estigated" (p. 462). Leo's term, "killing," is emotionally loaded, especially when compared to Maguire's sanitized, hygienic term, "the termination of life." Words such as "homicide" and "killing" evoke images of street gangs and desperate criminals. Maguire's terminology, on the other hand, evokes images of doctors, hospitals, and healing. When Leo puts the phrase, "physician-assisted suicide" in quotation marks, he is telling us that this phrase is merely a euphemism for murder. Nice-sounding words conceal the truth that "at least every sixth or seventh case of euthanasia in the Netherlands is not 'physician-assisted suicide' but homicide, approved by no one, reported to no one" (p. 462). In other words, the Netherlands has solved the problem of euthanasia by ignoring it. Most people know that problems usually get worse when we ignore them.Leo then makes a transition to an issue that was current in 1991, when he wrote his article. Initiative 199 was on the ballot in Washington. This initiative offered a euthanasia plan much like the one in the Netherlands. Leo uses the terms "fudgers and blurrers" to describe the doctors who practice euthanasia here, as well as in the discussion of the situation in the Netherlands. They are not competent doctors, according to this terminology. Instead, they are slapstick comedians. Warning that the statistics on euthanasia would be clouded by classifying mercy killings as natural deaths, Leo reminds us that Initiative 199 has no "strong guarantees that all deaths will be truly voluntary" (p. 462). Leo is not alone in his fears.An article in the magazine, Commonweal, attacks the initiative with its title, "Dial 119 for Murder." While admitting that modern technology sometimes prolongs life for no good reason, at great expense in terms of both money and suffering, this article argues that the solution certainly "is not physician-assisted, state-legitimized suicide. Rather, it is the watch...
