Rita Marker, the Great Anti-Assisted-Suicide Champion, Has Died at 83

This article was published by National Review online on November 1, 2024

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The great anti-euthanasia warrior, Rita Marker, has died at 83 after a long illness.

Rita was in Europe in the mid 1980s and, out of curiosity, attended an international right-to-die convention. She was so alarmed by what she heard, she and her late husband and soulmate Mike Marker, formed the nonprofit International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force (later renamed the Patients Rights Council). Along with a loyal staff, Rita began decades of work pushing against that dark agenda.

Not every great public-policy activist becomes a household name. Rita wasn’t interested in notoriety or fame. Effectiveness was her lodestar, that and personal sacrifice. For as long as she was physically able, she gave all she had to the cause.

Rita Marker

Rita had stage fright, but she spoke countless times to venues large and small.

Rita was terrified of flying. But she traveled the country and the world, speaking against euthanasia and in favor of compassionate care.

Rita was a devout Catholic. But she insisted that the task force’s opposition to assisted suicide be focused through a human-rights and secular lens.

Rita did not have a professional degree — until she decided that she would be most effective by becoming a lawyer. She attended a mail-in law school while still working more than full time for the task force and passed the California bar exam — the nation’s toughest — on her first attempt.

Unlike organizations on the other side of this issue, anti-assisted-suicide work doesn’t have the backing of billionaires like George Soros. The task force mostly depended on smaller donations and grants, so the finances could sometimes be iffy. As a result, Rita was woefully underpaid, particularly given her indefatigable exertions, sometimes even skipping paychecks to ensure that the work continued.

Rita could have a brittle exterior, but underneath, her heart was ripe and tender. When Ann Humphry — co-founder of the Hemlock Society with her husband, Derek Humphry — contracted breast cancer, Derek separated from her. Then, her compatriots in the right-to-die movement shunned her. Ann reached out in despair to the old enemy, Rita Marker. Rita spread her arms and welcomed Ann as a close friend.

After Ann killed herself, Rita authored a moving book about their relationship. Deadly Compassion: The Death of Ann Humphry and the Truth About Euthanasia remains a classic in the genre.

Ann came to see the wrongness of the assisted-suicide movement she had helped spawn, and in a final note to Rita before her death, she urged, “Do the best you can.”

Rita always did. I am convinced that in her time, Rita was the most effective anti-assisted-suicide/euthanasia champion in the world.

Rita’s life was full. She is survived by seven children, 29 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.

So, rest in peace, Rita. You fought the good fight. You finished the race. You kept the faith. You served your purpose. The world is better for your having been in it.

Euthanasia Poisons People and Society

The following article was published on March 19, 2024 by The Human Life Review.

By Wesley J Smith

In my first-ever anti-euthanasia article, published in Newsweek in 1993, I described the suicide of my friend Frances, who killed herself under the influence of the euthanasia-promoting Hemlock Society (since rechristened Compassion and Choices). Toward the end of the piece, I predicted what would happen should assisted suicide become legal and normalized:

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.¹

I believed my conclusion would be uncontroversial. After all, it was only logical. Once the act of eliminating suffering by eliminating the sufferer is redefined from a crime to a beneficent medical intervention, there is no limiting principle. Terminal illness might be the gateway excuse for legalization, but since the real issue is the best response to suffering, I could not see how access would not expand continually over time. After all, many people who are not dying suffer more intensely and for a longer period than those who are. Moreover, once the law accepts the premise that some people are better off dead, a utilitarian calculus naturally follows that sees hastening deaths as beneficial—a “plum to society,” as I put it.

Boy, was I wrong! I received more than 150 letters reacting to the column. Most were hateful screeds. (Remember, this was before email, when my detractors had to pay the price of a stamp to wish me a slow and painful death from cancer.) Beyond the hate, almost all of my correspondents accused me of engaging in alarmist slippery slope argumentation. Even those who agreed that assisted suicide should not be legalized blithely assured me that it would never come to organ harvesting or mercy killing of those without a good “quality of life.”

Now, more than 30 years later, the facts are in. Euthanasia and/or assisted suicide has been legalized throughout the Western world—including in Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Germany (by court ruling), Austria (by court ruling), and (most worrying of all to us in the United States) Canada. In the United States, assisted suicide is now legal in nine states and the District of Columbia. Tens of thousands of people throughout the world have had their deaths facilitated. And—just as I predicted—the practice of what death activists euphemistically call “medical aid in dying” (MAiD) has not only increased in numbers but expanded exponentially in scope, in some places including the instrumental use of those whose deaths have been facilitated. Indeed and alas, rather than being alarmist, my long-ago warning proved prophetic.

Euthanasia without Brakes

Most of the media are euthanasia-friendly, preferring to report on the issue in the glowing, uncritical language of empowered patients “dying peacefully on their own terms,” supported by loving family who are grateful that grandma is no longer suffering.² In contrast, euthanasia abuses and horror stories—an ever-growing list—generally receive little focused media attention and remain outside the notice of people not engaged with the issue. But we now have enough experience with euthanasia/assisted suicide to demonstrate that the “slippery slope” is not only real but has become an avalanche of abuse and abandonment.

Space does not permit a complete recitation of the known examples of abuse or neglect associated with legalized euthanasia. But the following recitation demonstrates the danger:

Euthanasia “Patients” as “Organ Farms”: People killed by euthanasia are increasingly being looked upon by doctors and society as splendid sources of organs. Not only that, but the phenomenon of conjoining euthanasia with organ harvesting—becoming relatively common now in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada—is celebrated in the media. Thus, the Ottawa Citizen recently depicted the practice as “a growing boon to organ donation,” sighing:

Ontarians who opt for medically assisted deaths (MAiD) are increasingly saving or improving other people’s lives by also including organ and tissue donation as part of their final wishes. According to Trillium Gift of Life Network, which oversees organ and tissue donation in Ontario, the 113 MAiD-related donations in 2019 accounted for five per cent of overall donations in Ontario, a share that has also been increasing.³

Some readers might be asking, “What’s the problem? These are people who want to die, so why not allow them to donate their organs?”

The question itself demonstrates the danger. Imagine a healthy suicidal person asking to be killed and organ-harvested because he doesn’t believe his life to be worth living and hopes that through his death others—who want to live—can be saved. Would we allow that? No! (At least not yet.) Rather, the humane response would be to offer the person mental health support and suicide prevention to get past the darkness.

Now, notice the difference when a patient qualifies for euthanasia. Not only is suicide prevention not engaged, but in Ontario, once the patient is accepted for a lethal injection, the death doctor informs Trillium Gift of Life Network. In turn, Trillium contacts the soon-to-be-killed person to ask for their heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys. Again, from the Ottawa Citizen story:

“As part of high-quality end-of life care, we make sure that all patients and families are provided with the information they need and the opportunity to make a decision on whether they wish to make a donation,” Gavsie says. “That just follows the logical protocol under the law and the humane approach for those who are undergoing medical assistance in dying. And it’s the right thing to do for those on the wait list.”⁴

This is the opposite of “high-quality end-of-life care.” Canada does not restrict euthanasia to the terminally ill, but may include people with disabilities, chronic illnesses—and, beginning this year, the physically healthy experiencing mental illness. (The mentally ill are already eligible for euthanasia in Belgium and the Netherlands.) Thus, many euthanized organ donors would not be dying but for being lethally injected. Indeed, some might live indefinitely.

But because they are qualified to be killed under the law, their organs come to the forefront of policy. An article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal  recently updated the Association’s “guidelines” for conjoining euthanasia and organ harvesting when the patient is not terminally ill—these are called “Track 2” patients.5 (There are even more relaxed standards for “Track 1” patients, those whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable.” Due to space considerations, I focus below primarily on Track 2 patients.) From “Deceased Organ and Tissue Donation After Medical Assistance in Dying” (my emphasis):

All Track 2 patients who are potentially eligible for organ donation should be approached for first-person consent for donation after MAiD once MAiD eligibility has been confirmed, regardless of when their eligibility for MAiD is confirmed within the 90-day assessment period.

This means that the death doctor is to contact the organ-donation association, which in turn will contact the suicidal patient and ask for his or her organs (which, as we have seen, already happens in Ontario).

The recommendations also suggest allowing a soon-to-be-euthanized patient to determine who receives organs:

Organ donation organizations and transplantation programs should develop a policy on directed deceased donation for patients pursuing MAiD, in alignment with the directed donation principles and practices that are in place for living donation in their jurisdiction  . . . Directed donation should not proceed if there is indication of monetary exchange or similar valuable consideration or coercion involved in the decision to pursue directed donation. The intended recipient in a directed deceased donation case should be a family member or “close friend”—an individual with whom the donor or donor’s family has had a long-standing emotional relationship.  . . . The intended recipient must be on the current transplant waiting list or meet criteria for the same  . . . Transplantation will proceed only if the donor organ is medically compatible with the intended recipient.

Do you see the danger? The need for a transplant by a medically compatible loved one could become the motive for asking for euthanasia.

The article grouses that waiting for the patient to initiate organ donation conversations means “missed opportunities”:

Given the variation in practices relating to both MAiD and donation after MAiD across Canada, some jurisdictions may be unable to apply the updated guidance. Specifically, in jurisdictions reliant on patient initiation of donation after MAiD, lack of awareness of the option may result in missed opportunities. Jurisdictions without central coordination of MAiD may experience similar challenges. There are also jurisdictional variations in the education, training and support provided to coordinators who facilitate donation after MAiD.

Now, we can see that once the patient is accepted for medicalized homicide, his or her intrinsic human dignity is diminished—in at least some sense—from that of an equally valuable person into that of a mere natural resource usable for the benefit of others. In other words, the life, wellbeing, and future potential of the patient become secondary considerations to the potential benefit of garnering organs for other patients who want to live.

The impact of this dehumanizing force of gravity became blaringly clear in a recent case out of Belgium. A story in Le Soir recounted what happened when a 16-year-old girl with a brain tumor asked to be euthanized and have her organs harvested.6 Doctors agreed. At that point, she mattered less than the donation. The girl was sedated and intubated in an ICU for 36 hours before being euthanized and harvested.

The story lauds the girl as selfless. But it seems to me there is a terrible dark side to the tragedy. First, this was a minor terrified of decline who stated that by donating organs she believed she could do some good. But for that option, she might not have asked to die. Second, as far as we know, the girl wasn’t provided with suicide prevention nor assured that palliative care could alleviate her symptoms. Finally, the lengthy sedation to which she was subjected was primarily administered to allow her organs to be tested and to allow time to find compatible recipients. In other words, at least in some sense, once the girl asked to donate her organs, they became the paramount consideration.

Euthanasia as a Substitute for Care: When I first began my work against euthanasia and assisted suicide in 1993, both euthanasia and assisted suicide were permitted in the Netherlands under a decriminalized system that allowed doctors to end the lives of patients so long as there was (supposedly) no other means of preventing suffering and the death doctor reported the details to the authorities.7 (That system is now defunct. The Netherlands formally legalized euthanasia in 2003.)

When researching my first book on the issue, I came across data demonstrating that hospice was virtually unknown in the Netherlands. One reason for this deficiency was the Dutch medical system, which depends on general practitioners making house calls and has fewer specialists than the American system. But, I wrote, that might not have been the only reason:

The widespread availability of euthanasia in the Netherlands may be another reason for the stunted growth of the Dutch hospice movement. As one Dutch doctor is reported to have said, “Why should I worry about palliation when I have euthanasia?”⁸

In other words, once medicalized killing becomes normalized, it could eventually become a measure of first resort rather than last.

That abandoning paradigm can be seen playing out increasingly in Canada in recent years:

    • A VA counselor suggested euthanasia to a military veteran burdened by PTSD.⁹

    • A disabled woman with quadriplegia plans to be euthanized because she is destitute and it is easier and quicker to receive euthanasia than obtain disability benefits.¹⁰

    • A man with serious disabilities—refused coverage for independent living services—was told that Canadian Medicare would cover the costs of obtaining a lethal jab.¹¹

    • A cancer patient decided to be euthanized because he couldn’t obtain the chemotherapy that would extend his life.¹²

    • Another cancer patient was offered euthanasia by her surgeon and told it would take months before she could see an oncologist. She chose instead to be treated in the USA.¹³

    • An elderly woman opted for euthanasia rather than be isolated from her family during a Covid lockdown. Her family was allowed to be with her when she died but would not have been allowed to visit her room if she continued living.¹⁴

Canada isn’t alone in this. A report out of the Netherlands finds that autistic people are being euthanized in lieu of being provided proper care. From the AP story:

Several people with autism and intellectual disabilities have been legally euthanized in the Netherlands in recent years because they said they could not lead normal lives, researchers have found. The cases included five people younger than 30 who cited autism as either the only reason or a major contributing factor for euthanasia, setting an uneasy precedent that some experts say stretches the limits of what the law originally intended Eight said the only causes of their suffering were factors linked to their intellectual disability or autism—social isolation, a lack of coping strategies or an inability to adjust their thinking.¹⁵

The same paradigm is seen in Belgium, where a healthy elderly couple received joint euthanasia deaths out of fear of future loneliness caused by widowhood—a killing arranged by the couple’s own children.¹⁶ A suicidal anorexia patient, despairing over being the object of sexual predation by her former psychiatrist, was euthanized by her new psychiatrist.¹⁷ A transgendered patient despairing over the adverse results of transition surgery was killed rather than helped to go on living.¹⁸ These kinds of cases are becoming ubiquitous.

Enough. The unintended cruelty of legalized euthanasia is now quite clear. It is about “choice,” they say. It is about compassion, they say. Bah. That is just a veneer. Medicalized killing eventually becomes a form of abandonment.

Future Concerns

The societal damage done by euthanasia expands exponentially as time passes and a nation’s population accepts doctor-hastened death as normal. Here are a few of the unfolding harms that have emerged recently.

Euthanasia Deaths, Going Up!: Euthanasia/assisted suicide is sold to a wary public as a last-resort option—a safety valve, if you will—to be rarely applied, and then only in cases of extremism. But in real life, hastened death tends to increase exponentially year by year. For example, in 1998—the first full year that assisted suicide in Oregon became legally available—the state reported 16 deaths from assisted suicide. In 2022, that number had risen to 278, with 431 prescriptions written.¹⁹

The Netherlands has experienced an even more dramatic increase. In 2004, 1886 people were killed by doctors. In 2021, the number had risen to 7,666. Even more notably, that number increased by more than a thousand in one year, with 8,720 lethal injections in 2022.²⁰

Canada experienced the most startling death acceleration. The first year of full legalization, 2016, Canadian doctors killed 1,018 patients. The next year the total was 2,828. In 2018, it reached 4,493. In 2022, a horrifying 13,241 patients were killed.²¹ (If the same percentage of people were killed by doctors in the much more populous United States, that would amount to about 140,000 medical homicides annually.) And now that patients with clearly non-terminal conditions are killable in Canada, these numbers will undoubtedly rise to unprecedented levels going forward.

Follow the Money: There is a less visible but perhaps ultimately more dangerous force driving the euthanasia juggernaut: money. Whether in a socialized healthcare system like Canada’s, or one with free market elements and incentives as in the United States, once the most expensive-to-care-for patients can be killed—people with long-term chronic medical conditions, disabilities, or the frail elderly—it should become obvious that, over time, billions could be saved in the healthcare system.

This isn’t paranoia. Indeed, Derek Humphry, the co-founder of the Hemlock Society, made this point explicitly in his book (co-authored with Mary Clement) Freedom to Die: People, Politics and the Right to Die Movement. In a chapter entitled “The Unspoken Argument,” the euthanasia advocates write, “Elders or otherwise incurable people are often aware of the burdens—financial and otherwise—of their care.” They then get to the ultimate point:

A rational argument can be made for allowing PAS [physician-assisted suicide] in order to offset the amount society and family spend on the ill, as long as it is the voluntary wish of the mentally competent terminally ill and incurable adult. There will likely come a time when PAS becomes a commonplace occurrence for individuals who want to die and feel it is the right thing to do by their loved ones. There is no contradicting the fact that since the largest medical expenses are incurred in the final days and weeks of life, the hastened demise of people with only a short time left would free resources for others. Hundreds of billions of dollars could benefit those patients who not only can be cured but who also want to live.²²

Canadians have already noted the costs being saved for their socialized system from legalizing euthanasia. Back in 2017, a study projected that Canada’s socialized medical system could save up to C$138.8 million annually by not treating patients (less C$1.1 million for the costs associated with euthanasia). It is worth noting that the authors based their cost-savings projections on more conservative practice than the country’s actual experience. They assumed that “40% of Canadians who choose medical assistance in dying would have their lives shortened by 1 week, and 60% of patients will have their lives shortened by 1 month.”²³ In practice, many patients do not wait until the very end of their illnesses before being euthanized.

More recently, a 2020 projection found that if some 6,000 Canadians were to be euthanized under a proposed (and now in effect) expansion of death eligibility beyond “death being reasonably foreseeable,” the annual net savings would be C$149 million.²⁴ But more than twice as many Canadians died by euthanasia than was predicted in 2022, with the total cost savings currently unknown. Moreover, with the elderly, people with disabilities, and those with chronic and (soon) mental illnesses now being euthanized, the cost savings will undoubtedly increase, providing a potential incentive to further normalize killing as a “medical treatment.”

Euthanasia Poisons a Nation’s Soul: Transforming killing from a negative into a beneficent means of eliminating suffering changes public morality. For example, when euthanasia began in the Netherlands, it was supposed to be strictly limited to cases of force majeure. But after decades of desensitizing the public to doctors causing death, the Dutch people now overwhelmingly support allowing euthanasia for what is known as a “completed life.” From the NL Times story:

A massive 80 percent of voters believe that people should be able to get help in dying when they feel they’ve come to the end of their life,Trouw reports based on a Kieskompas poll of almost 200,000 people. Only 10 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that people who consider their lives complete should be able to end their lives with professional help. The other 10 percent of voters had no opinion on the matter.

The first focus of this idea are the elderly:

The [parliamentary] bill would allow people over 75 to decide when to die with professional help if they feel they’ve reached the end of a completed life. Added to the bill is a six-month process in which they have to meet with an “end-of-life counselor” at least three times.²⁵

Note well that the concept of the “completed life” need not involve any physical illness, disabling condition, or psychiatric malady at all. People could decide they have lived long enough due to loneliness, boredom, fear of future widowhood, death of an adult child, dissatisfaction with living conditions, worries about being unproductive, you name it. In other words, “completed life” euthanasia would allow the healthy elderly to be terminated.

Moreover, in principle, why should eligibility be age-dependent? Once the concept of the “completed life” is accepted, why shouldn’t the death option be available to younger people? Indeed, doesn’t every suicidal person believe their useful life is completed? Again, as with many aspects of euthanasia, there is no effective limiting principle.

Meanwhile, in Canada, shockingly large percentages of people now support euthanasia as a remedy for the suffering caused by adverse social conditions! According to a recent poll, 27 percent of respondents strongly or moderately agree that euthanasia is acceptable for suffering caused by “poverty,” and 28 percent strongly or moderately agree that killing by doctors is acceptable for suffering caused by “homelessness.”²⁶

Before the legalization of euthanasia, I’m confident that few Dutch would have supported allowing doctors to kill healthy geriatric patients—any more than (I hope) Americans would. But after decades of euthanasia normalization, only 10 percent think it would be wrong. And can we imagine more than one-quarter of Canadians supporting euthanasia as a remedy for homelessness if it had not already become widely accepted for the suffering caused by illness and disability? Do you see what I mean about how euthanasia is poisoning a nation’s soul?

“But Wesley,” some might say, “the same moral decay hasn’t happened in states that have legalized assisted suicide.” As a fact checker would put it, that’s partially true. People aren’t (yet) assisted in suicide for botched sex change surgeries or for having suffered sexual predation by their psychiatrist. But that shouldn’t make us sanguine. Almost every state that has legalized assisted suicide already has liberalized its regulations to allow easier access to doctor-prescribed death. Oregon and Vermont have done away with residency requirements, and some states even allow virtual assisted suicide, with doctors examining patients who want to die over the internet. Besides, the people of the United States have only nibbled at—but not yet swallowed— the snake’s proffered poison apple, which is why the death agenda has not yet swept the country. But if we ever do yield to the culture of death, the same tragic trajectory seen so vividly in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada will happen here. As I pointed out at the beginning of this essay, it’s only logical.

Conclusion

Euthanasia cannot ultimately be restricted only to the few for whom nothing but death can eliminate suffering. Once medicalized killing becomes normalized, the death agenda spreads, objectifies those who want to die, and corrupts public morality in ways that should shock the human conscience. The same progression will happen here too if we don’t change our current cultural trajectory. And many of those who dismiss the warnings contained in this article as alarmist will applaud when that dark time comes.

Those with eyes to see, let them see.

 

NOTES

1. Wesley J. Smith, “The Whispers of Strangers,” Newsweek, June 28, 1993. The Whispers of Strangers | Discovery Institute

2. Such articles are ubiquitous. See, for example, “Model Ali Tate Cutler’s Grandmother is Choosing to Die on Her Own Terms,” Yahoo News, May 25, 2023, Ali Tate Cutler grandmother dying by choice, MAID (yahoo.com).

3. Bruce Deachman, “Medically Assisted Deaths Prove a Growing Boon to Organ Donation in Ontario,” Ottawa Citizen, January 6, 2020.

4. Ibid.

5. Kim Wiebe MD, et. al., “Deceased Organ and Tissue Donation After Medical Assistance in Dying: 2023 Updated Guidance for Policy:” Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ 2023 June 26;195:E870-8. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.230108: Deceased organ and tissue donation after medical assistance in dying: 2023 updated guidance for policy (cmaj.ca)

6. Alain Lallemand, “Euthanasia: I’ve Had Enough. I Want to Die Helping People,” Le Soir, October 16, 2023 (Google translation).

7. For details on how this now-repealed system worked—and the abuses that resulted—see Wesley J. Smith, Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (New York, Times Books, 1997).

8. Ibid, p. 231.

9. Michael Lee, “Canadian Soldier Suffering with PTSD Offered Euthanasia by Veterans Affairs,” Fox News, August 22, 2022. Canadian soldier suffering with PTSD offered euthanasia by Veterans Affairs (foxnews.com)

10. Tyler Cheese, “Quadriplegic Ontario Woman Considers Medically Assisted Dying Because of Long ODSP Wait Times,” CBC News, June 22, 2023.

11. CTV CA, “The Solution is Assisted Life: Offered Death, Terminally Ill Ontario Man Files Lawsuit,” March 15, 2018.

12. Katie DeRosa, “B.C. Man Opts for Medically Assisted Death After Cancer Treatment Delayed,” National Post, December 5, 2023.

13. Amy Judd and Kylie Stanton, “B.C. Woman Gets Surgery in U.S., Says Wait Times at Home Could Have Cost Her Life,” Global News, November 27, 2023.

14. CTV News, “Facing Another Retirement Home Lockdown, 90-Year-Old Woman Chooses Medically Assisted Death,” November 19, 2020.

15. Maria Cheng, “Some Dutch People Seeking Euthanasia Cite Autism or Intellectual Disabilities, Researchers Say,” Associated Press, June 28, 2023.

16. Simon Caldwell, “Elderly Couple to Die Together by Assisted Suicide Even Though They Are Not Ill,” Daily Mail, September 25, 2014.

17. Michael Cook, “Another Speedbump for Belgian Euthanasia,” Bioedge, February 8, 2013.

18. Damian Gayle, “Transsexual, 44, Elects to Die by Euthanasia After Botched Sex-Change Operation Turned Him Into a ‘Monster’,” Daily Mail, October 1, 2013.

19. Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Death with Dignity Act, 2022 Data Summary, March 8, 2023. DWDA 2022 Data Summary Report (oregon.gov)

20. Statista, “Number of Euthanasia Deaths Reported in the Netherlands from 2000 to 2022.” Netherlands: euthanasia 2000-2022 | Statista

21. Government of Canada, “Fourth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2022.”

22. Derek Humphry and Mary Clement, Freedom to Die: People, Politics and The Right to Die Movement (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p. 333.

23. Aaron J. Trachtenberg and Braden Manns, “Cost Analysis of Medically Assisted Dying in Canada,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, January 23, 2017.

24. Office of the Canadian Budget Office, “Cost Estimate for Bill C-7 ‘Medical Assistance in Dying’,” October 20, 2020.

25. Anne-Marijke Podt, “Widespread Public Support for Assisted Suicide at End of Completed Life,” NL Times, November 8, 2923.

26. Research Co., “Poll on Medically Assisted Dying in Canada,” May 5, 2023. Tables_MAiD_ CAN_05May2023.xlsx Group (researchco.ca)

The euthanasia lobby is promoting suicide?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

While reading an article published by the Cal-Alumni Association that was promoting the expansion of the California assisted suicide law I wondered: Why does the death lobby get away with promoting suicide?

The article focused on stories of people who died by suicide / assisted suicide. I was shocked by the descriptions and lionizing of the deaths.

I regularly read articles about euthanasia and assisted suicide but I clearly felt that this article was not only promoting the expansion of assisted suicide but it was also irresponsible in how it described the deaths and applauded those who died.

The World Health Organization published a resource for media professionals with protocols for responsible reporting of suicide deaths to prevent suicide and suicide contagion. The quick reference in the WHO media guidelines for preventing suicide states:

• Take the opportunity to educate the public about suicide,
• Avoid language which sensationalizes or normalizes suicide, or presents it as a solution to problems,
• Avoid prominent placement and undue repetition of stories about suicide,
• Avoid explicit description of the method used in a completed or attempted suicide,
• Avoid providing detailed information about the site of a completed or attempted suicide,
• Word headlines carefully,
• Exercise caution in using photographs or video footage,
• Take particular care in reporting celebrity suicides,
• Show due consideration for people bereaved by suicide,
• Provide information about where to seek help,
• Recognize that media professionals themselves may be affected by stories about suicide

Clearly a story describing how Debra and Lillian ended their lives with clear descriptions of the methods used to die not only normalizes assisted suicide but it will lead to more suicide, the suicide contagion effect.

The data shows that where euthanasia or assisted suicide have been legalized that the suicide rates increase (Link).

Further to that, the story promotes the radical assisted suicide group, the Final Exit Network. Without trying to provide too much negative information, the Final Exit network assisted Lillian's suicide. The article states:

Lillian was not ill, at least not terminally, but she was old. She had lived a full and creative life, but was no longer the person she used to be, or wanted to be, or wanted her friends and family to see. She was certain about that.

The article that I am refering to is only one of many irresponsible articles that appear to be promoting assisted suicide or the expansion of these laws while in fact they are promoting suicide, whether they are assisted or not, and denigrating the life of people with disabilities or the elderly.

The claim that this is all about freedom of speech is important, but all freedoms have limits based on our responsibility to others.

I believe in a society that upholds the value of living with disabilities, respecting the lives and experience of elderly people and upholding the equality of every human being. 

Suicide promotion articles and the philosophy of the Final Exit Network is oriented towards abandoning people to death.

Woman who attempted to kill her mother claims it was an assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kimberly Hopkins

A woman who plead guilty in the attempted murder of her mother is now claiming, at her parole hearing, that she was only carrying out the wishes of her mother, Jan Martin, who she claims wanted to die by suicide. 

Last October Kimberley Hopkins pleaded guilty to the attempted first-degree murder of her mother and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

According to the report by Cole Sullivan for WBIR.com news:

Kimberly Hopkins said her elderly Tellico Village mother asked for her help to take her own life Father's Day weekend 2018. She said her mother had long suffered verbal and emotional abuse from her father and wanted to die that specific weekend to send a message.

Hopkins said that's why she coerced her mother into a bedroom under the guise of giving her a manicure, zip-tied her hands and tried to put a plastic bag with helium over her head. 

"She had ordered some things to help her kill herself and so I agreed to do that. I regret that now, but I was just doing what she wanted me to do," Hopkins said.

Death plan

But Sullivan reported that prosecutors said that there is no evidence to uphold Hopkins assertions.

Assistant District Attorney Jed Bassett said Jan Martin denied asking her daughter for assistance killing herself. 

Hopkins, he said, had been estranged from her parents for years. 

"There was not any correspondence that she was talking about referencing an attempt to assist her mother in any suicide or euthanasia type situation," District Attorney General Russell Johnson said. 

They say the murder plot was financially motivated.

Assisted suicide is illegal in Tennessee, nonetheless, once the concept of euthanasia or assisted suicide takes hold it becomes an argument for a lesser murder charge.

It is also important that Hopkins used Derek Humphry's Final Exit book to plan the murder.

As much as Hopkins is spinning a story in an attempt to have her jail sentence reduced, it is not unlikely that an excellent lawyer under different circumstances could successfully achieve a lesser sentence or even a suspended sentence.

The difference between homicide and euthanasia or suicide and assisted suicide is the societal perception of the person who died. Society judges that life is not worth living under certain conditions.

Assisted Suicide laws are lethal discrimination against old, ill and disabled people

This article was published on February 24 in connection with a poll on assisted suicide. The rift published a YES and NO assisted suicide article (Link) and then asks you to vote.

Diane Coleman wrote the No to assisted suicide article that I have re-published below.

By Diane Coleman

President of Not Dead Yet

Assisted suicide may understandably be viewed as an easy way to die, but a closer look reveals inherent dangers that should lead to second thoughts.

First, assisted suicide is not needed to ensure that we can die peacefully in our sleep, since we can already do so by receiving palliative care, up to and including full sedation.

So what do assisted suicide laws actually do? They grant civil and criminal immunity to healthcare providers and caregivers who may be involved.

The image of government approved, medically administered assisted suicide is that it only hastens the death of someone who is already dying and voluntarily takes lethal drugs, with “safeguards” preventing abuse. 

Under U.S. laws, an heir or abusive caregiver may suggest assisted suicide, witness the written request, and even give the drug without consent.

In contrast, in U.S. jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal, Oregon being the national “model”, no authority verifies patients were eligible or procedures were followed. A short form filed by the prescribing doctor is accepted at face value. It’s the “honor” system.

The U.S. laws require a 6-month prognosis, yet Oregon data shows that people far outlived their prognosis. Hospice data shows that 12-15% outlive their predicted expiration date. Oregon also defines someone as “terminal” who simply cannot afford treatment.

Some countries have expanded assisted suicide eligibility to include people with ordinary non-terminal disabilities and even psychological suffering with no physical illness.

So the image that all eligible people are dying soon anyway is not valid. But isn’t it still voluntary?

Unfortunately, under U.S. laws, an heir or abusive caregiver may suggest assisted suicide, witness the written request, and even give the drug without consent. No independent witness is required when the drugs are used, so who would know? Assisted suicide can also hide medical mistakes or malpractice.

Assisted suicide is being marketed as a new “civil right”

Finally, perhaps the greatest concern should be healthcare cost cutting pressures. As cofounder of the Hemlock Society Derek Humphry wrote, “…economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice.”

Assisted suicide is being marketed as a new “civil right,” but will we fall for it? Will we offer suicide prevention to most suicidal people, but carve out those who are old, ill and disabled? How long before a so-called option turns into an expectation, then a duty?

The real civil rights are nondiscrimination and equal protection of the laws. This is why every major national U.S. disability organization that has taken a position on assisted suicide laws opposes them.

The Extreme Ableism of Assisted Suicide

The following article was published by Not Dead Yet on January 28, 2020

By Diane Coleman, President & CEO Not Dead Yet

Diane Coleman

I just came across a brilliant letter that John Kelly sent to the Washington, D.C. Council when they were considering an assisted suicide bill in 2016. I should have posted it here then, but I am doing so now because it’s one of the best discussions I’ve read of the core problem that assisted suicide advocates have with disability.

Let me just highlight one example from the letter, a Washington Post quote from Dan Diaz, who is still working for Compassion and Choices, traveling around the country doing press conferences and testifying on their behalf in favor of these dangerous bills.

“If I find myself in a situation where I can’t go to the bathroom on my own, where someone has to change my diapers, where I can’t feed myself, where I can’t care for the people around me, where other people have to move me around to keep me from having bedsores, I would then submit, ‘Is that really living?’ ” Diaz said. 

Although assisted suicide proponents often accuse opponents of fearing death, the letter below demonstrates how profoundly proponents fear and loath disability. Their ableism is so extreme that they want to carve a vaguely defined segment of old, ill and disabled people out of suicide prevention, enlist our healthcare system in streamlining our path to death, and immunizing everyone involved from any legal consequences, thereby denying us the equal protection of the law.

November 1, 2016

Chairman Mendelson, Councilmembers:

John Kelly

My name is John Kelly. I am the New England Regional Director for Not Dead Yet, the national disability rights group that has long opposed euthanasia and assisted suicide. I am also the director of Not Dead Yet’s Massachusetts state affiliate, Second Thoughts MA: Disability Rights Advocates against Assisted Suicide.

I refer you to two recent articles in the Washington Post. Read together, they must lead you to vote against assisted suicide bill B21-38. Assisted suicide isn’t about physical pain at all, despite what proponents have told you. And assisted suicide benefits one specific group in the district and country, wealthier white people, while disadvantaging poorer people, and people of color specifically.

The first article came out last Monday, October 24. Titled “‘Death with dignity’ laws and the desire to control how one’s life ends,” this article exposes the main argument for assisted suicide, “that terminally ill patients have the right to die without suffering intractable pain in their final days or weeks,” as a big lie.

Author Liz Szabo reports that assisted suicide proponent group Compassion & Choices “focuses heavily on the need to relieve dying patients of pain.” One ad has the assisted suicide bill giving “a dying person the option to avoid the worst pain and suffering at the end of life.”

Yet the latest research shows that terminally ill patients who seek aid in dying aren’t primarily concerned about pain. Those who have actually used these laws have been far more concerned about controlling the way they exit the world than about controlling pain.

As one California doctor said, “It’s almost never about pain. It’s about dignity and control.”

And that’s what the Oregon and Washington data show. Pain is the least of people’s concerns. Doctors report people requesting the lethal drugs because of psychosocial suffering about becoming disabled through their illness. It’s mental distress about becoming dependent on other people (“losing autonomy” 92%), losing abilities (“less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable” 90%), shame and perceived/actual loss of social status (“loss of dignity” 79%), needing help with incontinence (“losing control of bodily functions” 48%), and believing that suicide would leave loved ones better off (“burden on family, friends/caregivers” 41%).

Dr. Ira Byock, a leading palliative care expert, told the Post, “it’s a bait and switch. We’re actually helping people hasten their deaths because of existential suffering. That’s chilling to me.” As Byock said, almost all pain is controllable. Hospice staff are on call 24 hours a day, and caregivers can be trained in administering emergency pain medication until staff arrive.

The real reasons that people want to commit assisted suicide, proponents admit, are about being dependent on other people for personal care. We disability rights activists have been pointing this out all along.

Barbara Coombs Lee, who as an insurance company executive wrote Oregon’s assisted suicide law, brought up the case of the woman who committed assisted suicide because she was incontinent. The woman wrote that “the idea of having somebody take care of me like I am a little 2-month-old baby is just absolutely repulsive. It’s more painful than any of the pain from the cancer.”

Lee described scenarios of disability that she said were “worse than death.” Proponent Dan Diaz emphasized the supposed horrors of disability.

“If I find myself in a situation where I can’t go to the bathroom on my own, where someone has to change my diapers, where I can’t feed myself, where I can’t care for the people around me, where other people have to move me around to keep me from having bedsores, I would then submit, ‘Is that really living?’

This isn’t a public health bill, it’s a death before disability bill.

So this is what some of you are planning to vote for. You are not protecting DC residents from agonizing pain. You are promoting the particular views of one specific group of people, described by Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel as predominantly “white, well-insured, and college-educated.” People who are used to being in control of every aspect of their lives.

So, like so much in the US, assisted suicide is an issue that cuts across class and race. The 2012 election map in Massachusetts shows that wealthier, whiter areas voted heavily for legalization, while working-class whites and people of color voted strongly against. People turning out for Barack Obama and current Sen. Elizabeth Warren defeated the proposal.

The second article, from October 17, by reporter of color Fenit Nirappil, was titled “Right-to-die law faces skepticism in nation’s capital: ‘it’s really aimed at old black people.’” It details the opposition to assisted suicide of Washington’s black majority.

Many in the black community distrust the health-care system and fear that racism in life will translate into discrimination in death, said Patricia King, a Georgetown Law School professor who has written about the racial dynamics of assisted death.

“Historically, African Americans have not had a lot of control over their bodies, and I don’t think offering them assisted suicide is going to make them feel more autonomous,” King said.

District residents told Nirappil of concerns that “low-income black senior citizens may be steered to an early death”, and that in the end, assisted suicide is really all about reducing government healthcare costs.

Derek Humphry, who founded the Hemlock Society (Compassion & Choices’ original name), wrote years ago of the “unspoken argument,” that assisted suicide will gain traction because of “the realities of the increasing cost of health care in an aging society, because in the final analysis, economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice.”

Assisted suicide, like suicide in general, is primarily practiced and promoted by white people. Nirappil reported that national leaders in the assisted suicide movement are all white, and that most of the participants at a recent rally were white. In the 18 year history of the Oregon assisted suicide law, only one black person has used the program. In a state that is now 22% nonwhite, 97% of assisted suicide deaths have been white.

Non-Hispanic whites also commit regular suicide at a rate 2.5 times that of blacks. Rather than importing a predominantly-white practice as a solution for the district, you must say no to this bill and the big lie it hides behind. Assisted suicide is not about protecting suffering people from physical pain, it’s about satisfying the control needs of a group of people, predominantly white, who would rather die than become dependent on another human being.

Please respect your constituents, understand the danger this bill represents, and reject this bill. Thank you.