Patients in Vegetative States should not be presumed unaware

The following article was the editorial in the Calgary Herald on August 19, 2013.

Editorial: Calgary Herald - August 19, 2013

Canadians might recall the end-of-life case of Terri Schiavo, in which Schiavo's husband wanted to remove her from life support given her presumed constant vegetative state. It was a famous battle in Florida between her husband and her parents - a legal struggle that ended with her death by starvation.

Researchers at Western University in London, Ont., Ontario have discovered that at least some ostensibly unaware patients are, in fact, conscious of the world around them. This discovery will rightly raise new objections to allowing family or governments to "pull the plug" or remove the feeding tubes of patients who seem unresponsive but who can understand and respond.

Adrian Owen

The Ontario researchers, led by Adrian Owen at the Brain and Research Institute at the university, were able to elicit "yes" or "no" responses using magnetic resonance imaging. Researchers asked three vegetative patients questions about whether they were in a hospital, and if they recognized their names - questions that could provoke a simple yes or no, and which spurred brain activity the scientists could map.

As one Toronto newspaper reported, one patient, 38-year-old Scott Routley, was even able to let researchers know he was not in pain by responding to yes or no questions, with resulting brain activity captured by the MRI machine. This happened 12 years after the automobile accident that left him in a vegetative state.

This discovery casts into doubt the wisdom of past decisions by some family members and the courts who agreed with them, to end people's lives.

Terri Schiavo

In Schiavo's case, the argument over whether she was in a persistent vegetative state lasted 15 years. It started with her collapse due to cardiac arrest in 1990, and her husband's initial court attempt to have her feeding tubes removed in 1998. That was followed by court battles between the husband and Schiavo's parents, who opposed removing the feeding tube.

Her feeding tube was removed several times and then reinserted after more court orders. It was removed for the last time in March 2005 after one last successful court petition by the husband. Schiavo was literally starved and dehydrated to death and died 13 days later.

Routley is in a similar state as Schiavo was, but fortunately for him, the new research backs up what many families have always claimed: their loved ones are not necessarily unaware and in some twilight zone. Until now, they have simply been unable to communicate with those around them.

Plenty of people, including Schiavo's husband, insisted she was not self-aware. The new research shows that such forced starvation was a mistake, and wrong.

Such patients have every right to live and to die peacefully and naturally later, rather than have their lives prematurely ended by removing a feeding tube.

At least in some cases, they may be fully aware of others' decisions to end their lives, and subjected to a death by starvation inflicted on them - something that can hardly be defended as either necessary or compassionate.

Quebec: Be Careful with Euthanasia

The following letter was published in the National Post on August 21, 2013.

Margaret Somerville

By Margaret Somerville

Re: Euthanasia May Land On Doctors’ Agenda, Aug. 17.

This story notes that the Canadian Medical Association’s policy opposing euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide has “not [been] updated since 2007,” implying it needs updating. But a six-year timespan is minuscule for a policy that dates back nearly 2,500 years.

Morphine being administered “to control terminal pain” is proffered as an example of euthanasia “already [being] practiced.” But this is not euthanasia. Moreover, properly chosen and titrated pain management does relieve pain and does not kill people, contrary to popular belief.

The concept of “dying healthy” is, to say the least, puzzling — if you are healthy, you don’t die. That leads to Quebec’s Bill 52, which would allow “medically assisted death” (euthanasia). This story refers to “dying” people having access to euthanasia, but it would not be limited to them. Rather, it would include those who “suffer from an incurable serious illness; suffer from an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability; and suffer from constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain which cannot be relieved in a manner the person deems tolerable.” In short, people who are not terminally ill or mentally, but not physically, ill, could have access to euthanasia. Many disabled, old, frail and vulnerable people would fulfill these criteria.

Margaret Somerville, McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, Montreal.

Canada's Health Minister says no to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) in Calgary included an open debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Canada's Health Minister, Hon. Rona Ambrose, told reporters at the CMA meeting this week that the federal government isn't planning to re-open the debate on euthanasia.

Canada.com reported Ambrose to have said:

“All of us think about the issue because we have elderly grandparents and elderly parents, and it’s on the minds of many because Quebec has introduced their legislation,”

Hon Rona Ambrose

The Calgary Herald reported Ambrose as saying:

“This is an issue that is very emotional for a lot of people — not just regular Canadians, but also physicians,” she told reporters. 

“Parliament voted in 2010 to not change its position on this issue. At this time, we don’t have any intention of changing our position.”

Retired Senator Sharon Carstairs, who was the key author of the senate reports on euthanasia, assisted suicide and palliative care told the CMA delegates:

Only 30 per cent of Canadians have access to palliative care in Canada. 

While some medical schools now spend up to 56 hours of training in palliative care, at least one medical school devotes “exactly zero,” Carstairs said. 

“All of your patients will ultimately die,” she told delegates. “You will make the determination in many, many cases as to how your patients will die. You have to stand up and you have to make quality, end-of-life care in this country the right of every single Canadian,” she said to applause.

Euthanasia involves “knowingly and intentionally” performing an act — usually administering a lethal injection of barbiturates — with the sole intention of ending life.

With physician-assisted suicide, the doctor provides a patient with the knowledge or means, or both, required to kill themselves.

In her speech to the CMA delegates Ambrose stated that:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are committed to a strong, publicly funded health system. Federal spending on health will reach a record high of $30.3 billion this year, growing to more than $40 billion by the end of the decade.

Most of the doctors at the CMA meeting were opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide while demanding greater support for palliative care in Canada. 

Link to: Canadian doctors oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Canadian doctors oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide - CMA meeting

An open debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide was held yesterday at the national meeting of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) that is occurring in Calgary.

Dr. Eric Wasylenko

The Calgary Herald published an indepth article on the CMA discussions. The following represent quotes from the Calgary Herald article.

Dr. Eric Wasylenko, a Calgary family physician specializing in palliative care, and a panelist on the topic stated:

Canada needs better programs that allow patients to die comfortably at home and more palliative care training for young physicians. 

Proper end-of-life care strives to help patients live as well as they can before they die, he said. 

“My personal view is it is not within the role of the physician or the practice of medicine to actually deliberately cause someone’s death, even if they’ve asked for it. 

“The role of physicians and medical care is to support people in their life until their natural death, not to kill them artificially or in advance of their natural death.”

Dr. David Roy

Dr. Laurent Marcoux, president of the Quebec Medical Association, said:

“It’s not legalizing euthanasia for us. It’s something new. It’s a way to care for a patient at the end of his life,”

Dr. David Roy, a Quebec bioethicist didn't agree with Marcoux. He stated:

the wording of the province’s new legislation remains vague when it comes to sussing out what “medical aid in dying” actually means 

If physician-assisted death were to be passed in Canada and performed, “what sort of impact could we possibly imagine this would have on the care of very old, very fragile and deeply, or even not so deeply, demented people,”

Hon Rona Ambrose

Canada’s health minister Rona Ambrose told the participants at the CMA meeting that the federal government isn’t planning to reopen the debate on euthanasia.

“This is an issue that is very emotional for a lot of people — not just regular Canadians, but also physicians,” she told reporters. 

“Parliament voted in 2010 to not change its position on this issue. At this time, we don’t have any intention of changing our position.”

Dr. Srini Chary from Calgary stated that he became a palliative care specialist after caring for his wife who died from cancer 30 years ago. He stated to the Calgary Herald that:

“If care and well-being is what I train for, I’d like to focus on care and well-being,” Chary said, in an interview. 

“It’s not even a suicide in my mind. I’m killing.”

The overwhelming response from the delegates at the CMA meeting was that Canada needs to improve palliative care for all Canadians.

Links to previous articles:

- Rebranding Killing and Suicide by Dr Will Johnston

- Most Canadian doctors oppose euthanasia.

- Online euthanasia debate - Dr Will Johnston

Dr Balfour Mount: Reflection on palliative care and euthanasia.

The following article is an excerpt of an article that was published in Le Devoir on February 1, 2010. This article was translated by Google translate.

Dr Balfour Mount

[...] In 1973, Dr. Balfour Mount, surgeon clinical urology oncology at the Royal Victoria Hospital undertook a study on the care of terminally ill patients in their institution. The observation was troubling. "I knew the hospital staff were very knowledgeable, caring and provided the best possible care to their patients. Medical technology, we implemented fine, but we omitted the fact that there is a significant difference between the pathophysiology of the disease on which to focus our efforts and the subjective experience of the disease that is influenced by what we are as a person. 

Because there are physical, psychological, social, spiritual aspects, or financial, that affect this experience," said Dr. Mount before recalling that "when we cannot hope to extend the life, the goal is to improve the quality of life, which is specifically the goal of palliative care. However, patients were often told that we could not do anything for them. It made them feel that they occupied a bed that we needed for a patient who we could do something for," says Dr. Mount. "This attitude reflects our lack of understanding and ignorance of what can be done for those patients who are the sickest in our health system. We did not satisfy the psychosocial or physical needs of these patients. No one had looked at what could be done for the adequate control of symptoms, including pain, in this patient population." 

Doctors, who were unable to admit to the family that there was no hope for the patient offered another chemotherapy, not knowing what else to do. "Requests for euthanasia often result from a rejection of the aggressive and inappropriate care," says Dr. Mount, for whom euthanasia is totally incompatible with palliative care, although he concedes that both aim to reduce suffering. "The length of life is beyond our control, and it is not for us to decide," said Dr. Mount, for which the legalization of euthanasia would place the most vulnerable in our society at danger as people with disabilities and the elderly, sometimes feel like a burden to their family and society.

Precious time

The last weeks of life are "the most precious time of family life" because this is when people resolve the unresolved cases where we can say the love and attachment that is brought to the family. "This is an important moment of sharing that can soften the death of the person who is dying and who can make the next 40 years calmer and happier for those who survive. This time holds tremendous potential that is lost if the person were euthanized," said Professor Mount lamenting the fact that death is a topic taboo in our society. "We must help people to dramatize death. It must make them see death as a natural phenomenon, a normal event," he said. 

Dr. Mount is shocked to hear leaders of hospitals still say that palliative care is expensive, implying perhaps then that euthanasia would likely reduce costs. He is outraged by the falsity of such a claim, he has clearly demonstrated 30 years ago, the effectiveness of a palliative care unit with a dozen beds at the Royal Victoria Hospital and a program of home care services to the island of Montreal that was intended to help people die at home. [...]

Teaching patients

Dr. Mount humbly spoke about his patients who were received the best teachings. One of them, a brilliant young man of 30 years, nicknamed Chip, a member of the Canadian Olympic ski team, which before his cancer "he looked like a Greek god and excelled in everything he did." He confided to Dr. Mount, shortly before his death, when he became skeletal as the survivors of Auschwitz, he "had the best year of his life." "I had a wonderful life, turned to the outside world. During this last year, I made an inner journey and it was the most amazing trip of my life, "he told him without the knowledge of his family." 

This patient has taught me that you can not judge the suffering of others" because, even in his terrible physical condition, dying became the best moments of his life. In his case, "his family probably suffered more than him," said Dr. Mount. The search for "meaning" in our lives is probably what most concerned about dying, says Dr. Mount. Some, like the skier Chip, find it within themselves. Others find in a narrow "connection with others." Many people establish this ("healing connection") with "music or some other form of art, or with nature", while many others find meaning through a "spiritual connection with reality Supreme" which can be "quantum completeness or god." In his study, Dr. Mount noticed that people who had found the sense of completeness lived a great inner peace and were not overwhelmed by anxiety and fear of death as those who had not found it. And to help them, Dr. Mount reiterates the importance of controlling their symptoms and to create an environment around them in their own image - and not one that is believed to be the best for them - allowing them to feel safe. He finally stresses the need to listen to the patient in order to help them find the kind of connection that soothes. [...]

People with disabilities are not Disposable.

The following letter was published on August 21, 2013 in the National Post and the Hamilton Spectator.

Steve Passmore

By Steve Passmore

Growing up with Cerebral Palsy, I know for a fact that negative attitudes towards people with disabilities, such as myself have always existed.

I remember overhearing, when I was 14, someone saying: 

“how he walks makes me sick.” 

When I enter a room, people feel uncomfortable.

In the same way the letter stated that Maxwell made her children feel uncomfortable.

When I was in my 30’s and talking to someone about an issue, I was told that because I was disabled that my opinion didn’t matter.

I face an underlying prejudice from people in society.

The only way to make a difference in society is to address the elephant in the room which is the underlying prejudice toward people with disabilities.

There is a prevalent attitude within society that I and other people with disabilities are disposable.

We will never have equality, value and acceptance unless the underlying attitude of discrimination is eliminated within society.

The comments made by the woman in the letter are comments that would not be made publicly but represent the views of many people in our culture.

These attitudes towards people with disabilities lead to the support for euthanasia and assisted suicide within society and therefore these prejudices cannot be swept under the rug anymore because it will lead to the death of people with disabilities.

Society has created access to institutions and services for people with disabilities. The letter writer states that as a hard working person:

"I hate people like you ... just because you have a special needs kid you are entitled to special treatment"

I regularly experience this type of resentment in my life.

In the past, people with disabilities were institutionalized. Now we are living in the community. Because we are visible in society and demanding equality, many people resent people with disabilities.

It is not my pain and suffering that people want to eliminate, it is theirs, because they feel uncomfortable with people with disabilities, even to look upon us. 

This is a human rights issue.

We need the media to produce programming that exposes the elephant in the room.

I would like to thank the media for bringing this story to the attention of the public.

Steve Passmore is a disability activist who lives in Hamilton Ontario

Link to: Family receives letter telling them to euthanize Autistic son.

Family receives letter telling them to euthanize Autistic son

Karla Begley

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An Oshawa Ontario family were shocked when they received a letter from a neighbour telling them that their 13-year-old autistic son was:

a “nuisance” and a “wild animal” and then suggested that the family move or “euthanize” the child.

A City TV news report, which includes a video interview stated:

Karla Begley told CityNews her son Max, 13, stays with his grandmother in the morning during the summer time. It was at that home in Newcastle where letter was delivered on Friday. 

“I was shaking when I was reading it,” Brenda Millson, Max’s grandmother, told CityNews. “It’s awful words. 

You don’t know why somebody would ever do such a thing.”

An article in the Toronto Star reported:

The stranger wanted to tell Maxwell Begley’s family that no woman would ever love him, no employer would ever hire him, and that he should move into the woods, or be euthanized.  

The writer calls Maxwell a “hindrance to everyone,” says he will always be like that and suggests that whatever “non-retarded body parts he possesses” be donated to science.  

“Do the right thing and move or euthanize him!!! Either way, we are ALL better off!!!” 

The Toronto Star article also reported:

Julie Smith, who lives across from Millson, canvassed the neighbourhood with a friend on Sunday to tell people about the letter. She also wanted to observe people’s body language. 

“Everyone seemed rather appalled by it; one lady burst into tears. ... 

When Smith heard that a television crew was coming Sunday evening, she posted the news on Facebook and asked people to come out to support the family. More than 120 people came, some from as far away as Oshawa. They cheered when Maxwell and his father left the house. Maxwell did “his little happy dance,” Begley says, laughing. 

“He just jumps up and down and flaps his arms, and gave everyone high fives. He’s going to expect that every time he’s there,” she says, laughing.

The Durham Police are investigating the incident.

As a father of a teenage son who is autistic, I have experienced the negative attitudes that many people within society have towards people with disabilities. 

The concept that a person with autism or another disability is "better off dead" is sadly not uncommon.

Legalizing euthanasia threatens the lives of people with disabilities. Negative attitudes affect the person with a disability, causing that person to believe that they are unwanted.

Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide sends vulnerable people the message that some lives are not worth living.

On August 20 the Durham Police stated that this letter did not represent a hate crime.

Rebranding Killing and Suicide: The Ugly Truth About Euthanasia.

This article was written by Dr. Will Johnston, the chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - BC and published in the Huffington Post on August 19, 2013

Dr. Will Johnston

Dr. Will Johnston - Vancouver BC

The Canadian Medical Association is meeting this week, and the buzz is that euthanasia and assisted suicide will be discussed. Euthanasia activists are striving to neutralize the medical opposition to their plans, and want the CMA to compromise its clearly stated principle forbidding doctors killing patients. If this principle is broken, an invasive weed will have entered our garden.

As an analogy, remember it took centuries of work to rid our society of capital punishment. Finally, we reached the point that we did not trust any system with the legal power to kill. Did we say to ourselves, "There are probably only a few innocent people executed, and one of them is very unlikely to be me... or someone I care about." ? No, the mere possibility that the law would be wrongly used -- on anyone -- was finally enough to justify a complete prohibition of the death penalty.

Moreover, it was time for the state to stop implicating itself in any killing. Why then, a few years later, are we talking about the state giving legal power to doctors to allow them to kill selected patients? Do we truly believe that those failures to protect the depressed and vulnerable under other suicide and euthanasia systems could never happen here? Do we have any idea what we would be trading for our present privilege of insisting that our doctors and nurses are not willfully implicated in any killing, ever?

The art of euphemism -- of sugar coating your verbal meaning -- has been raised to a syrupy peak by the proponents of euthanasia. When killing and suicide can be rebranded in the hearts and minds of average Canadians, the death lobby wins. What is truly being promised is the medical equivalent of a silent bullet in the head. The irony is that we don't need it. Symptom control at the end of life has never been better, and the right thing to do is to deliver it when needed. 

Most of the euthanasia advocates I have met witnessed the poorly managed death of someone close to them and so joined the nearest right-to-die lobby group. This is naive but understandable. For these activists, indignation at seeing substandard care has trumped common sense. Common sense should tell us that we and our loved ones will not be safer or more empowered when the right to kill is given to doctors and nurses, under any system that can be dreamed up.

Canadians were recently horrified by the deaths of two children when a deadly snake could not be kept caged. The suicide and euthanasia system so desperately wanted by some activists would be like that cage: The snake would not stay in it forever. We are now the fortunate inhabitants, like most people in the civilized world, of a place where euthanasia has been banned. If ever legalized, it will send its tendrils into every hospital and care facility.

With each challenge to the ban, the euthanasia promoters have only to win once. In defending itself, Canada has to win every time. The vote against euthanasia was 79% in Parliament in 2010, and it was rejected by 74% of doctors in a recent CMA poll. This should not lead to complacency. The assaults on the key medical principle will not stop. Our wisdom will need endurance.

Assisted Suicide arrest in the UK reminds us of why assisted suicide is prohibited.

This article was written by Dr Peter Saunders the campaign director for the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK and published on his blog.

Peter Saunders

By Dr. Peter Saunders,

A 65-year-old woman and her son from the Chichester area have been arrested after police suspected they were planning to take her husband to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to commit suicide, sources said.

The pensioner and the 25-year-old were held on suspicion of encouraging or assisting a suicide.

Details about the condition of the 71-year-old man have not been disclosed and none of the family have been named by Sussex Police.

But the force confirmed that officers were having the mental capacity of the ‘vulnerable’ man assessed to determine how able he is to make decisions for himself.

There have been suggestions that the man was in the early stages of dementia, something which - according to Dignitas’ own guidelines - would require an assessment by a psychiatrist of the patient’s mental capacity to make the decision to end their life and has led to the pair’s motives being questioned. There has only been one previous case of a British person with dementia travelling to Switzerland to end their life, in May 2013.

Both the woman and her son have been freed on police bail until October 8 following their arrest on August 8.

It is an offence to encourage or assist suicide under the Suicide Act 1961 (as amended by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009) with the offence carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

However prosecutions can only proceed on the authority of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) who has to decide, on the basis of a police investigation, whether there is enough evidence to bring a successful prosecution and whether it is in the public interest to proceed.

In order to decide on the latter the DPP brings his 22 prosecution criteria into play. These were established in 2010 following a public consultation in the wake of the Debbie Purdy case.

In practice, when assistance of a suicide is judged to be ‘wholly motivated by compassion’ a prosecution is unlikely. He decision in this particular case will depend on how he weighs up the facts against his prosecution criteria.

A number of public figures – including euthanasia campaigner Michael Irwin, and novelist Terry Pratchett – have controversially spoken in support for a change in law to allow those with early dementia to kill themselves.

Lethal Injection

This latest case may fuel further calls for a change in the law so it is worth reminding ourselves why the law is as it is and why it does not need changing.

Euthanasia (being killed by a doctor) and assisted suicide (being helped to kill oneself) are illegal for good reason.

The first duty of Parliament is to protect its citizens and British parliaments have rejected decriminalisation three times since 2006 by large majorities on public safety grounds – in the House of Lords in 2006 and 2009 (by 148-100 and 194-141 respectively) and in the Scottish Parliament in 2010 (by 85-16).

The vast majority of UK doctors remain opposed to legalisation along with the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians, the Association for Palliative Medicine and the British Geriatric Society.

Similarly all major disability rights groups in Britain have resisted any change in the law believing it will lead to increased discrimination towards them and increased pressure ‘to seek help to die’.

Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia would place subtle pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives, for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. Those who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed would be particularly at risk. The right to die, in other words, can so easily become the duty to die.

Elder abuse and neglect by families, carers and institutions is real and dangerous and a law allowing the active ending of life in limited circumstances could be so easily exploited and abused. This is why strong laws are necessary.

Developments overseas are disturbing. Assisted suicides have increased by 700% in Switzerland in the last fifteen years and in the Netherlands the number of euthanasia cases has almost doubled since 2006 from 1,923 to 3,695 with increases of 15-20% each year.

In the Netherlands one in eight deaths is due to ‘deep continuous sedation’, dementia patients are euthanised, mobile euthanasia clinics operate and the ‘Groningen protocol’ allows euthanasia for disabled babies.  In Belgium organs are harvested from euthanasia patients and 32% of all euthanasia deaths are ‘without consent’.

Once a ‘right’ to assisted suicide or euthanasia is established for restricted groups there will be inevitable incremental extension to others through the application of case law in ‘hard cases’.

Our current law with its blanket ban does not need changing. The penalties it holds in reserve act as a strong deterrent to those who stand to gain from another person’s death. It also gives discretion to prosecutors and judges to apply mercy in genuinely hard cases.

It also works. The number of Britons travelling abroad to commit assisted suicide has been very small (about 200 in ten years). But according to a House of Lords enquiry, with an ‘Oregon’ law we would have 1,200 deaths a year and with a ‘Dutch’ law 13,000.

Persistent requests for euthanasia are extremely rare if people are properly cared for. Our priority must be to make good care – killing pain without killing the patient - accessible to all. This is the best way of safeguarding vulnerable people and addressing patients’ physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. 

Australia Greens announce plan to legalize euthanasia

The Australian Greens announced today their intention of legalizing euthanasia, if elected, in the upcoming federal election. A one-sided article that was published in the Australian Times stated:

Greens Senator Richard Di Natale outlined the plan earlier today at a press conference in Sydney. He said that the Greens would base their euthanasia policy on a bill proposed by federal Greens candidate Cate Faehrmann in New South Wales earlier this year.

The article continued:

Dr Di Natale said that it was unlikely Ms Faehrmann’s legislation would be implemented as it currently stands, claiming that it would provide a basis for a Senate inquiry into the best possible way to introduce federally-sanctioned euthanasia.

The one-sided article in the Australian Times continues by quoting Austalia's Dr Death, Philip Nitschke but appears to intentionally ignore comments from Paul Russell, the leader of HOPE Australia.

Faehrmann's euthanasia bill was soundly defeated on May 23 in the New South Wales.

Paul Russell

Paul Russell wrote an article about the defeat of the New South Wales euthanasia bill where he explained how the work of HOPE Australia and the distribution of the book: Exposing Vulnerable People to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide by Alex Schadenberg to members of the New South Wales parliament were primarily responsible for the extraordinary defeat of the euthanasia bill.

I predict that the Australian Greens support for euthanasia will not translate into a federal election victory for the Greens and will not lead to the Australian government legalizing euthanasia.

Disabled Woman Seeks Euthanasia/Organ Donation

This article was written by Wesley Smith and published on his blog on August 14, 2013.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith

I have been warning against coupling assisted suicide with organ harvesting since 1993, when I wrote my first anti-assisted suicide column in Newsweek. From, “The Whispers of Strangers:”

Life is action and reaction, the proverbial pebble thrown into the pond. We don’t get to the Brave New World in one giant leap. Rather, the descent to depravity is reached by small steps. First, suicide is promoted as a virtue. Vulnerable people like Frances become early casualties. Then follows mercy killing of the terminally ill. From there, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to killing people who don’t have a good “quality” of life, perhaps with the prospect of organ harvesting thrown in as a plum to society.

And now, a Michigan woman wants just that. From the Fox Detroit story:

16 years ago this week, Sherri Muzher was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that has robbed her of a life she always hoped to have, and now in its final stages making her a hostage of her own body. However, this 43-year-old still wants to give something back.”We’re all here on earth to make a difference,” she said.  

Homebound and now living in Flat Rock, the law school graduate and avid writer can no longer use her skills she once thrived on, but she believes she can still help others. That’s why she wants to end her life and donate her organs. “It would be a nice legacy to give life,” Muzher said.

Notice the article’s headline was written, “terminally ill woman” wants suicide and organ donation. That designation seeks to make the request more palatable. The more accurate headline would have been, “Disabled Michigan Woman Has Controversial Wish,” 

My good friend Mark Pickup experienced a similar trajectory–a catastrophic MS attack and a desire for suicide. But he emerged from the darkness and is now a disability rights/pro life activist and Catholic apologist. None of that would probably be true had assisted suicide been available to him back in his days of despair.

Think it can’t happen here? There have already been cases of suicides coupled with a request for organ donation. As I have written, the organ transplant community should publicly state that committing suicide precludes one from becoming an organ donor.

That isn’t public policy here, of course. But Belgium explicitly permits legal euthanasia coupled with organ harvesting, usually of people with neuromuscular diseases such as that of Ms. Muzher.

I can’t think of anything more dangerous to a moral society than giving disabled people the belief that their deaths are better for the world than their lives. Well, perhaps one thing: Convincing wider society to accept the premise.

New Zealand euthanasia bill is wide-open and open to being wider, says the author of the bill.

By Alex Schadenberg

Schadenberg debating Street
in New Zealand.

Stuff media in New Zealand reported today on a talk given in New Plymouth by Maryan Street, the New Zealand MP who has sponsored a bill to legalize euthanasia in New Zealand.

The article reports that Street stated:

The bill proposes euthanasia be open to people with terminal illness likely to cause death within 12 months, or to people with an irreversible physical or mental condition that renders their life unbearable - by their own assessment.

Therefore anyone in New Zealand who has a terminal illness that may cause their death within 12 months or anyone who personally assesses that their physical or mental condition is unbearable would qualify for euthanasia.

This means that anyone with a terminal or chronic condition qualifies to be lethally injected, based on their own personal assessment, even if they have chronic depression or mental illness.

Clearly this bill will enable people to subtly pressure people with physical or mental disabilities, who are not otherwise dying, to die by lethal injection in New Zealand.

Street then is reported to state:

"Application for children with terminal illness was a bridge too far in my view at this time. That might be something that may happen in the future, but not now."

This means that she isn't ready to propose euthanasia for children with disabilities yet, but once society begins to deem their lives to be not worth living, then she will consider it.

The Netherlands first legalized euthanasia in 2001 for competent people, it has now approved euthanasia for newborns with disabilities and people with dementia.

It is interesting that Street suggested that:

"I feel a little aggrieved when people say this bill will be the start of a slippery slope where we will just dispose of everybody who is inconvenient for society. It's not true. It is about people having the choice as to when they end their lives."

The euthanasia lobby always sell their ideology under the guise of choice and they ignore the abuses that occur when others are given the right in law to cause death.

When euthanasia was legalized in Belgium in 2002, the euthanasia lobby also claimed that it was an issue of choice.

Yet significant abuse is occurring in Belgium. A 2010 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that in 32% of euthanasia cases in the Flanders region of Belgium there was no evidence of request or consent. Choice is clearly absent. 

Using the same data the British Medical Journal also noted that 47.2% of euthanasia cases were not even reported. When the Belgian law provides an effective immunity to doctors who ‘do the paperwork’ it’s legitimate to wonder what’s really going on there.

Street should be concerned about improving the care of everyone in New Zealand and protecting people rather than removing protections in law and giving doctors the right to kill their patients.

More articles on the New Zealand euthanasia bill.

- Dangers of euthanasia spelt out.

- Debates on euthanasia. The soul of medicine is on trial.

- Down Syndrome community opposes New Zealand euthanasia bill.