111 reported assisted suicide deaths in California in 2016.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The recent assisted suicide report from the California Department of Public Health indicates that there were 111 reported assisted suicide deaths in 2016. Assisted suicide was officially legalized in California on June 9, 2016.

Another recent report, from the assisted suicide lobby, indicated that they facilitated at least 504 lethal prescriptions in the first year of the act. Dr Jacqueline Abernathy, in her article - One Year of Legalized Assisted Suicide in California, Countless Unanswered Questions stated:

Although premature and lacking in reliable data, Compassion & Choices (C & C, formerly the Hemlock Society) is already declaring the law is “working very well” in a recent press release - stating also: “Personal Stories, Statistics Show Law is Working as Lawmakers Intended.” 

However this report is full of dubious statistics that begs more questions than it feigns to answer. 

The report lists the number of facilities, doctors, insurance companies and hospice locations that support assisted suicide - yet supporting a dangerous law does not equate to proving it safe. If you recall, California legislators had soundly rejected assisted suicide in the previous session based upon a host of concerns about the safety of not just assisted suicide, but a bill that makes evaluation of the use of this form of euthanasia virtually impossible---since the law mandates that death certificates falsify the actual cause of death. The law states that death certificates from assisted suicide have their cause of death listed not as the lethal overdose that caused it- but their underlying prognosis.

The information provided in the 2016 California assisted suicide report is lacking in comparison to the yearly official reports from Oregon and Washington state. and nothing in the report assures compliance with the law.

Since the California law requires the doctor who prescribes the lethal drugs to also be the doctor who submits the report to the government, therefore we do not know if the law is being followed. Self-reporting systems do not assure compliance with the law. People who act outside of the law will rarely self-report their act.

It is concerning that the assisted suicide lobby admits to facilitating 504 lethal prescriptions in the first year of the law. It should also concern people that the number of assisted suicide prescriptions increased incrementally in the second six months of the law.

The official California report indicates that there 191 lethal prescriptions prescribed between June 9 - December 31 and the assisted suicide lobby claims to have facilitated 504 lethal prescriptions from June 9, 2016 to May 31, 2017. Therefore, not including assisted suicide prescriptions not prescribed by the assisted suicide lobby, at least 313 people were prescribed assisted suicide between January 1, 2017 and May 31, 2017. 

The California assisted suicide has been designed to provide physicians the right to assist suicides without fear of being prosecuted for acts that are done outside of the law.

As I asked on June 2 - Who is running the California assisted suicide law?

New Study Shows: Assisted Suicide may be a Poison Pill at the Polls

A recent study by Dr Jacqueline Harvey and published by the Charlotte Lozier Institute shows that support for assisted suicide may have negative consequences for politicians who support assisted suicide.

Opposition to assisted suicide has historically been bi-partisan with over 99.9%, more than 175 bills in 34 states and the District of Columbia since 1991 have been rejected or quietly ignored by lawmakers, since there was little to indicate if constituents would reward them with votes - or if they would be risking re-election by championing an issue that divides Americans virtually in half. Fortunately science may finally have some answers on how voters respond to assisted suicide at the polls.

New research out of Tarleton State University, recently presented at the 2016 Southern Political Science Association Conference combed through all 180 of the 2014 Vermont races, as well as 2015 repeal efforts to determine if there were any risks or rewards when vying for election associated specifically with a candidate’s position for or against assisted suicide. Entitled “Assisted Suicide at the Polls: Risks & Rewards Associated with Voting to Legalize Assisted Suicide vs. Maintaining the Status Quo,” and available at the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that a candidate’s position on assisted suicide may present potential risk without reward for those in favor, or potential reward without risk for those opposed.

Supporting suicide reduced the likelihood of re-election for lawmakers in Vermont, the first state to pass an assisted suicide bill, Act 39 in 2013 and the only state yet to hold elections. Opposing assisted suicide presented no such risk, but may have aided challengers who unseated six pro-assisted suicide politicians - including the primary sponsor of the bill. An endorsement the state-level pro-assisted suicide political action committee, Patient Choices Vermont showed no reward for politicians.

Risks of losing an election were limited exclusively to those who supported assisted suicide and campaigned on this position, a total of six seats lost to anti-assisted suicide successors. Candidates opposing assisted suicide had no risk, and none were unseated by the opposition. Most notably, one of the casualties of the 2014 elections was the bill’s primary sponsor, Linda Waite-Simpson. Rather than rewarded for her efforts, she was replaced by a newcomer who voted to repeal.

Furthermore, if candidates opposing assisted suicide also campaigned (like those who were pro-assisted suicide), candidates opposed to assisted suicide showed a potential reward factor of nine seats, while pro-assisted suicide candidates still showed no reward factor, but the pro-assisted suicide risk factor increased to seven seats. This was statistically significant (p=.00087) with a strong relationship (v=1).

Overall, support for assisted suicide is not a winning campaign issue. Considering the casualties, assisted suicide may even be political suicide.

Important 2015 articles about euthanasia & assisted suicide.

There were many important articles concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2015. 

These are the 10 most popular articles with five more important articles from 2015.

1. June 24, EPC told the world about “Laura” a healthy 24-year-old Belgian woman who is living with suicidal ideation and was approved for euthanasia by the psychiatrist at the euthanasia clinic (Link to the article).

2. July 8 EPC launched – A Letter of Hope to Laura (Link to the article).

3. Nov 12, EPC learned that Laura is actually Emily, and Emily has decided to live (Link to the article).

4. Feb 6, the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s assisted suicide law. EPC explained the irresponsible and dangerous Supreme Court decision (Link to the article).

5. EPC urged its supporters to oppose the Supreme Court assisted suicide decision (Link to the article).

6. EPC then launched a letter-writing campaign to oppose the Supreme Court assisted suicide decision (Link to the article).

7. Sept 17, EPC launched a campaign urging California Governor Jerry Brown to veto the assisted suicide bill (Link to the article).

8. Aug 10, Dr Jacqueline Harvey wrote about the Subversive Strategies to Sell Assisted Suicide (Link to the article).

9. July 28, EPC urged its supporters to participate in the Federal government consultation on legislative options for assisted dying (Link to the article).

10. Feb 10, EPC had a victory at the BC Court of Appeal in the “Spoon Feeding” case (Link to the article).

More important articles.

• More than 1000 Belgian deaths were hastened without explicit request in 2013.
• Belgian doctor justifies euthanasia for depressed people.
• Netherlands 2014 euthanasia report – Another 10% increase in euthanasia.
• Washington state 2014 assisted suicide report: no information on 27 deaths.
• Protect your right to medical treatment in Canada.
• Do Not Kill Me: I oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

How the assisted suicide lobby won in California.

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Not Dead Yet protest image in Britain.

Michael Cook wrote a very insightful article today titled: How the assisted suicide lobby won in California that was published in the online bioethics site Careful. 

Another good analysis of the assisted suicide lobby was titled: Subversive strategies to sell assisted suicide, by Dr Jacqueline Harvey.

Cook bases his analysis on information from the assisted suicide lobby group, Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock society. Cook writes:

According to Barbara Coombs Lee, the head of America’s leading assisted suicide lobby group, Compassion & Choices (C&C), it was Brittany Maynard, the just-married woman who drank a lethal dose of barbiturates on November 1 last year, a few weeks short of her 30th birthday. She died in Oregon because assisted suicide was illegal in her home state of California. 

Brittany, who had an aggressive brain tumour, wanted to use her death to send a message pleading for the legalisation of assisted suicide. A C&C video about her did exactly that. On October 6 last year it was released on YouTube; on October 5 this year, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill legalising assisted suicide, a measure which had failed six times since 1988.

Defeat in America's biggest state has been a bitter pill for opponents of assisted suicide. But if you're handed a lemon, make lemonade. It’s also an opportunity to learn the lessons in propaganda which are exemplified so brilliantly in Brittany’s video. 

Hire professionals. Until Brittany, C&C videos attracted only a few hundred or a few thousand views. But hers has been seen about 12 million times. Dustin Hoffman’s daughter Allie, a well-known Hollywood figure who runs a New York public relations firm, put together a multi-platform media campaign called Twenty Nine Years (Brittany’s age). A professional story-telling consultant was employed to create the video. 

Create a religious frame for the story. Paradoxical as it may seem, Brittany’s video was deeply spiritual in its rhetoric and language. Just as Christ’s suffering redeemed the world, Brittany’s “passing” (another Christian term) would relieve the suffering of many others. In other words, she was a martyr. Barbara Coombs Lee reinforced that in her commentary. She vowed to Brittany before she died that C&C would be “her good and faithful servants”, a phrase taken straight from the Bible. 

Find a star who is young, attractive and articulate. And preferably and white. Being young is just a marketing ploy, as most of the people who take advantage of assisted suicide are elderly. Being white probably helped C&C, too, as the assisted suicide movement is largely WWW – worried, well and white. They could identify with Brittany. If you survey the C&C videos and the C&C Board, you will see only white faces and Anglo-Saxon names... 

Smile. Never criticise. Celebrate love. Despite Brittany’s tears, a pensive smile kept breaking through. She radiated resigned happiness. She never criticised opponents of assisted suicide, at least not directly.

Make it a family affair. Key to the success of the video was the support of Brittany’s mother and husband. She spoke of dying at home, in her own bed, surrounded by family and friends. The video subtly created parallels between her wedding and her death – both were celebrations.

Make it a feast for the emotions. The insistent tinkle of a piano score in the background underlined the sincerity and serenity of Brittany’s decision as she dabbed at her eyes. 

In short, the video depicts assisted suicide as a joyful, faith-filled, family-friendly, fulfilling choice. Compassion & Choices stole the playbook of its opponents.

Michael Cook provides an analysis that is important for opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide everywhere. 

When watching the Brittany Maynard youtube video it is clear that it was professionally produced. It is also true that there were several youtube video's produced by people opposing assisted suicide, such as Maggie Karner, that were not professionally produced but very honest, straight forward and effective.

The reality is - the assisted suicide ran campaigns to legalize assisted suicide in more than 20 states. All of those campaigns failed. The only victory for the assisted suicide lobby was in California and that only happened after using subversive strategies to get the assisted suicide bill passed.

The most effective coalitions against assisted suicide have been organized by people who share a wide range of political and social beliefs, who have come together to defeat a common enemy, that being assisted suicide. The weaker coalitions have been overly managed in an attempt to reduce the messages of those who oppose assisted suicide rather than running an inclusive campaign.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will not stop. Legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia gives physicians the right to be intentionally involved with causing the death of people who are at the most vulnerable time of their life. This is simply wrong.

Subverting the legislative process: How the Assisted Suicide Lobby circumvented the California Legislature

By Dr Jacqueline Harvey

The media has branded ABX2-15, the bill that would legalize assisted suicide in California as Landmark legislation. Landmark legislation can serve as a catalyst for reform nationwide or it can becomes a cautionary tale. In the case of ABX2-15, my prediction is that it may be both, and the consequences will be catastrophic.

California is not the first state to legalize assisted suicide. What qualifies this bill as landmark is the influence California has on other states as a leader in policy innovation and in particular the underhanded strategy used to pass this bill.

If Governor Brown allows this tactic to prevail, California will be the first state to enable assisted suicide to pass the legislature without sufficient committee hearings, testimony and debate through misuse of a special session. Both this dangerous legislative precedent, and this dangerous legislation, is likely to spread.

If AB2X-15 is signed, this new strategy, to use the legislature against itself, would represent a significant shift in the suicide lobby’s already unethical tactics. Education on the ramifications of assisted suicide that occurs in the formal legislative process presents such an obstacle, that suicide lobbyists have changed their strategy and are now avoiding the legislature completely and they have sought the support of the uneducated voter through ballot initiatives or unethical judges who will legislate from the bench. Legislative hearings broadcast the very evidence that sabotages assisted suicide bills. The data is so damning that only one bill in over 175 has ever prevailed. Yet, for the first time, with ABX2-15, the suicide lobby did not have to circumvent the legislature to suppress education, just abuse it at a time when the process was relaxed to deal with different issues.

If signed, Governor Brown will not only be passing dangerous legislation that was not vetted, but worse, he will be validating a tactic which would encourage additional abuses of special sessions that yield more bad law. Any legislation that requires ignorance to pass is evidently flawed and the hallmark of a dangerous bill. It is not simply that legislation passed in haste and without proper scrutiny is cause for concern, although it is. The greater concern is how abusing the special session enables legislation that could not satisfy lawmakers even with ample time, debate and compromise. This would create a loophole for legislation so inherently problematic it has little hope to pass, unless it is done too quickly and superficially to truly consider the consequences.

Assisted suicide bills are a prime example of fundamentally flawed legislation that virtually never survive debate. Decades of data on assisted suicide overwhelmingly indicate criticisms of the bill cannot remedied enough by amendments to secure passage. This was the case with SB 128. When legislators in the Assembly health committee thoroughly examined SB 128 and found no compromise to abate their concerns. The suicide lobby used the special session to navigate around those that opposed the bill. The defects in SB 128 were not remedied. The fact that ABX2-15 has these same provisions and yet passed shows that it was only a procedural ploy and strategic efforts to keep lawmakers in the dark that allowed the bill to pass.

Reinforcing this behavior by signing impertinent bills like ABX2-15 encourages disordered use of the special sessions, particularly as a mechanism to pass these fundamentally flawed bills. If this bill is signed, California can expect more bills that are clearly lacking in merit and pushed by lobbyists who are hoping to capitalize on the lack of time, public involvement and committee oversight (which exists to find these flaws and hopefully amend them).

Ultimately, signing AB2x-15 would not only harm California with flawed public policy and dangerous precedent but sets a bad example and promulgates this flawed policy nationwide. History and academic research validate how influential the state is among others. In fact, California was the first state to adopt end-of-life legislation in 1976. The legislature passed the nation’s first advance directive law so patients could have a natural death, not one postponed, prolonged or worse- caused by overburdensome life support or unwanted medical treatment. This law went through the legislative process where it was amended to address serious concerns before it was viable for passage. This took two years. That carefully-crafted law in 1976 rapidly diffused to all fifty states.

This rapid diffusion of a bill that prevented artificial, prolonged death could be that AB2X-15 follow a similar path to allow artificial premature death. Only the former bill to protect life from unnatural death needed years to perfect, yet AB2x-15, allowing unnatural death, only needed a few weeks of little to no scrutiny. The procedural ploy that allowed such will surely be used in other states to spread similar bills that would assuredly die if lawmakers were afforded the education intended by the legitimate legislative process.

If Governor Brown reinforces the particularly underhanded tactics used to exploit the special session and fast-track ABX2-15, it would expand the suicide lobby’s corrupt modus operandi, a playbook which is already rife with unethical tactics designed to suppress scientific evidence, deceive and manipulate. He will not just be signing a bad law, but validating a tactic that yields dangerous policy for not just California, but all states that follow her lead.

Jacqueline C. Harvey is a public-policy scholar with Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International. She has a Ph.D. in public administration and policy and focuses on end-of-life legislation at the state level.

Political Risks and Rewards for Legislators Associated with Assisted Suicide.

Dear Honorable Members of the California Assembly,

M

Dr Jacqueline Harvey

y name is Dr. Jacqueline Harvey and I write today to share new and vital evidence from my latest study, "Assisted Suicide: Political Risks and Rewards for Legislators Associated with Votes to Legalize vs. Maintain the Status Quo" that will help inform your vote on ABX2-15. This paper was submitted for the 2016 Western Political Science Association in San Diego and is the first analysis of the political risks and rewards for lawmakers attributed to their vote for or against assisted suicide. It examines the fate of lawmakers in Vermont who passed the first and only assisted suicide bill Act 39 in 2013. By contrasting each lawmakers vote on Act 39 with 2014 election results as well as the subsequent voting records on assisted suicide for each office, the study indicates that lawmakers who voted to monumentally change the status quo on an issue as contentious as assisted suicide faced confirmed risks with no rewards. 

Consider the following findings:

• There was a statistically significant higher incidence of losing re-election attributed to a pro-assisted suicide vote (r=.176) but no risk/losses attributed to an anti-assisted vote. 
• Lawmakers who voted in favor of assisted suicide lost their re-election campaigns more than twice as often as those who chose to maintain the status quo, seven vs. three (n=10) 
• Voting against assisted suicide was not a factor that contributed to any of the 3 losses. 
• Voting in favor of assisted suicide was a factor in six out of seven failed campaigns, and was only ruled out in one case. 
• In every case where assisted suicide was a variable in re-election, 100% of those who lost re-election were in favor of assisted suicide. 
• In all six cases where assisted suicide was a factor, 100% of those who lost re-election were succeeded by legislators who voted to repeal Act 39. 
• Democrats comprised 100% of losses where assisted suicide was a factor and all were replaced by Republicans. 
• Neither party suffered a single loss due to a vote against Act 39, a total of 30 Democrats and 34 Republicans who voted against Act 39 and none of those who sought re-election lost to a pro-assisted suicide challenger. 
• Controlling for party-affiliation confirmed that there was no political benefit for voting in favor or opposed to Act 39. In the four out of ten cases where the candidates' position on assisted suicide was ruled out as a contributing factor in their loss, the two instances that include one vote in favor and one opposed both, which indicate voters did not choose a lawmaker over the challenger as a reward for their previous vote on assisted suicide. 
• The author of Act 39 was not rewarded with re-election for passing the first assisted suicide bill but unseated after six years in office by a candidate who voted to repeal Act 39. 

The implications of these findings for you in regard to ABX2-15 is that the perceived support that passed Act 39 did not endure to the ballot box. Voters certainly do not reward their elected officials for supporting assisted suicide and potentially vote against them in retribution. Please consider this evidence when choosing if this issue, which already lacks public support, is worth the risks that you could face by offering your support.

Jacqueline C. Harvey, Ph.D.
Political Science, Department of Social Science

California renews push to legalize assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

California Governor Jerry Brown may need to veto the assisted suicide Bill AB 15.

The assisted suicide lobby has renewed their push to legalize assisted suicide in California after their previous assisted suicide bill, SB 128, was stopped in the Health Committee.

The assisted suicide lobby is taking advantage of the special legislative session called by Governor Jerry Brown to address shortfalls in healthcare funding. The new assisted suicide bill AB 15 is nearly identical to SB 128, but AB 15 will not be heard by the Health Committee.

Tim Rosales, a spokesperson for the Californians Against Assisted Suicide told the media:

"It is particularly troubling that in this rush to judgment, proponents are linking this bill with health care financing," 

"That should be truly frightening to those on MediCal and subsidized health care, who quite logically fear a system where prescribing suicide pills could be elevated to a treatment option."

Dr Jacqueline Harvey has written about how the assisted suicide lobby uses subversive strategies to sell assisted suicide. 

Wesley Smith

Bioethicist Wesley Smith stated on his blog:

Having lost fair and square in a California Assembly Committee, the suicide pushers have filed a new legalization bill–AB 15–for a special session intended to grapple with health care costs.

Assisted suicide advocacy is about lying. Catch this bit of mendacity from the bill: Aid-in-dying drug” means a drug determined and prescribed by a physician for a qualified individual, which the qualified individual may choose to self-administer to bring about his or her death due to a terminal disease. 

No. The death would not be from any disease, but a lethal dose of drugs.

The committee has been re-jiggered to take the “no” votes away, I am told. Can we say, stacked deck?

And the bill is on a very fast track. Can’t give people time to think or understand why assisted suicide is bad medicine and even worse public policy.

If this shameful machination works, I hope Jerry Brown remembers his service to the dying with Mother Theresa. She is definitely spinning in her grave.

California Governor Jerry Brown may need to veto Bill AB 15.

The assisted suicide lobby is becoming desperate after losing two court cases in California, after assisted suicide bills have been defeated in several states and after the New Mexico Court of Appeals overturned an activist lower court decision to once again affirm protections in law from assisted suicide in that state.

Subversive Strategies to Sell Assisted Suicide.

Dr Jacqueline Harvey

By Dr Jacqueline Harvey

The numbers don’t lie. In spite of masterful public relations campaigns to suggest otherwise, the assisted suicide movement has an abysmal record trying to legalize assisted self-destruction over the last 21 years. The suicide lobby has few victories to claim. Rather, they consistently fail at each of the strategies they employ to push their agenda. Lawmakers fail to pass assisted suicide bills 99% of the time, after lawmakers are educated of the dangers at public hearings. Ballot initiatives fail in nearly three-quarters of cases to win enough votes, even after propaganda campaigns with no public hearings. Even attempts to subvert lawmakers and voters altogether by courting judges to legislate from the bench have yielded few returns. 

Bolstered by deep pockets and a sympathetic media, we are led to believe that the assisted suicide movement is winning, when the track record shows overwhelming political failure spanning three decades.

Nowhere is it more clear how lethal education and scientific evidence are to the suicide lobby than by examining how many assisted suicide bills withstand the scrutiny of witness testimony. Since 1994, 175 bills have been introduced in 35 states and the District of Columbia and thus far, only one has prevailed. Vermont is the anomaly, the lone bill, passed in 2013 after 19 years of failed attempts to convince legislators, a success rate of .057%. Assisted suicide is an established loser with lawmakers, failing more than 99% of the time in statehouses in over 20 years. Death making does not fare well when subjected to public debate. Thus far in 2015, 25 states and the District of Columbia have introduced legislation and most bills met their demise, by either lacking support to advance, devastated by testimony and withdrawn to address concerns or simply to spare a humiliating death. A few a late-filed bills still linger after failing to launch, but are unlikely to persevere through the process or manifest as an amendment to still-viable legislation. 

A team of assisted suicide lobbyists are attempting to resurrect California’s Senate Bill SB128 through a procedural ploy that subverts the committee that rejected it and placing it on the floor for a vote, in an affront to the legislative process but in keeping with the suicide lobby’s inability to legitimately pass bills and blatant overall lack of regard for law-making and public will. They routinely circumvent lawmakers to exploit voters, and even disregard both lawmakers and voters to forcibly impose their will through the courts due to an inability to pass assisted suicide through legitimate means. Only one bill has yet prevailed at all through the legislature. A record of 1 in 175 is evidence that assisted suicide is too illegitimate an act to obtain legitimate support.

Attempts to comfort lawmakers ill-at-ease after hearing testimony about the abuses and dangers of assisted suicide are not persuasive. Rather than address the evidence from testimony which gives lawmakers reservations, the suicide lobby have decided to create lawmakers out of the uniformed voter through ballot initiatives that do not require public hearings. Assisted suicide advocates have frequently appealed to the voters who are not informed by testimony and could be swayed by emotion and deceived by sanitized language designed to manipulate their vote. 

Word choice is critical. Polls can drop 20 points against assisted suicide by using the word suicide, so the assisted suicide movement crafted terms like “aid-in-dying” to present suicide as a helpful act, rather than what is: assisted self-destruction. Suicide lobbyists fared a bit better when trying to exploit the uninformed this way but still have an overall losing record. While the success rate is a bit higher than with the traditional route that forces legislators who vote to actually understand the issue, the lobby still has only two of seven wins to its credit since 1994. Two wins in Oregon and Washington out of seven attempts is only 28.57% success rate, 71.23% of these campaigns still failed. Even without the benefit of testimony decrying the dangers of assisted suicide, people simply do not like suicide. Regardless of how assisted suicide has been rebranded for the sole purpose of overcoming this aversion, nonetheless voters have seen right through it nearly three-quarters of the time.

When lawmakers can not be convinced nor the voting public, assisted suicide lobbyists turn to activist judges to overturn laws against their will. This is why the only other two states with assisted suicide bypassed both lawmakers and voters and imposed it by judicial decree in New Mexico and Montana. The Montana court didn't actually legalize assisted suicide, but gave doctors a "defense of consent." The New Mexico court decision is currently under appeal. (The New Mexico Court of Appeal overturned the assisted suicide decision on August 11).

Attempts to subvert all voters and legislatures through the United States Supreme Court failed twice in 1997 but still allowed for lower court activism to usurp the will of the people. This strategy has prevailed just twice. In fact, such an attempt just failed in California when the judge showed disdain for such an attempt to usurp the will of the people saying that assisted suicide is “best left to the legislature, not the courts” saying that this issue requires a “legislative fix, not a judicial nix.”  Clearly judicial activism like this failed attempt is yet another hit-or-miss strategy, as well as the fact that the assisted suicide movement still puts resources into introducing and lobbying for bills in spite of having failed 174 out of 175 times in 21 years. 

The longstanding failure of the assisted suicide lobby to sell their agenda to informed lawmakers, the inability to gain enough support with the average voter or find sympathetic judges or to supplant the law points simply to the inherent problems with assisted suicide. The persistence and market research to brand suicide as something different may have deceived some into believing they support assisted suicide, yet this has not translated into political success. Furthermore, attempts to quell public debate by bypassing the legislature has not stopped educational efforts, shown in Massachusetts in 2012 to change polling from 65% in favor and 19% opposed to the ballot measure being defeated on election night. 

With three distinct strategies and three decades and only five state laws affected (two of which were are affront to the will of the people) the assisted suicide lobby simply does not reflect the political climate of the United States, in spite of efforts to manipulate public opinion. They may be relentless in their attempts to impose suicide on society but equally relentless attempts to stop them tend to always succeed.

Jacqueline C. Harvey is a public-policy scholar with Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International. She has a Ph.D. in public administration and policy and focuses on end-of-life legislation at the state level.

Texas bill is model legislation to prevent Death by Dehydration.

By Dr Jacqueline Harvey

Governor Abbott signed
HB 3074 into law.

On Friday, June 12, 2015, Texas Governor Greg Abbott overturned 16 years of legal forced dehydration and starvation in Texas by signing House Bill 3074. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) was present for the historic moment and presented a commendation to Representative Drew Springer on his skillful passage of this landmark legislation, and EPC briefly explained the significance of this bi-partisan, unanimously-supported, model disability rights bill. HB 3074 is a critical first step in EPC’s national and worldwide efforts to restore the rights of persons with disabilities to receive nutrition and hydration (ANH). Therefore this vital win in Texas is anticipated to save lives not just within the Lone Star State but throughout the United States and even globally as EPC prepares to explore this issue with standing at the United Nations.

Rep. Drew Springer
receives EPC award.

Under Rep. Springer’s leadership, HB 3074 moved Texas from the one state to allow healthcare providers to remove food and water in any circumstance to joining five other states that explicitly protect patients in need of ANH. The Texas law was an anomaly in that it allowed the medical community authority to remove ANH in any circumstance. In contrast, five states have passed laws to ensure that food and water is not forcibly withheld by a healthcare provider to kill a patient. Now that HB 3074 is signed into law, Texas no longer ranks as the worst state for patients in need of ANH but ranks among the best.

EPC believes that HB 3074 is model legislation. Representative Springer brokered an unprecedented compromise that cleared a 12-year stalemate on this issue. HB 3074 began in committee with opposition, but Springer was able to find language agreeable to all parties and foster unity to enable the bill to be passed in all committees and chambers of both House and Senate with no opposition.

Selling assisted suicide in California. Wordplay is not enough.

This article was published by the National Review online on May 20, 2015.

Jacqueline Harvey

By Dr Jacqueline Harvey

Suicide is hard to sell. After 23 years of failed attempts to legalize assisted suicide in California, lawmakers and lobbyists may have finally found a strategy that works: They just won’t call it suicide. And on the death certificate, they’ll simply lie.

Entitled the “End of Life Option Act,” California Senate Bill 128 mandates that “the cause of death listed on an individual’s death certificate who uses aid-in-dying medication shall be the underlying terminal illness,” not the lethal dose of poison that actually caused the individual’s death. Advocates of assisted suicide coined the term “aid in dying” and concocted the rationalization that killing oneself does not qualify as suicide if you have a life expectancy of six months or less. Yet it appears that it is not palatable enough to list the preferred misnomer, “aid in dying,” as the cause of death and that the only way lawmakers and lobbyists feel they can sell self-destruction is to falsify public records. 

Suicide, Stigma, and Branding 

In 1992, California became the second state to place the assisted-suicide issue directly before the voters, a year after a similar ballot initiative was defeated in Washington State (but two years before an initiative narrowly passed in Oregon). In these early case studies on the power of wordplay, assisted-suicide proponents found that the word “suicide” was deadly to their cause. People recoil from it. Polls show that support for assisted suicide decreases by as much as 20 points when the word “suicide” is used, even though the substance of the question being asked remains unchanged. When we consider that California Proposition 161 failed by a margin of 54 to 46, it is clear how important semantics are.   

Six previous legislative attempts, from 1994 to 2007, failed. It seems that taking care to control language does not by itself distract people from the truth that a person taking poison to hasten her death is practically the very definition of suicide. Proponents of assisted suicide feel the need to call it anything but suicide and to rationalize it, because suicide is a deeply disturbing act, which we combat through suicide-prevention programs, even going so far as to physically detain persons until they are deemed to be no longer a threat to themselves. We talk suicidal people down from ledges. Assisted suicide asks these vulnerable people if they need a push.

That the End of Life Option Act tries to hide what really happens when a patient chooses to end his own life echoes the shame inherent in suicide. It also highlights the downright sanctimonious double standard in discussions of the physically and the mentally ill. When media applaud physically ill persons like the late Brittany Maynard for choosing self-destruction, or “aid in dying,” this points the finger at persons who take their own lives even though they do not have terminal physical illnesses. To euthanasia advocates, those poor mentally ill people committed suicide, but yet there is no attempt to spare them the posthumous shame of whitewashing their death certificates. The cause of death for these persons will not be listed as “depression” or “schizophrenia” or whatever underlying anguish led them to suicide. 

To be consistent, of course, rationalizations for self-destruction cannot stop with the physically ill. Many argue that, while a terminally ill person may prefer death to continuing to live even a few more months with his physical affliction, they fail to see how those who suffer with mental illnesses may prefer death to living for years with their affliction. In the Netherlands, after many years, legal assisted suicide for the dying has evolved into death on demand, with six out of ten doctors admitting to killing a patient who was simply “tired of living.” California is approaching that slippery slope. 

When Terminal Illnesses Are Not Terminal 

Assisted-suicide advocates insist that a terminal diagnosis with an arbitrarily projected life expectancy of six month is the difference between assisted suicide being sanctioned as “aid in dying” or condemned as suicide. They fail to consider that some patients with terminal illnesses do not die from their diagnosed disease. 

Consider this woman who, nine years ago, was given just two months to live after receiving the same diagnosis as Brittany Maynard. She continues to thrive. Had she chosen “aid in dying” on receiving her diagnosis, would that have been suicide? It certainly would have been a tragic, unnecessary loss of a human life. 

Then there is Jeannette Hall, who was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in 2000. She rejected assisted suicide at the last moment and continues to speak out against assisted suicide. Had she decided differently back then, Jeannette would not have committed suicide, under the terms of Senate Bill 128: She would have died of squamous cell carcinoma, according to her death certificate, not the lethal dose of poison she ingested. This law not only has the potential to take years from people’s lives, it has the potential to pressure them into taking their own lives when they could have beaten their illness. 

California lawmakers think that even “aid in dying” is an undignified cause of death and that it should be kept out of public records. Clearly they recognize the truth of what assisted suicide is and are trying to hide it. Suicide is suicide, no matter how California lawmakers attempt to sanitize and sell it. 

Jacqueline C. Harvey, a public-policy scholar with Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International, has a Ph.D. in public administration and policy and focuses on end-of-life legislation at the state level. Follow her on Twitter @drjcharvey. 

Landmark Bill to Stop Forced Dehydration Passes Texas House, Heads to Senate

By Dr Jacqueline Harvey

The Texas House of Representatives has passed House Bill 3074, which is groundbreaking legislation that would end the forced withdrawal of feeding tubes by medical facilities. HB 3074 by Representative Drew Springer proudly endorsed by Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) will stop involuntary euthanasia by dehydration and is expected to be taken up quickly by the Senate early next week. Once signed into law, HB 3074 will be the first successful reform to the Texas Advanced Directives Act since 2003.

HB 3074 was passed on second reading in the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday, May 14 in under three minutes by a simple voice vote due to overwhelming support from legislators. Representative Springer’s bill boasts four joint authors and 80 co-authors - well over half of the 150 House representatives. But moreover, HB 3074 is the first end-of-life bill in 12 years that has garnered universal agreement among patient advocates, disability rights, prolife and religious organizations.

While these groups take different approaches to reforming broader aspects of Texas end-of-life law and have filed bills on those issues since 2003, Representative Springer found common ground in that all groups wish to protect patients from forced starvation and dehydration and could therefore support a bill like HB 3074 that accomplishes that singular but vital goal. In an inspiring gesture of statesmanship, Representative Patricia Harless chose to delay consideration of her end-of-life bill, House Bill 2351 (which was supported by many groups) until after HB 3074 (which was supported by all). This sacrifice ultimately cost HB 2351 the opportunity to a floor hearing and vote to allowed HB 3074 to pass just before the deadline.

The EPC wishes to congratulate and thank Representative Springer and Representative Harless, State Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Cook for their leadership and success passing HB 3074 to the Senate. Congratulations and thanks as well as the Texas Catholic Conference, Texas Alliance for Life and Texans for Life for leading the advocacy effort. EPC pledges its continued support. 

Dr. Jacqueline C. Harvey (Ph.D.) is a former faculty member at the University of North Texas, as well as the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Harvey, in conjunction with the EPC - International, has authored definitive works on the Texas Advance Directive Act.

New York Bill S4794 Promotes Involuntary Euthanasia by Dehydration

By Dr Jacqueline C. Harvey

Dr Jacqueline Harvey

While the battle rages over assisted suicide, many forget that in 1990, the United States Supreme Court allowed involuntary euthanasia by dehydration and starvation. First, by declaring artificially-administered food and water (ANH) as a form of “life support” and then, granting third parties the ability to remove ANH (feeding tubes) from persons with disabilities, it became effectively legal to deny a human being food and water against their will in the United States. While the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) International’s efforts in the U.S. to reform this issue at the state-level are proceeding with encouraging momentum (Texas House Bill 3074, passed unanimously out of committee up for a floor vote in coming days), Senator Kemp Hannon in New York has launched an effort to make it easier to remove a feeding tube against the patient’s will and cause a death by dehydration. It appears that the euthanasia lobby, who want to kill by dehydration and starvation, are marching forward.

In spite of the Nancy Cruzan case, which granted authority to third-parties to remove food and water, ANH is pervasively considered such ordinary care that states have explicitly written into their law strict safeguards against unilateral removal. The Cruzan standard was that, in the absence of a written advance directive, the healthcare decision maker can remove life support, including food and water if they present “clear and convincing evidence” that this was the will of the patient. This was used to kill Nancy by dehydration over 12 days. In New York, Senator Hannon is attempting to flout this standard by striking the section of the law that demands an agent be aware of the patient’s desire to die by starvation and dehydration before condemning them to die that long, lingering death. Senate Bill 4794 would grant an agent decision-making authority to dehydrate a patient even when the patient’s wishes are not known and cannot be determined:

Section 3. Subdivision 2 of section 2982 of the public health law, as amended by chapter 230 of the laws of 2004, is amended to read as follows: 

2. Decision making standard. After consultation with a licensed physician, registered nurse, licensed psychologist, licensed master social worker, the agent shall make health care decisions: (a) in accordance with the principal's wishes, including the principal's religious and moral beliefs; or (b) if the principal's wishes are not reasonably known and cannot with reasonable diligence be ascertained, in accordance with the principal's best interests; provided, however, that if the principal's wishes regarding the administration of artificial nutrition and hydration are not reasonably known and cannot  with reasonable diligence be ascertained, the agent shall not have the authority to make decisions regarding these measures.

S4794 would amend the law to clarify that oral feeding is not applicable, a surprising addition. EPC has been involved with legal efforts to ensure patients with dementia are given food and water by mouth when family members object and perhaps see the person as better off dead. But it is important to note that an inability to swallow is an arbitrary standard. Several scenarios can inhibit a patient’s ability to swallow. Anyone requiring only a feeding tube is not brain dead, but often brain injured, like this man whose wife was encouraged to discontinue his feeding tube, but awakened from his coma and is recovering from his brain injury day-by-day. Even fully-conscious people may require tube feeding. In Britain, for example, a man named Leslie Burke with cerebral ataxia petitioned the court to prevent the removal of feeding tube after he lost the ability to request it, fearing an agonizing death that in another famous tragic case, Terri Schindler Schiavo, died after 13 days.

While conscious people and Mr. Burke could make their wishes known, those who do not explicitly declare their wish not to be denied food and water could be legally denied food and water. Instead of erring on the side of life, S4794 grants full life-and-death decision making capability into the hands of someone who may not know what the patient would want nor have any way to determine that information.

If S4794 passes, New York will usher in dehydration by default and all people will be at risk. Please contact Senator Kemp and declare your opposition to S4794 at: hannon@nysenate.gov

Feeding Tubes and Futility in Texas.

We Can End the End-of-Life Impasse in the Texas Legislature.

Dr Jacqueline Harvey

By Jacqueline C. Harvey, Ph.D . 

After five consecutive sessions of bitter battles over end-of-life bills, the Texas Legislature is finally poised to pass the first reform to the Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA) in twelve years. An issue that created uncanny adversaries out of natural allies and equally odd bedfellows has finally found common ground in H.B. 3074: an act that simply prohibits doctor-imposed euthanasia by starvation and dehydration. Since H.B. 3074 includes only those provisions and language that all major organizations are on record as having deemed acceptable in previous legislative sessions, there is finally hope of ending the end-of-life impasse in the Texas Capitol.

Many people are surprised to learn that Texas law allows physicians to forcibly remove a feeding tube against the will of the patient and their family. In fact, there is a greater legal penalty for failing to feed or water an animal than for a hospital to deny a human being food and water through a tube. This is because there is no penalty whatsoever for a healthcare provider who wishes to deny artificially administered nutrition and hydration (ANH). According to Texas Health and Safety Code, “every living dumb creature” is legally entitled to access to suitable food and water. Denying an animal food and water, such as a case this January in San Antonio, is punishable by civil fines up to $10,000 and criminal penalties up to two years in jail per offense. Yet Texas law allows health care providers to forcibly deny food and water from human beings - what they would not be able to legally do to their pet cat. And healthcare providers are immune from civil and criminal penalties deny of food and water to human beings as long as they follow the current statutory process which is sorely lacking in safeguards. Therefore while it is surprising that Texas is the only state law that explicitly mentions food and water delivered artificially for the purpose of completely permitting its forced denial (six other states mention ANH explicitly for the opposite purpose, to limit or prohibit its refusal), it is not at all surprising that the issue of protecting a patient’s right to food and water is perhaps the one point of consensus across all major stakeholders.

H.B. 3074 is the first TADA reform bill to include only this provision that is agreed upon across all major players in previous legislative sessions. Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life have each previously sponsored broad and ambitious bills to either preserve but reform the current law (Texas Alliance for Life’s position) or overturn it altogether as Texas Right to Life aims to do. Prior to H.B. 3074, bills filed by major advocacy organizations have often included ANH, but also a host of other provisions that were so contentious and unacceptable to other organizations each bill ultimately died, and this mutually-agreed-upon and vital reform always died along with it. The 2011 and 2013 sessions present a prime example where both organizations filed complicated, contentious opposing bills, both of which would have protected a patient’s right to food and water but each bill also included provisions that other groups saw as contrary to their goals. Both bills were ultimately defeated and neither group was able to achieve protections for patients at risk of forced starvation and dehydration- a mutual goal that could have been met through a third, narrow bill like H.B. 3074. H.B. 3074 focuses on what unites the organizations involved rather than what divides them.

H.B. 3074 is progress that is pre-negotiated and pre-approved. It is not a fertile springboard for negotiations on an area of mutual agreement. Rather it is the culmination of years of previous negotiations on bill that all came too late, either due to the complex nature of rival bills, the controversy involved or even both. On the contrary, H.B. 3074 is not just simple and an area of agreement, moreover, it is has already been negotiated. since Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life (along with their allies) were able to agree on language in 2007 with C.S.S.B. 439. 

The language from C.S.S.B. 439 is strikingly similar to H.B. 3074 which states, “except that artificially administered nutrition and hydration must be provided unless, based on reasonable medical judgment, providing artificially administered nutrition and hydration would: 

1. hasten the patient's death; 
2. seriously exacerbate other major medical problems not outweighed by the benefit of the provision of the treatment; 
3. result in substantial irremediable physical pain, suffering, or discomfort not outweighed by the benefit of the provision of the treatment; 
4. be medically ineffective; or 
5. be contrary to the patient's clearly stated desire not to receive artificially administered nutrition or hydration.”