Suicide is not peaceful, but it is permanent (Opinion)

Over the past few years during the battle over whether New Jersey was going to legalize "physician-assisted suicide," I've gotten to know a person who knows this issue all too well.

Kristen Hanson lost her husband J.J. in December 2017 after he fought courageously to live despite a diagnosis of brain cancer. After being told he had only a few months to live, JJ fought. And he fought hard. This brave Marine grabbed another few incredible years on this earth. Time he spent with his wife and children. Time he spent educating people on the real dangers of preying on people with terrible diseases and pushing an option of having them kill themselves to end the pain.

January, 2016 discussion with J.J. Hanson — story continues below video

Kristen has courageously taken up this fight. She has joined me in the past on Chasing News, on the New Jersey 101.5 morning show and on our #SpeakingPodcast.

Now that the battle in New Jersey is over — at least as far as the legislation that took effect this week — our attention has turned to educating people and making sure they know what the politicians either lied about or were too ignorant or lazy to find out.

Those pesky facts? Suicide is anything but peaceful. Adding to what our news anchor Eric Scott has written about based on a study done in the Netherlands, Kristen discussed a recent study talking about the potential for a suicide to go horribly wrong with patients living and suffering for days in some cases.

As you know, in New Jersey, despite the potential for a large number of patients to have complications requiring a doctor, physicians are not allowed to administer the lethal dose. The patient wishing to end his or her life has to do it themselves. Hopefully over time, America will rise to the occasion and our culture will begin to value all life. Life is about struggle. Life is about adapting and overcoming adversity. Life is about living.

And aside from the potential of insurance companies to deny life-saving treatments — which has happened in Oregon and California — encouraging patients to take the less expensive path of suicide, there's the very real potential that modern medicine can't accurately predict how long a patient with a terminal illness will live.

Not only did Kristen's husband JJ live for nearly three years after being told he had months, but one father who recently wrote a book on the subject is alive EIGHT years after being told he was going to die.

February, 2019 discussion with Kristen Hanson — story continues below video:

Life is about hope. Life is about having the will to live and push through whatever obstacles are thrown your way. No one ever said life would be easy. But in a culture of death that seems to have absorbed the world, whether it's the devaluing of kids with Down syndrome and others in the disabled community to abortion up to birth, we have a serious cultural crisis. Thankfully, we can be hopeful and optimistic as long as there are strong, courageous leaders like Kristen Hanson on the job.

Thank you, Kristen, we appreciate all that you are doing on behalf of so many suffering people.

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