Dutch doctors group rejects separate rules concerning euthanasia for "completed life."

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Last October we reported that the Dutch government were planning to expand their euthanasia law to include people who are not physically or psychologically suffering but who believe that their "life is complete."

The DutchNews.NL reported that the Dutch doctors association (KNMG) was not in favour of developing a section of the euthanasia law to prescribe lethal drugs for "completed life." The DutchNews.NL reported:

Last October, health minister Edith Schippers and justice minister Ard van de Steur said in a briefing to MPs that ‘elderly’ people with a consistent and well-considered wish to die – whether ill or not – should be able to take a drug to end their lives. 

The practice would not be considered euthanasia, in which the patient is said to be suffering unbearably, and in which doctors have an active role, and family members would not be allowed to administer the drug.

The KNMG stated that expanding the euthanasia law for reasons of a "completed life" would undermine the current euthanasia law. The DutchNews.NL stated:

However, separate legislation for people with ‘no medical grounds’ for the wish to die could have an undesirable social effect, by stigmatising the elderly, the KNMG said. Instead, the government should invest in measures to make sure the elderly do not feel their lives are pointless. 

The expansion of euthanasia rules are likely to become part of the current coalition government talks. D66 is the driving force behind the changes and the VVD have said they will support them. However, the Christian Democrats, who do not back change, are set to have a key role in the new government.

Once killing becomes an acceptable solution to social problems, the only remaining question is what problems will killing become a solution for?

Why did the Ontario Government Committee exclude EPC from the Bill 84 hearings?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On January 6, EPC published the article: Ontario assisted dying legislation (Bill 84) lacks any effective oversight of the law.

The Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs is receiving written and oral submissions concerning Bill 84, the Medical Assistance in Dying Statute Law Amendment Act.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) contacted the Committee and formally requested permission to provide oral submission to the Committee concerning Bill 84. The Clerk of the Committee was clearly told that EPC is Canada's leading group opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide and our voice should be heard.

The Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs rejected the EPC request to make an oral submission to the committee concerning Bill 84.

We need you to contact:

Eric Rennie, the Clerk of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs at: erennie@ola.org (416) 325-3506 and Peter Milczyn, MPP, Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs at: pmilczyn.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org and ask them:

Why did you decide to exclude the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, the leading group that opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide, from the hearings?

Do you not want to know what is wrong with the bill? 

Democratic values include listening to all perspectives.

Bill 84 regulates euthanasia and assisted suicide in Ontario, but the language of the bill is dangerous because it lacks any effective oversight of the law.

UK High Court rejects challenge to assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Great news: The UK High Court decided to dismiss a request by Noel Conway to hear his challenge of the assisted suicide law.

The High Court decided that it is the role of parliament to make law and not the role of the Court. The UK Supreme Court made a similar ruling in the Nicklinson case, when it upheld the assisted suicide law in June 2014. In the Nicklinson decision the court asked parliament to debate assisted suicide.

One of the deciding factors in the decision was that the British parliament overwhelming rejected an assisted suicide bill by 330 to 118 in June 2015. Parliament debated assisted suicide and it decided to uphold the assisted suicide law.

Disability activists, in the UK, remain strongly opposed to assisted suicide.

Baroness Jane Campbell - Assisted suicide could lure me to the grave.
Kevin Fitzpatrick - Debating assisted suicide - Contempt for life with disability surrounds us.

The British Medical Association have debated assisted suicide on several occasions and have rejected the push to go neutral on assisted suicide.

The Care Not Killing Alliance stated that:

This was a troubling case that sought to usurp the democratic will of Parliament. 

"The current laws on assisted suicide and euthanasia are simple and clear. They exist to protect those who are sick, elderly, depressed, or disabled from feeling obliged to end their lives."

The UK Court is acting responsibly by limiting its role to interpreting law, but not making law. Conway is stating that he will appeal the decision.

Liz Carr: Address to Victorian Parliament on assisted suicide

This article was published by HOPE Australia on March 26, 2017.

British actress, comedian, broadcaster and disability activist, Liz Carr is in Melbourne with her show: Assisted Suicide: The Musical. This is an edited transcript of her address to Victorian Parliamentarians who will likely debate assisted suicide later this year.

Liz Carr - Disability activist, British actress and comedian

I don't come at this from a religious point of view. I'm not coming here to tell you what to do.

I'm telling you what I believe and how it worked in the UK, because in the UK, in 2015, the Rob Marris Assisted Dying Bill that was defeated in the House of Commons.

I'm stunned we defeated it. I'll be quite honest, because much like in Australia as a whole, because I know different states this is coming up as an issue, this comes up in the U.K. all the time as a subject.

It finally got to parliament. The first time in 16 years that there was a parliamentary vote on it, and it was a private member's bill and on a Friday afternoon. You know what Friday afternoons are like. We have 650 people in the House of Commons, MPs. 448 turned up, pretty unprecedented to be honest. That's how important. This is life and death. It really is. That's not just hyperbole.

The vote went 330 against legalising assisted suicide, to 118 who were for it. Almost three times! We didn't expect it to be that strong; the defeat of the bill. Ultimately what swung I think, and what was the concern is that nobody, nobody, wants another human being or themselves to have a bad death.

Whatever we think on this subject and wherever we meet on the subject, I'm assuming we all want a good death for everyone. We'd be ridiculous if we didn't want that. I want that too. I just don't believe that we should legalise and get states and medical involvement in that, or a more formalised medical involvement in that. That's the only difference, and I think what swung it, and where a lot of MPs were is that yes, in some respects we want this.

The autonomy aspect is massively compelling, but the risks and the sufficient strength and robustness of safeguards is so difficult. It's difficult to prove and they're difficult to establish. Are the benefits to the few outweighed by the risks to the many? They were viewed not to be. That's where we're at.

People are still trying to change the law. Just today there's the Noel Conway case in the U.K., where they're trying to introduce it by the back door via the courts. This will keep raging. It's important. It should.

I also got the Churchill Travelling Fellowship and worked then with BBC World Service and made a radio documentary, and I visited all the countries where assisted suicide was then legal. The only place I haven't been to is Canada. I've been there and I know what's going on now, but I made a documentary on that. A little bit like your Andrew Denton, where we're two of the few people who visited, and interestingly he thinks its fine. I don't think its fine, and we presumably saw some of the same things. There you go. Of course that's going to happen, but I come at it as a disabled person, and that's relevant here.

Let me tell you in a minute why many disabled people are opposed, and why we figure in this debate quite strongly, because I think it's important to know that not all opposition is religious.

Opposition to these bills is usually marginalised as being religious and that's very useful to do if you don't want to listen to it, but actually if we want to introduce a bill like this, we have to listen to all sides of course, and we have to not diminish their view.

Liz Carr being interviewed on Australian TV.

It's usually religion, but actually disability rights activists have quite a strong voice, and certainly have in the U.K. I'm also gonna talk about assisted suicide, not assisted dying. That's partly because I think we should call it what it is.

Now assisted dying, many people will come back at me and go, but this is just for people who are at the end of their life. Therefore it's about they're dying anyway, but what we've seen in other countries is that's not necessarily true. The trajectory is not about that they're actually dying. That that could be many, many months or years off, but also they are choosing to take their own life. It's still that act, so it should have the safeguards that you get when you do call it suicide, which are prevention strategies as well.

And what we do know is that when you change the language, and you start calling it assisted dying, and you don't use words like euthanasia and assisted suicide, then you increase public support. Assisted dying is far more popular than assisted suicide. It's equally a political choice, what we call it.

Why am I opposed? Well, I'm not opposed to suicide. I don't want people to feel that they have to end their life. I don't want them to be in that position. I believe in suicide prevention, but ultimately that's an act for an individual. Where it gets tricky for me is the issue of state involvement, and the issue of changing the criminal law, changing the law, and the issue of medical involvement, on a formal level.

At the moment the law acts as a deterrent. It does in the UK. And that's really useful that it's a deterrent.

What happens when we introduce a bill and looking at what the bill might look like? I know we don't know what it looks like yet, because it's not been created, but looking at the recommendation 49 and seeing what that might be. What it does is it allows, it indemnifies doctors, and it takes it a way away from being a crime and that can be a good thing, but it means that there's very little investigation.

It means that it then happens behind closed doors. It's very hard then to prove anything, because if a doctor, and this happens in Oregon, if a doctor has supported a person through this, and ticked the boxes, they also then facilitate the prescription process and they also evaluate that process to the Oregon Health Board. Therefore the person doing it, and assessing is also the person accountable for it.

Of course we're not gonna see if anything goes wrong. Of course we're not, and I'm not saying that there's Machiavellian doctors trying to kill people. I'm not. I'm just saying that it is very compelling that if somebody wants to die and they approach a doctor that maybe sometimes they'll do what they have to do. That happens now anyway.

We can all argue about that to what degree, and I know that's one of the arguments for legislation is well this happens anyway, why not? That actually happens less than we imagine that, and it's still very different than actively taking that role.

I have met with disabled people all over the world in this issue. Why does it involve us? Because it's very easy to shut up disabled people, and go this is not about you. This is about terminally ill people. In the public perception, in the media, and in medical terms there is such a fine line between disability and terminal illness, that we become one in the same.

There was a documentary on this week on ABC. There are regular documentaries on your TV channels and in the UK that show people asking for assisted suicide laws, and the right to die, and most of those people are not terminally ill, and that is often very confusing. We see people that look like us. We see people that can't do certain things, can't wipe their own bum or can't get dressed, or are worried about those things. Well they're often things around disability.

They're often around loss of autonomy; loss of dignity. There are things that I guess is why disabled people feel that they can contribute to that, because we have lots of experience in that. We've probably lived a life of that. It is in a way, in many ways, about us, and it will be, because we've heard stories from many disabled people about how complete strangers can tell you that they couldn't imagine what it would be like to be you, and surely you'd be better off dead.

I know that if I went to the doctor and said that I was having trouble, regardless of the fact of what I do for a living even, I think it would be easy to convince them that my life was not worth living. Far more than my non-disabled partner, and that's a big thing for me.

If there was a non-disabled person at a railway bridge about to jump, what do we do? Do we go up to them, and go: in the name of autonomy and self-determination, you do this. If this is your choice you do it. I don't think we do that usually. We usually stop them. We usually prevent them from doing it. We usually put in suicide prevention. We question why they're doing it. We question their mental health. We would see it as a tragedy if it occurred.

Now if that person was impaired, was disabled on that railway bridge, would we act the same? Now you might say yes we would, but my bet is a lot of people would not act the same. They would go: if that person wants to end their life I understand why, because if I was like that I'd feel the same, and of course, because it must be difficult. Then we start to call it about choice. Then it's different, and for me if you even see those two people as different and those two situations as different that suggests we do have an unconscious bias and discrimination.

Legislation is therefore unsafe already, because not everybody already starts out as having equal value under the law or in the medical profession or in public perception. I guess, and I remember Stella Young talking about this a lot, can we have death with dignity, until we have dignity in life?

That's one thought that was really crossed my mind when I've looked at the end of life review from Victoria, is that there are 49 recommendations. It feels to me you can't get to 49 until you've done 48. All 48. Then think about 49, but not before. Why put all the resources, and this effort and all this time, into 49. Recommendation 49, until you've done the others. Then I think I'd feel happier.

Maybe lots of us would feel happier, because people are not having good deaths now. People do not have choice in how they live, and the support that they might need in life. Ill and disabled and older people are not getting what they need now resource wise, health wise, pain wise, pain management, palliative care, housing, NDIS - that's in a mess.

Until those things are sorted, can we really trust that the reasons that people give for wanting to end their lives are the real reasons, or that really it is about pain and suffering, or is it because we're not doing what we should be doing to support those people in life. It's too easy to go: do you know what, if I couldn't do that A, B, and C, maybe I'd want to end my life. I can't imagine. I'm rubbish with pain. I wouldn't want that. It's too easy to therefore assume that that's why those people might want to die. Maybe they just need decent pain control and support, and we need to make sure first, all of that's dealt with. Absolutely.

There's 48 recommendations. Plough into them. Come back in 10 years.

Then let's look at it. When I said about the person on the bridge, I guess there's that sense for me that it does feel like a discrimination. Look; I almost feel that if you're gonna legislate, legislate for everyone, or legislate for no one. I'm a bit all or nothing, but actually why choose one group of people? Why is one type of suffering worse than another? What if you lose a child? I mean that must be the worst pain. It's the worst pain I can imagine is losing someone. Losing a child must be dreadful. Now that's suffering, but we don't support them to end their life. We give them what they need; but when somebody becomes ill or disabled we far more understand and then support them to end their lives.

Why are we choosing these groups of people? I understand why. Its okay, you don't need to tell me. The response on that is rhetorical; but we are selecting a group. Why? I just put that out to you. Why that group of people? I understand it too. In the UK, and I know Stella had a very similar experience, most people will tell you, a similar experience in the medical profession and it's why for me I don't want to give that group of people even more power and control over my life. That's it. I think when you rely on the state for your life and your existence, you probably don't want to give them more power over your death as well.

I'm not sure they can be trusted. I'm sorry. Not that I think somebody's gonna maliciously kill me, but I think if I was in the right frame of mind, and I cost loads to exist... Let's not take this out of the economic vacuum. Rationing and decisions around cost are being made already. Around who we treat, around whether somebody's too old. Do we bother with an operation? Somebody's too fat. You've gotta lose weight. Already we're thinking about resource allocations in terms of medical treatments.

Baroness Jane Campbell

What about when assisted suicide becomes a medical treatment? How does that fit into that? Baroness Jane Campbell - she's in the House of Lords. She's a disabled woman on a ventilator. A very successful disabled woman. She's tiny like me. She looks frail like I do. I know I wear the trappings of being ill as a child and as a disabled person. She ended up with a chest infection. We lose loads of our people over winter. It's horrible, as a disabled community, we lose loads of disabled people, and Jane was very ill with a chest infection, and she ended up in A and E, and her husband was there, and noted that on her note, she has a do not resuscitate order. She had of course not decided upon that. She did not want that, and her husband had to go and basically make sure there was 24 hour support for her. There was always somebody there who knew who she was, but then put photos around the bed of her getting her degree, of her joining the House of Lords, of their marriage.

Don't just see this figure, and make assumptions over this life. People are far more than they appear, but those doctors had assumed a level of value of that life, and that's happening already, and that of course is what drives many of us to be very fearful of being in that position. Now, we can say well there are safeguards, and I think safeguards are interesting in terms of a piece of legislation. They are fascinating because the fact that we know we need safeguards means we acknowledge there's risk. This is not a process that's without risk, and that risk comes in terms of can we be sure that person voluntarily wants this? That they're of sound mind, that they're consenting, and that they're not being coerced?

Now some of the difficulties here are that we're asking again, doctors to do that. That very same doctor that made the diagnosis and prognosis have to do all this other stuff as well - and how do they know? I'm not giving you answers about how to work that out, but these are the questions with these types of laws: How do we know someone's not being coerced?

Coercion is not about being dragged to your death. Coercion is worse than that usually. It's usually social coercion, and it looks in the form of you decide yourself, because life's so poor, but that's not always physical or mental. It can often be because you've not got the support you need or because you're with a family that you don't want to burden; and even if they say you're not a burden, the fact that you've got the kids to look after or you've got work and you've got life, you can feel that. How do we unpack all of that?

I went to all the countries, as I said, where assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal. Some of the highlights for me: I met fascinating people. I loved who I met, on both sides of this debate. It's tough. The people who were driven to pass these laws have seen some horrific things. They've seen people that they love, dying. We've probably, many of us have seen that I think. Legislation won't change that by the way. Legislation doesn't get rid of bad deaths, and assisted suicide isn't also necessarily a good death. They can be ugly. They're not always, but they can be. They can take hours.

I met someone whose husband has taken 21 hours to die. They were still happy with that actually, but it's not quick necessarily. In the Oregon model it's lauded. Where people get prescriptions. Its 100 capsules and they can make you sick and sometimes they don't work. This idea of it being a beautiful death or an easy or a quicker death; well it can be in some ways but it's not always the most pleasant, and that of course is it: death is always gonna be messy, whether we have assisted suicide laws or not.

In the Netherlands, we know, the Netherlands are ubiquitous for going too far with everything, aren't they, and everything's legal out there! The latest, when we were out there, we were given a pack of tablets. Me and my partner went to a conference of assisted suicide supporters and they gave us the last will pill. It was a little pack of mints, because their campaign is around completed life or being tired of life. That's now people who are over 70, who have basically gone: I've done all I want to do in life. That's it. They're not terminally ill. They've just had enough. That's where they're going.

People talk to me about the slippery slope. Firstly I don't go with that phrase. I don't agree with that phrase, because it suggests panic and fear and things that are out of control. It's much more controlled than that; the extension of these laws. It's much cleverer than that. It's done in the name of equality. If you introduce a law in this state for those with only terminal illness, tell you what will happen next is people with other conditions will want to be included in that definition. They will. That's already happening. The law hasn't even been enacted to its full extent in Canada yet, but already people with dementia or impending dementia are calling for that extension. Some disabled people are calling for it. You've excluded us.

Again, whether you want it, just be fair. It's like calling it assisted suicide. Be very clear what you're getting, and be very clear where it's going to go because it will. People laud Oregon. Oregon currently have an amendment before their courts to extend their law to people with dementia. It happens everywhere. This is not just about Europe where it's out of control. No. This is about in the states too. By a natural extension, an incremental creep, it will extend as I say. It's discriminatory for it not to. People will take you to court, if they can't use a law that you've brought in. They want it if it's a right. It's either a right for no one or a right for everyone. That's where it goes.

We probably know about Belgium. Belgium where just for being old, where children... There was the first death of a minor recently from euthanasia. Last November, there was somebody with alcoholism based on that extension that I've just mentioned.

Let's talk a tiny bit more about Oregon before I start to bring it together. I know that it's talked about here, particularly in the older community maybe that people are ending their life before they have to. People are killing themselves. Is that gonna change if you legalise assisted suicide? Not necessarily, because what's happened in the states where it's legal in the U.S., remember its only six states out of 50 where it's legal. (It's already been not voted for this year in four states.) We hear about the ones where it is, but there's many that have opposed it as well, and the majority have opposed it.

Again, it's not like it's happening everywhere in the U.S. But the states where it has, and particularly Oregon, there has been a massive increase in suicide since it was legalised. That could be around the state that it is; it's very particular, very peculiar state anyway. It's also not about pain. It's very rarely about pain, and I think that's useful to know.

In the tick box forms that you fill in in Oregon, the reasons that people give, the dominant reasons are about loss of autonomy, loss of dignity, loss of the ability to do day to day activities. Pain is the second to last reason. It's in the 30% as opposed to the 80% and 90% where the other figures sit. This is really about loss of autonomy and dignity. The safeguards: two doctors that have to analyse whether someone gives consent, whether that's voluntary. That's there's no duress. That there's no mental health issues. That they have prognosis, the diagnosis. It's a serious incurable condition.

There are questions over that, whether that's with or without treatment. You might have kidney failure and if you stop having dialysis that would make it an incurable condition. If you stop taking drugs for chronic heart failure, that would qualify. There's quite a fine line with lots of these and you're not gonna know that until you get the final bill to look at.

I guess one of the things is we don't need to make a choice necessarily between suffering and suicide. There is a lot that we can still do in terms of palliative care and hospice care and support for people, and often when people tell me about bad deaths and I've gone to the people I respect in those worlds and said well what can we do? Can we alleviate all pain? For most people yeah, but there will always be some people that we can't.

But do we change a law for those people, and remove protection for the others, and is it as straightforward as that? Is it about the benefits to the few? Is it about the risks of the many?

Laws should be about protecting the majority and safeguards are difficult: the acknowledgement that we need safeguards is an acknowledgement of risk in the first place. This is risky. I've always felt, always felt, I feel that's a compelling argument.

I know lots of people would disagree, but I feel that even the risk of getting it wrong in one case is too much. What strikes me as bizarre is that in terms of something like capital punishment we don't have that for that same reason and that's a much higher degree of accountability. We have an investigation, a court case, police involvement, and still there are miscarriages of justice. We want to check is that person of sound mind, not being coerced, whatever all of the safeguards we're gonna put in, and we have that happening with two doctors with limited time.

It's also okay to oppose assisted suicide, and I say that as someone that struggles to remember that when she's getting hated for it. Now I acknowledge to the other side that if you support assisted suicide, then you may be called, the murderers. None of us are in a happy place. This is rubbish and a difficult situation, because ultimately we all want the same thing. We want good deaths for everybody. It's just how we make that happen and how we think that should happen, but opposing is also okay. To have concerns is okay.

Many disabled people oppose. Many certainly in the states and what I hear from around the country too, many indigenous communities. In the states black and African American communities often oppose more than other communities as well. People who were dispossessed. People that have had a negative experience of the state involvement in their lives often are more reticent about these laws.

The people who usually want these laws usually look more like the lawmakers and the doctors implementing them, funnily enough. Obviously you have, and I know it's complicated within Victoria, but currently nationally, the AMA opposes assisted suicide, and in the U.K. we have the same situation. We have the BMA, the British Medical Association. Most of the medical colleges, oppose as well, and they're the people who would be implementing. That's happening in Canada, that doctors aren't sure about their involvement.

No doctor's going to be made to be involved, of course. There's a conscience clause and no one will be forced to do it, but I think we do have to talk to doctors. We do have to talk to all these communities who are concerned.

The AMA said, there needs to be much greater investment in quality end of life care, especially nationally; including palliative care services. It feels to me and why I oppose, is: is this the right time? Are we mature enough as a society? Do we treat our elders, our people who are ill, our disabled people, our communities, equally? Do we provide the right or sufficient health care? Or too much? Do we provide the resources for people to have a quality of life while they're alive and a quality of death? Are we doing that now?

To make assisted suicide into a medical issue changes everything. I watch TV and I see compelling arguments and compelling cases and people and individuals who want what's called 'the right to die'. But one person's right to die becomes another person's feeling that it's a duty to die, and I know, and you can say it to me, but nobody's gonna be dragged there. If you don't want it you don't have to have it. It's not as straightforward as that, because once it exists it exists, and as I say some of the worst coercion is choosing it yourself, because you feel you've got no option.

I made the show, I made Assisted Suicide: The Musical because I have done all of the serious political debates on this subject on TV in the UK. I hate the way that the debate is polarised in many respects and how we very rarely get the chance to properly discuss it in a grown up way, and we don't. TV wants you to have two opposing views and it to be great TV. That's what they want. That's what debate programmes want. In some respects of course that's how parliament works too unfortunately. The interesting bit - and where it's essential - is this middle area.

This isn't easy. It really isn't. It can't be rushed and it's very, very hard to get it right. I decided in the end that I could do all the news programmes in the world but actually the voices of those who oppose isn't often heard as loudly, I don't believe, or as often. There's very few documentaries of those who don't want assisted suicide. It's not as sexy. It's not as sexy calling for a better NDIS or hospice care. It's just not.

I mean we've got many documentaries in the UK of people traipsing off to Dignitas. Loads of them. We can't get enough of them in the UK. Can't get enough. It's the same story, and I'm not saying it's not an important one, but what we don't say is the other side, and that's a voice that needs to be heard obviously, so I made show, and the show despite the fact that really quite serious about the subject matter, is a comedy, but it's also really thought provoking. You'll hear some of the things I've said, but I also just wanted to open up this subject in a way that we're not often able to do and to think about it in a different way, and have more information and have more space, and laugh about it.

That might sound bizarre and counterintuitive but deaths, some of the funniest things that have ever happened to me have been around people who have been dying. In the Silent Witness show I do, I'm in forensics. I'm not in real life, obviously. The laugh, the humour in the darkness. We need to connect through that and music, as well, really helps with that and opens that up.

That's why I made a show I guess. I want to leave with a question in the words of Katherine McKinnon: There was a big, big debate down in Bristol in the U.K., around whether we should legalise assisted suicide, and I just liked her. Her words spoke to me anyway. She said: I'm not saying that palliative care is a panacea. There are always going to be people who want to die before their bodies do; but on balance the risks of harm of changing the law to me outweigh the risks of harm of leaving it where it is.

We mustn't be duped into believing the mantra that autonomy is king; that we can have whatever we want. This is a recipe for a dysfunctional society, but I will leave you with a question. What is worse, killing someone who does not want to be killed? Or not killing someone who does want to be killed? At the moment on balance, I think the former is worse. I think that's a useful question and that doesn't help your job, because you've got a really difficult job here, but it's a useful question. That's what I would like to leave you with.

You can view the video recording of the address by Liz and the address by local Victorian Disability Activist, Jax Brown HERE.

Assisted suicide bill defeated in Hawaii. The bill was a big fib.

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have amazing news to share. Hawaii assisted suicide SB 1129 was defeated by being sent back for amendments. Hawaii political leaders listened and understood that the assisted suicide bill was different than what the assisted suicide lobby was saying.

The paternalism of the assisted suicide lobby astounds me. They assume that legislators will not read the language of the bill but vote based on sound bites alone. Hawaii legislators read the bill. 

Hawaii News Now stated:

On Thursday, lawmakers said the bill is poorly written and would need considerable changes. 

The House Health Committee deferred the bill, essentially killing it.

Margaret Dore, successfully uncovered the truth. Dore wrote in her analysis that SB 1129 SD 2 - “Choice” is a Big Fat Fib, Dore's assessment was correct and the committee agreed.

Margaret Dore article: We won 7 - 0.

Dore's analysis of SB 1129 correctly stated:

• The act is sold as providing a voluntary patient choice, but doesn’t even have a requirement of being voluntary, capable or consenting when the lethal dose is administered. 
• People who ask about the act will lose their right to informed consent: They will lose the right to be told about alternatives for cure.
• The claim that self-administration is required is not true. The act says that a patient “may” self-administer the lethal dose. There is no language that administration “must” be by self-administration.
• Administration of the lethal dose is allowed to occur in private without a doctor or witness present. If the patient objected or even struggled, who would know?
• The death certificate is required to list a terminal disease as the cause of death. The significance is that prosecution will not be possible, no matter what the facts. The death will be a terminal disease (not murder) as a matter of law.
• Enactment will create the perfect crime to put older people in the crosshairs of their heirs and other predators.
• Elder abuse is already not a well-controlled problem. Passing the proposed act will make the situation worse.

For analysis and back up documentation, click here.
For a pdf version of this document, click here.

New Mexico Assisted Suicide Bill - Deserved to Die.

This article was published by the Sante Fe New Mexican on March 20, 2017.

By John Kelly, Director of the disability rights group Second Thoughts Massachusetts.

John Kelly

Thanks to the state Senate’s rejection of the assisted suicide bill, Senate Bill 252, residents of New Mexico can breathe easier. As Sen. Craig Brandt said during last week’s debate, “This bill is dangerous. Doctors make mistakes every day.”

CBS News reported in 2014 that 12 million Americans are misdiagnosed yearly. About 15 percent of people given less than six months to live are not “terminally ill.” Thousands of people “graduate” from hospice yearly. Assisted suicide programs turn the best result under hospice — learning that you weren’t “terminal” after all — into the tragedy of dying with years or decades of life remaining. This reality alone should be enough to stop any assisted suicide proposal cold. We cannot predict the future. The “choice” promised by assisted suicide is an illusion.

Assisted suicide hit the news in 2011, when two doctors petitioned District Court Judge Nan G. Nash to declare assisted suicide constitutional. A few months later, Santa Fe resident Aja Riggs joined the lawsuit after doctors gave her slim chance of surviving aggressive uterine cancer. Judge Nash’s 2014 ruling for the plaintiffs was overturned on appeal. Then the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled that there was no constitutional right to assisted suicide. More than five years later, Aja Riggs’ cancer is in remission.

During the Senate debate, senators warned that “undue influence” would lead to wrongful deaths. One out of every 10 older New Mexicans is estimated to be abused every year, mostly by adult children and spouses. A caregiver or heir to an estate could help sign a person up, pick up the prescription and then administer the lethal dose without worry of investigation. To receive immunity, they could simply claim to have acted in “good faith.”

With no official witness required at the death, we can’t know whether someone self-administered the drugs.

Insurers routinely value their bottom line over people’s health. Last summer, Californian Stephanie Packer received a letter from her insurer refusing to cover a prescribed course of chemotherapy. Her co-pay for assisted suicide? $1.20.

Millions of people now face the prospect of losing health insurance if Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act. That will mean even less choice. SB 252 would have put depressed people with a serious health condition or disability at risk. Depression is treatable, death is not.

Supporters of SB 252 said the bill was needed to prevent people dying in agony, but attentive comfort care can control pain in dying patients, through palliative sedation if necessary. People already have the right to refuse any treatment, including food and water.

We now have 25 years of reports from Oregon and Washington, which show that pain (which includes fear of pain) is the sixth-cited of seven “end-of-life concerns.” Oregon physicians report giving lethal drugs mainly due to psychosocial distress about disability, including dependence on other people (“losing autonomy,” 91 percent), grief over lost abilities (90 percent), loss of the respect of others (“loss of dignity,” 77 percent), needing help with incontinence (“losing control of bodily functions,” 47 percent) and believing that suicide would leave loved ones better off (“burden on family, friends/caregivers,” 42 percent).

What we disabled people see in legalizing assisted suicide is that some people receive suicide prevention, while others get suicide assistance, based on value judgments and prejudice. Instead, let’s make sure that people have the choice and support to live — and die — comfortably, at home, with pain controlled and dignity intact.

As a progressive, I am heartened that seven Democrats joined Republicans in defeating the measure. Protecting innocent people from misdiagnosis, insurers’ bottom lines, suicidal depression and abuse is a cause that everyone can embrace.

John B. Kelly is a Boston-based disability rights activist and writer. He is the director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts: Disability Rights Advocates against Assisted Suicide. The group’s website is www.second-thoughts.org.

The "Freedom To Choose" Goes Two Ways

This article was written by Mark Pickup and published on his blog on March 19, 2017.

Sharon Kirkey, 'Take my name off the list, I can't do any more' some doctors backing out of assisted death, National Post, 26 February 2017.

Nine months after Canada legalised medically assisted suicide (euphemistically and deceptively termed medical aid in dying). It seems many participating Canadian doctors are not comfortable murdering killing their patients. (See article above.) Assisted suicide proponents speculate it's because doctors' fear of prosecution or distaste for filling out associated paperwork. Yeah right. 

Could it be that deep within the human psyche there is a natural repugnance to killing people? Enforced 'progressive' groupthink still can't stifle every human conscience. 

Support doctors who have lost their stomach for killing human beings—whether it be abortion or assisted suicide. Encourage them to return to Hippocratic medicine. Support conscience rights that are supposedly protected in Article 2, FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS of the CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS:

"Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression..."

What is the point of having freedom of thought, belief or opinion without the ability to express it in word and behaviour? The freedom choice to be put to death is not the only right in Canada's Brave New World of tax-funded assisted suicide.
 
There must also be an equal right for medical professionals not to participate. Choice goes two ways.

Assisted Suicide group was turned down by the Minnesota Supreme Court for review of 2015 conviction.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On Tuesday, March 14, 2017 the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to review the conviction of the Final Exit Network.

On May 14, 2015, the Final Exit Network was found guilty, by a jury, of assisted suicide and the group was sentenced on August 24, 2015.

On December 19, 2016, the Minnesota appeals court upheld the conviction of the Final Exit Network in the assisted suicide death of Doreen Dunn who died on May 30, 2007.

In a Final Exit Network Press Release, the assisted suicide group stated that the Supreme Court of Minnesota declined to review their conviction so they will be asking the Supreme Court of the United States to review their conviction.

During the 2015 trial, the Lacrosse Tribune reported:

Dakota County prosecutor Elizabeth Swank told jurors that the evidence showed that two members of Final Exit Network went to Dunn's home in Apple Valley to assist her suicide. They then removed the equipment that she used for suicide so that it appeared she had died of natural causes. 

Dunn's husband of 29 years arrived home on May 30, 2007, to find her dead on the couch. Swank said Dunn had a blanket pulled up to her neck with her hands folded on her chest. 

Swank said that despite Dunn's pain and depression, she had no life-threatening illness and her family was puzzled by her death. There were good things happening in her life: Her daughter who had been in Africa for about a year was coming home the next day and her son's fiancee was scheduled to give birth that week. However, her husband was also planning to move out, the prosecutor said.

John Celmer

The Final Exit Network has been prosecuted in several assisted suicide cases. In Georgia, John Celmer, who was depressed after recovering from cancer, the Final Exit Network assisted his suicide. Celmer's widow Susan Celmer, testified against the Final Exit Network. The Final Exit Network assists the suicide of people at the most vulnerable time of their life. Larry Egbert, the former medical director for the Final Exit Network, lost his medical license in Maryland. 

Great news: New Mexico Senate rejects assisted suicide bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The New Mexico Senate defeated assisted suicide bill SB 252 by a vote of 22 - 20 last night, with 7 Democrats voting with 15 Republicans.

Steve Terrell, writing for the New Mexican stated:

Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, countered that he couldn’t support the bill because of its inherent risks. Doctors, Brandt said, make mistakes every day. Someone diagnosed as terminally ill could actually recover, he said.

Democrats who voted against Stefanics’ bill were Pete Campos of Las Vegas; Carlos Cisneros of Questa; Richard Martinez of Española; George Muñoz of Gallup; Clemente Sanchez of Grants; Benny Shendo of Jemez Pueblo; and John Arthur Smith of Deming.

One Republican, Sen. Sander Rue, of Albuquerque, voted for the bill.

On June 30, 2016, the New Mexico Supreme Court in a 5 - 0 decision upheld the New Mexico Court of Appeal decision that assisting a suicide is a crime in Morris v Brandenburg. The Supreme Court decision was a response to the activist lower court decision that found a right to assisted suicide in New Mexico.

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez has said that she would have vetoed the assisted suicide bill.

Euthanasia deaths increasing quickly in Québec.

Alex Schadenberg 
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 

CBC news reported (March 14) that the number of euthanasia deaths in Québec significantly increased in the second half of 2016. According to the CBC news report:

A total of 461 patients were granted doctor-assisted death during the first year of Quebec's medical aid in dying law, according to data obtained by CBC's French-language service, Radio-Canada. 

The number of requests increased significantly in the second half of 2016. From December 2015 to end of June 2016, 253 patients requested the procedure, and 166 of them underwent it. 

Between June and December 2016, 468 people made requests for medically assisted dying, with 295 of them undergoing it.

Similar to other jurisdictions, euthanasia is introduced under the guise of a strictly regulated law whereby lethal injection will be presented as a "final alternative," but over time, it becomes more accepted, promoted and common.

The CBC news report stated:

Five health services centres in Quebec saw substantial increases in the number of requests they were receiving, a rise of more than 200 per cent.

For example, the West Island Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre (CIUSSS) saw an increase of 266.7 per cent after the first six months.

Meanwhile, the data shows the rate of acceptance varies based on where the request is made. 

The 6 month report indicated that 14% of the euthanasia deaths were non-compliant with the law.

More important articles:

• Dutch euthanasia deaths continue to rise in 2015.
• Belgian 2015 euthanasia report: Deaths continue to rise.
• Oregon 2015 assisted suicide report - another 26% increase.
• Washington State 2015 assisted suicide report. Assisted deaths increase by 31.7%.
• Switzerland: 26% increase in assisted suicide deaths in 2014.

Film Producer Seeking Assisted Suicide Stories

The producers of The Euthanasia Deception documentary (www.VulnerableFilm.com) are working on a new film dealing with the effects of assisted suicide in America. 

Assisted suicide is currently legal in the States of Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, and the District of Columbia. 

If you or a loved one have felt coerced, experienced abuse, or come back from the brink of death by assisted death, we would like to hear from you. 

Email us a brief description with contact information at VulnerableStories@gmail.com.

Euthanasia: Man needs a pal not a pill.

Every once in a while I read a letter to the editor that hits the nail on the head. 
This letter was published by Saukvalley.com on Friday March 10, 2017.

By Margaret Brechon Dixon

I read with sadness the article in the March 4 SV Weekend, “Changing views on end-of-life decisions.” The author [Jim Nowlan] describes a scenario that is indeed unfortunate and yet familiar to many. An elderly gentleman with health issues is alone, forlorn, and no longer sees a purpose to his life. As the gentleman says, “I am ready to go.”

What I find disturbing about the article is the proposed solution: a pill to end his life. It all sounds so compassionate, but this is euthanasia, the direct taking of another’s life. It may have names that make it all seem palatable, like “death with dignity” or “aid in dying,” but the reality is the same.

If the gentleman is clinically depressed, there are medications for that. Perhaps he just needs a friend to talk with. Why are some so quick to offer death as a solution under the guise of individual autonomy?

When the state legalizes physician-assisted suicide, the role of the doctor is changed from healer to – well, you know. Disability rights groups oppose such laws because their lives may not be valued. St. Pope John Paul II labeled this as the culture of death because it denies the inviolable dignity of the human person.

I would suggest to the author that what his friend needs is a pal, not a pill.

If you need to speak to someone about ending-of-life medical issues, euthanasia or assisted suicide contact Compassionate Community Care (CCC) at: 1-855-675-8749. 

CCC believes in Caring not Killing.

Kansas & Oklahoma are tightening their assisted suicide laws.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kansas Legislature

The Kansas legislature is debating Resolution No 5010, a resolution that opposes assisted suicide and promotes improvements to palliative care. The Resolution states:

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Kansas, the Senate concurring therein: That the legislature strongly opposes and condemns physician-assisted suicide because the legislature has an unqualified interest in the preservation of human life; and

Be it further resolved: That the legislature strongly opposes and condemns physician-assisted suicide because anything less than a prohibition leads to foreseeable abuses and eventually to euthanasia by devaluing human life, particularly the lives of the terminally ill, elderly, disabled and depressed whose lives are of no less value or quality than any other citizen of this state; and

Be it further resolved: That the legislature strongly opposes and condemns physician-assisted suicide even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults because assisted suicide eviscerates efforts to prevent the self-destructive act of suicide and hinders progress in effective physician interventions, including diagnosing and treating depression, managing pain and providing palliative and hospice care; and

Be it further resolved: That the legislature strongly opposes and condemns physician-assisted suicide because assisted suicide undermines the integrity and ethics of the medical profession, subverts a physician's role as healer and compromises the physician-patient relationship; and

Be it further resolved: That the Secretary of State transmit a copy of this resolution to the Governor of the State of Kansas, the Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment and the Kansas Medical Society.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges members of the Kansas legislature to support Resolution 5010.

Oklahoma Legislature

On March 6, 2017; the Oklahoma House passed HB 1495 , the Death Certificate Accuracy Act by a vote of 62 - 26. HB 1495 will hopefully lead to change by creating pressure on states that have laws that force doctors to lie on death certificates.

HB 1495 makes it a felony to knowingly lie on a death certificate by improperly stating the manner of death.

Even though assisted suicide is a prohibited act in Oklahoma, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports HB 1495 because it creates awareness of the cover-up that exists in the states that have legalized assisted suicide and it further builds opposition to assisting a suicide in Oklahoma.

The Danger from Assisted Suicide Prescriptions is Real

Great News: The sponsor of the assisted suicide bill in Maryland (HB 370) recently withdrew the bill due to a lack of support. The following is an excellent article that was published by Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide.

We’ve written before about how physician-assisted suicide [PAS]actually plays out and how undignified it really is for patients.

In that piece, we detail the typical prescription a patient receives to kill themselves – between 90-100 pills (9-10 grams) of a barbiturate called Seconal. For a drug that is normally prescribed in doses of 100 mg (1 pill) for people who have trouble sleeping, a 90-100 pill dose taken all within an hour can only be described as an intentional overdose or poison.

What is often overlooked is that this intentional overdose, the suicide drugs, is often not taken right away, if at all by the patient who requested them. We know from PAS supporters public statements that patients take comfort in having the suicide drugs at the ready but may never take them. And we know from Oregon’s state data that hundreds of patients die before taking the pills. This situation creates a dangerous scenario for accidental or intentional ingestion of the deadly pills by someone other than the patient.

The first paragraph in a recent Baltimore Sun article says all we need to know about how people are currently treating deadly drugs in their own homes:

“Parents are leaving their opioid prescriptions out in the open, on counters and dressers, inadvertently giving children, especially teenagers, easy access to the pills, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.”

The abuse of opioids has received an incredible amount of attention by the media recently and for good reason. Yet, even with growing opioid addiction rates in Maryland, Johns Hopkins researchers found that a large majority of parents (70%) are not taking any precautions to safely store opioids in homes with children under 17.

The article goes onto note:

“Many teenagers will see an easily accessible pill bottle as a chance to experiment with the drug for the first time, or use it recreationally under the assumption that it’s safe because it was prescribed by a doctor. The easy early access increases their chance of addiction, the researchers said.”

If parents with small children in their home are not taking precautions to prevent abuse of opioids, it’s easy to see how an elderly, terminal patient would take no precautions to ensure their suicide drugs do not fall into the wrong hands.

House Bill 370 and Senate Bill 354 make no attempt to prevent this type of abuse. It’s one more example of a complete lack of safeguards included in this bill.

The Mother Situation: Award winning comic short film about euthanasia is a hit.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Mother Situation won first
prize at the Tropfest film festival

After all the recent films promoting euthanasia, it is interesting how The Mother Situation won first prize in the Tropfest film festival in Australia. Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival.

Link to: The Mother Situation film.

Warning: This film contains swearing.

Director, Matt Day, insists that he supports euthanasia and that this is not an anti-euthanasia film, yet The Mother Situation is a comic film that casts doubt on the effectiveness of "safeguards" concerning euthanasia.

Film is a powerful cultural medium.

Recently a euthanasia advocate changed her mind after watching The Euthanasia Deception documentary with her grandson. The Euthanasia Deception documentary is produced by The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) and DunnMedia.

EPC is committed to producing films for social change at: www.vulnerablefilms.com.