thank you, and using the right fork. Today good social skills means being able to extricate yourself from gas lighting or bullying and saving face without over responding and doing something criminal.
It is clear that you are trying to apply the arcane beliefs about the value of life from your childhood rather than adapting to the modern paradigm of survival of the fittest (that was an attempt at sarcasm). Seriously, the attitude today is to bully the disabled until they are marginalized or just plain give up.
I agree that the “push the disabled off the ledge” mentality now prevalent in society puts a whole new and dangerous meaning to the words of the law. There was a day when society viewed murder as a far greater crime than Bernie Madoff ever committed and the punishment was indicative of that. We seem to have lost our ability to value life more than money.
Perhaps if we focused more on helping folks live their short spin on this planet to the highest degree of fulfillment possible, laws like this would be moot.
Perhaps if we focused more on helping folks live their short spin on this planet to the highest degree of fulfillment possible, laws like this would be moot.
I agree completely, Dan. Well said.
I read your post with interest. My mother died in 2008 after suffering neuropathic pain that couldn’t not be controlled. Over the last eight months of her life, she lost her ability to walk. the ability to get into and out of chairs and bed, control of her bladder and bowel functions, and endured my Dad’s death. At 70 years old, it was not the time to convince her that she could be disabled and happy. She spent 33 days in the hospital at the end of her life. It was 33 days of excruciating pain and invasive procedures that she didn’t want. Taxpayers paid a small fortune since she had multiple procedures and most of her time was in ICU. Medicaid paid for most of it. My family and I tried to make the best decisions we could and get her the care she nedded. I was not relieved when she died, I was numb. I didn’t care about her money. I cared that I couldn’t help her or make the pain go away. She should have had the option of death with dignity- no matter how it made society feel. It should have been her choice.
Laurie, I’m so sorry for what your mother went through. For people who are dying, I absolutely believe that there ought to be a way out of excruciating neuropathic pain that can’t be controlled by medication. Some things are beyond endurance, and I can’t see that giving people a quick way out when they’re wracked with pain would harm anyone else in any way. I’m willing to listen to someone who thinks I’m wrong about that, but that’s how I see it at this point.
But that’s not what the bill in question is about. It’s not about pain. It’s about “dignity,” a socially constructed notion that has profound implications for people who aren’t dying.
I don’t believe that one has to be disabled and happy, because clearly, being disabled is not easy, particularly at the end of life. But there’s a difference between being happy and having dignity, and in the absence of unendurable pain, there are ways to give people dignity without invasive procedures that they don’t want. I have an advance directive that specifies that I do not want such procedures done if my condition is terminal. I’m all for letting nature take its course when all hope of recovery is gone. I’m just not for hastening the process with lethal medication.
Absolutely. This reminds me of a poster hanging in our Disability Services Office:
“Listen: Disabled people do not want your pity, or your lethal mercy. We want life, we want freedom, we want dignity. We’re not dead yet!”
Love it!
I think you’re making a semantic argument and are therefore missing the point.
The point of the bill is to allow those who are
terminal to choose to end their life. The dignity refers to the choice. You are
applying the idea that diapers et al, are therefore, an indignity. But that does not
necessarily follow. To be fair, perhaps those were not the best examples for
those providing testimony to use, and it would have been better to stay focused
on terminal pain.
I’m not making a semantic argument at all. Most of the discussion around choice does not revolve around the issue of untreatable pain, for the simple reason that most pain is treatable. Instead, the discussion revolves around the question of dignity and disability.
If dignity lies in being able to make a choice about when and how to die, then we really have to question on what basis we allow people to make that choice, and what its implications are for everyone. If it’s to find relief from excruciating physical pain that will never end, that’s one thing. If it’s because it’s considered more dignified to die than to be disabled, that’s something else altogether.
Yeah, I think I’m on the other side of this one too. In 2008, I watched my father’s mother die. Then last year in February my mother’s mother had a severe stroke, lost all consciousness, and was completely unresponsive. Our only choice was to starve and dehydrate her to death, in order to honor her wishes to be allowed to die. We did our best to make her comfortable, we have no idea, of course, if she was or not, it was almost 2 weeks before she finally succumbed. In my opinion, that was unnecessarily cruel. Had my *dog* stroked out, I would not have had to starve it to death in order to avoid murder charges. But that’s not even the one that sticks with me as I read your post.
Last May, a mere 3 months after he lost his wife, my grandfather finally succumbed to his own starvation. He consciously and willingly starved himself to death. It was a miserable death, but the only choice he felt he was left with. My grandmother had Alzheimers disease and lost her ability to effectively communicate about a year before her death. My grandfather felt he’d lost her, he was blind and couldn’t see her, she was mute and out of her mind, he was alone. He felt trapped in the nursing home in which they were being cared for. He hated every second of his existence and he begged my mother repeatedly to help him die, but she couldn’t. We were with them every day, caring for them, seeing to it that they were getting the proper care when we couldn’t be there, and loving them…doing our very best to make sure that they were as comfortable and well cared for as we were able to provide.
My grandfather didn’t have a terminal illness, he was moderately ambulatory, he wore diapers but wasn’t completely incontinent, he was treated for depression. In the end at 91 years old, he took his life in the only way he was legally able to. It was painful for him, and us. An awful thing I hope no one ever has to witness. Over 45 days of watching a man slowly kill himself. Begging him to eat. Trying to sneak the food to him. Watching him rip the IV for fluids from his arms. Seeing him literally wither before our eyes. It’s not the way he wanted to end his life. He had a right to a more dignified method of death.
Laura, I’m so sorry for your losses. What terrible things to have to see.
If the bill in VT passes, it would provide no respite for people in your grandparents’ situations. According to the provisions of the bill, the patient would have to have a doctor determine that he or she has 6 months or less to live, the patient would have to ask for the lethal pills himself or herself, more than once, and the pills would have to be self-administered. The bill doesn’t cover someone who isn’t terminal, and the lethal medication could not be given to someone who is unresponsive. Doing so would be considered a crime. I don’t think that anyone has considered applying this kind of law any more broadly than it’s currently written.
I will take your word that this bill is flawed and written in a way that marginalizes the disabled….but I do support the right to “Death with Dignity” as an idea…..the devil is just in the details.
Yes, and the details are the issue here.
I agree with the others in that we can not disallow laws to assist people who want to end their suffering because the terminology may be insensitive to some. Like Judy said, the devil is in the detail. I watched my grandmother suffer a terribly slow and miserable death. Loving someone and simultaneously willing their death as the pain is unbearable for them is an awful situation to find yourself in. I take your point Rachel that the dignity aspect rather than the pain aspect has been emphasised, but I think the primary issue needs to be choice.
It’s not about the terminology being insensitive; it’s about the basis on which one can choose legally assisted suicide being deeply prejudicial. If this bill passes, it will be just another iteration of the trope that severe disability is the same as indignity, and that death is preferable to both. That’s not just insensitive. It’s dangerous to severely disabled people who are not dying.
Again, the bill does not address unendurable pain. I agree that people should have a choice as to how much physical pain they can bear when there is no way to assuage it. But this bill is much broader than that.
Sorry Rachel but I can’t agree. This is about the right of those who are terminally ill. It specifically states, with 6 months left to live. I don’t see this as a slippery slope, this is not an attempt to exterminate the disabled. It is about choice for those for whom there is no way out of their suffering. IN the end the decision is made by the person in question, not forced upon them by the state.
A couple of things:
1) It’s true: the bill is not about exterminating the disabled. However, it is about devaluing life when it comes to severe disability. It’s a very slippery slope, because no choice takes place out of context. If a severely disabled person is continually told by the society that he or she has a life worthy of suicide, that person is much more likely to want to end it all, and there will be fewer and fewer people reassuring the person that his or her life still has value. Plus, defining severe disability as being without dignity, to the point that death is preferable, has all kinds of implications regarding funding that could make for a better quality of life. When states have to look at budget cuts, who do you think will be seen as worthy of taxpayer money? The person with a severe disability, whose life is seen as worse than death? Not likely.
2) In Oregon, assisted suicide has come very close to being forced upon people, because there have been cases in which insurance companies have refused to pay for treatment, but have offered to cover the cost of lethal medication. If one is denied treatment to improve one’s condition or alleviate suffering, the choices become very narrow, indeed.
OMG…my daughter fits into so many categories…she is dead meat!! AMEN to you Rachel. You are DEAD ON TARGET. This is EXACTLY why the disability community is fundamentally opposed to this sort of legislation. The slope is SOOOO slippery, it cannot be avoided. Keep on saying it sister!
Thank you, Claire. It is, indeed, a very slippery slope.
An excellent letter and reason not to support this legislation…or in fact any legislation that deals with termination or forced continuation of life. I believe that only the person has a right to choose to end their life, no one else, neither doctor, nor partner nor guardian. I have seen 6 month prognoses become 6 years of life.
Life and death are part of a continuum, they are individual choices never to be legislated. Death can be dignified or very undignified; just as disability can be very dignified or undignified. Dignity arises from the care and love of one’s caretaker or parent or spouse of friend. Changing an adult diaper can be a dignified act of love or compassion; it can also be an undignified act made more so by the indifference of a paid caretaker…we read many cases of elderly or disabled abuse. If I were totally disabled and relegated to indifferent custodial care, I would choose to take my life. Personal integrity and dignity can easily be voided by inhumane and indifferent care…transitioning to another point on the continuum is always an option. It’s a personal ethical choice, not a bureaucratic processed event by others.
Phil, I agree completely that maintaining one’s dignity has to do with the kind of love and care one receives. In a truly caring community, the Vermont bill would be unnecessary. In the society in which we live, it plays to people’s fears about ending up in a hospital or nursing home, cared for by strangers. When that’s what one is facing, one might feel that death is preferable, but why is the solution to dispense lethal medication? Why isn’t the solution to improve quality of care?
I’m reminded of the people who end up in the Home for the Dying created by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. There is tremendous suffering that goes on there, and yet, there is death with dignity, because of the way the women love and care for the people. One man told an interviewer: “I’ve lived like an animal on the streets, but I am dying like an angel, loved and cared for.” That’s the way to provide dignity to dying people.
I recently saw a blog entry by a man whose wife is house-bound with very severe ME (known as CFIDS in the USA), which said that someone had watched a video he had made of his wife and said “she should not have to suffer that, she should have the right to die”. The thing is that this woman had not expressed a wish to die at all, she was just saying what she was going through (terrible pain, intermittent paralysis, extreme sensitivities to sound and smells, various other unpleasant neurological symptoms, all worsened by the slightest exertion, including talking) and wanted to raise awareness.
A little over a year ago, we had a case in the UK of a mother tried for helping her daughter (Lynn Gilderdale) die. Lynn also had very severe ME, more so than the woman in the video — at the time of her death in December 2008, she had been entirely bedridden in a darkened room, unable to speak or swallow, in constant and terrible pain, experiencing constant nausea, since mid-1992 when she was 14. She had also endured terrible abuse from medical staff who refused to believe her illness was real (even though it was very obvious), a sexual assault, and repeated medical disasters, so she must have been terribly traumatised as well.
That case really made me seriously consider my views on the subject; although I don’t support legalising assisted suicide altogether, I think that in cases like this one, some compassion needs to be shown, especially when the person who gave the assistance clearly did so unwillingly and because the victim begged them to, especially after having suffered so terribly for so long (the mother in this case had cared for Lynn, more or less non-stop, for the whole of her illness). I think we have the balance more or less right here; it’s not legal, but we don’t always throw someone in jail when they have to make a decision like that in very extreme circumstances. I also gained the impression that some of the disability community didn’t really get the difference between disabled and sick, particularly as miserably ill as this woman was (and she stuck it out for so long).
I agree that in cases of extreme, chronic pain, there must be a compassionate and painless way out. But, again, the Vermont bill would not cover a situation like that of Lynn Gilderdale, because she did not have a terminal illness. The bill is all about “dignity” for people with a prognosis of 6 months to live; it’s not about ending chronic, untreatable pain for people who could go on for manyyears in a state of misery.
A well-written, and well thought-out post. I come to this from various angles: I am not in favour of assisted suicide, but found myself accepting my mother’s choice to join Dignitas (the Swiss assisted-suicide organisation) as her emphysema developed. I did not much like my mother, and considered her selfish in many ways; but I do not believe her choice to opt for assisted suicide was all about avoiding her own suffering. Sure, she didn’t want to suffer, but I know she didn’t want to force us to watch her suffer either – her condition caused my father immense distress as it was. Her own opinion of “dignity” was that which she felt she could cope with. Whether other people could cope with, for example, toileting help, was irrelevent to her; she would have been unable to do so. So, I could never have insisted she suffer that which she felt to be “indignities” just because *we* couldn’t face the idea of her ending her own life. However, my mother was (as ever) in complete control of her situation, and I am certain that her need to retain that control was partly what drove her. She was under no emotional or financial pressure, and like you, I dread to consider the outcome for those who are. In the end my mother died naturally, and with blessed little additional suffering. I am more thankful for that than you can imagine, and on so many levels.
My husband and I were discussing this whole subject at length tonight, and the issue of control emerged as one underlying (and unspoken) reason for the bill’s creation. It’s become clear that much is driving this bill that has nothing to do with either pain or dignity, but with ultimate control over the dying process. I have a lot of issues with exerting such control, because it seems to be part and parcel of our culture’s obsession with being able to control nearly everything, so that any natural process is simply never allowed to play out. I have no issue with controlling pain, or with medical intervention, when desired, but there seems be an element of fear here — fear of death — that is expressing itself as a need for control over the time and manner of death. Perhaps to some, that is no big deal, but to me, it’s very problematic. I would venture to guess that a large part of discrimination against disabled people derives from the fear of losing control over one’s (able) body, and so I’m inclined against any bill that pushes the need for control of the body to such an extreme.
I do think that a lot of the “Death with dignity” activism is focused on stigmatizing disability as the worst fate ever. I also think that the idea that you can say with certainty “You have six months to live” is medically unsound in a lot of cases where it might be stated. While the idea of assisted suicide may be compassionate, I do not think most of the push for it is quite so compassionate.
I agree completely, Lisa. The bill sets up doctors as gods who can tell you with relative certainty how long you have to live. There are people who have been told they had six months to live who went on for several more years — and good years, at that. And the stigmatizing of disability has vast consequences for disabled people who are nowhere close to dying.
On the one hand, I believe in the right of any person to commit suicide, period (no further justifications required).
That’s not meant as value judgment about suicide being generally right or wrong-it’s subjective opinion of “fair” place for where to draw line between my individual personal mind/body and whom or what lies outside me.
I can’t imagine denying someone ownership of their own body-insisting someone else must endure agony, needless suffering, as I fear encroaching interference of other people with my own bodily choices.
I feel very strongly that if and when I have to decide-barring swift, sudden death in the meantime-I want the “right to die”, with whichever terms I specify (we each differ in our particulars that constitute “quality of life”). Ultimately, no one has an endless “right to stay alive”, because death is inevitable. Legal penalties should not accompany an already difficult transition.
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On other hand, this comparison occurs to me:
It’s like a job you can’t get fired from (maybe you have seniority, tenure, or “an in” with someone there)-the only way to leave is for you, the employee, to quit (which presumes it’s of your own volition). The bosses can’t formally terminate you, but they might be willing and/or able to coerce, incentivize, pressure you to quit (by how they treat you in ways that defy/escape documentation, including the conditions under which you are working).
It’s the sort of conflict of interest where it can be hard to prove or discern the “truth” of which party was exerting more control over the outcome (who, if anyone, is being “framed” or “gaslit”).
There are already very real risks of people being targeted by other people, which could be worsened by having legality as excuse for neglect & abuse, lack of care, shunting resources away from those deemed “cost-intensive”. I’m opposed to prospect of life being made so unpleasant & miserable for a vulnerable (physically, mentally, or both) person that it tips balance towards that person opting for suicide (by legal request, or by furtive measures-as is currently the case).
Where does a society/government draw line between those it is willing/able to support/assist and those it is not ? What are these delineations based on, who decides who matters ? What is a reasonable, compassionate, decent “standard of living” (and whose job, if anyone’s, is it to ensure this) ?
One doesn’t wish to provide cover for those who would violate the (intended) spirit of the law while seemingly adhering to the letter of the law-this effect sadly afflicts so much of our legislation.
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So…I’m conflicted, ambivalent, torn, as usual.
I have the same concern you do about shunting away resources from people so that suicide begins to seem like the only option. In Vermont right now, the governor’s proposed budget cuts services for elders who wish to remain in their homes; without such services, for assistance with basic tasks like food shopping, a number of elders will end up in state-run nursing homes, away from familiar surroundings, being cared for by strangers. In that situation, an elder with less than six months to live might very easily opt for suicide; in his or her own home, the situation may not seem nearly so bleak. It concerns me that the “death with dignity” bill is up for consideration at exactly the same moment that the governor is proposing major cuts to services for elderly, developmentally disabled, and mentally ill people. Not a good confluence of events, it seems to me.
I’ve been thinking about my reply for days now, because you explained your position in a way that made me understand the harm that could be caused by such a law. Because I’ve worked in several Nursing Homes (for very brief periods), I know that situation is not one I could abide with as a resident. Having no family to take care of me, I have to worry about having a stroke or something that would get me admitted to a Home like that. While I will keep in mind what you’ve said here, for myself, I’m going to maintain my prerogative of choice in the matter in whatever way I can. I’ll leave others to make their own choices.
Letting each person make his or her own choice is basically what I believe should happen. Getting doctors involved with prescribing lethal drugs to terminally ill people — no. There is too much harm that could result.
Rachel,
You always tackle the tough topics with such convincing arguments. I can see where the law could be a slippery slope. I thought I knew exactly where I stood on this one years ago, but life has a way of changing our views on many things. Like you I once believed in assisted suicide. However, I have seen how peacefully those under hospice care can die. I also am aware that my views of a peaceful death might be different than the views of others since I have seen patients die who suffered and I have seen patients die peacefully.
First and foremost, if the only issue is pain control, hospice is usually very good at helping with this and they do provide death with dignity. Unfortunately, some doctors have a hard time referring patients to hospice. I had an oncologist tell me once that he did not send people to hospice because they die there. Both my mom and my aunt died while under hospice care and there was dignity. This also allowed the family to be present whereas most that choose suicide do not have that option.
Neurological pain that cannot be controlled with pain medication is not always from a terminal illness so the law as you described it might not help them. Strokes are not always terminal either as you mentioned. The reality is death is not easy and it certainly isn’t easy on the loved ones who have to watch. I have an advanced directive and it includes refusal of intravenous fluids and feeding tubes if I am only expected to live a short time. I hope it will relieve my family of the burden of having to make decisions for me.
Sue, I have done some volunteer work in hospice as well, and I agree that it is an incredible service that brings dignity to the people who participate. The problem is that many people don’t ask for help from hospice until very close to the end, and so don’t get the support that they might have gotten otherwise.
[...] to abuse, possibly cost-saving motivations, etc. Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg described those well in Why I Oppose the Vermont “Death with Dignity” Bill. Basically, interfering with people in either way sucks, and should not happen. But it [...]