Sunday, January 16, 2022

Assisted suicide for anorexia nervosa.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying (ACAMAID) "Ethics Consultation Service" decided that it is ethical to assist the suicide of a person with anorexia nervosa. The ACAMAID is an organization of medical practitioners who provide assisted suicide. According to the case report:
Female patient with anorexia nervosa requested aid in dying from her palliative care physician. She had participated in multiple inpatient and outpatient treatment programs for eating disorders over the past years without any sustained recovery. Her eating disorder physician, who participated in the consultation call, felt that, although the patient had not accepted or agreed to the “gold standard” treatment of full weight restoration to evaluate brain function, she was terminally ill. This physician as well as the consulting psychiatrist felt that the patient had decisional capacity. The patient was enrolled in hospice and lived with her family who supported her request to access aid in dying.
Sounds like abandonment. Her palliative care physician and psychiatrist had given up on her and her family supported her dying by lethal drugs.

Even though the ACAMAID consultation service acknowledged that:
There is no consensus in the eating disorder literature regarding whether a patient who has severe enduring anorexia nervosa is “terminally” and “irreversibly” ill according to the definition in the State statute.
The ACAMAID consultation service decided that:
If the patient’s eating disorder treating physician and evaluating psychiatrist agreed that she had a “terminal disease” and retained decision-making capacity, she would meet those requirements of the aid in dying statute in her jurisdiction.
Traditionally people asked how do we cure or care for a person? How is it possible to acknowledge that there is no consensus as to whether the patient is terminal or irreversible but then decide if the patients treating physician and psychiatrist believe that she is terminal then she can die? This means that you live if you have a doctor or psychiatrist who oppose killing and you die if you don't.

The approval of assisted suicide for this woman who has struggled with anorexia nervosa is not based on providing a "freedom to die" but rather it is an abandonment of a woman with incredible needs.

The concept of Do No Harm is clearly lost on the ACAMAID as they focus on killing.

7 comments:

  1. I am getting indifferent to these injustices. A call for euthanasia may really be a call for help. What I noticed is when a patient mentions euthanasia all his relatives say okay and never say we love you and want you to live as long as possible Recently I was witness to a woman who wanted to hastened her death because she did not want to install an elevator in her home although she had the financial means to do so. None of the family objected. I am still haunted by the decision of the family.

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  2. I believe all of this madness and sorrow has evolved from the widespread acceptance and even "celebration" of abortion. (I say 'celebration', as it is touted so highly as progressive human rights. Certainly not for the baby being terminated of course.) It has become acceptable to get rid of the life that creates an inconvenience. The life itself has been devalued.
    It's only logical that once we start to view human life in this manner, it's a small progression to think that any human life can be dispensed with as a solution to a "problem".

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  3. My daughter has severe anorexia nervosa and has been in and out of a children's hospital -she is only 15...is this the end result that these policy makers want in store for her? How sad talk about giving up and giving in to murder

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  4. The Globalists keep on pushing the limit....There is no end to what they will do to depopulate the world...This is tragic!!!

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  5. Thanks for calling attention to this travesty of medical/psychiatric care, Alex. I fear it is the first step (in the U.S.) down the "slippery slope" of assisted suicide for patients with chronic psychiatric illnesses. Is chronic schizophrenia next?

    Regards,
    Ron

    Ronald W. Pies MD

    P.S. My colleague, Dr. Cindy Geppert, published an important paper on why treatment of anorexia nervosa should not be considered "futile" at any stage.

    Geppert CM. Futility in Chronic Anorexia Nervosa: A Concept Whose Time has Not Yet Come. Am J Bioethics 2015; 15(7): 34-43.

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  6. This is EUGENICS! We must cull the population of all those who are "mentally defective!" Margaret Sanger is toasting with all the Nazi concentration camp doctors!!

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