Apologize to the Severely Disabled, DR. PHIL

Dr. Mark Mostert

By Mark Mostert (link to the original)

Dr. Phil owes more than 50 million people in the U.S. with disabilities an apology. Late last week he ran a segment that was unapologetically pro-death masquerading as an informed serious debate. The topic? Whether people with severe disabilities should be killed because they have no quality of life.

Couched in sympathetic close-ups, Dr. Phil made only the most rudimentary attempt at a balanced argument before showing his hand for what it was – that as a powerful member of the media he tacitly supported the idea that euthanasia is an acceptable and even desirable way to dispose of people who are unable to speak or fend for themselves.

On stage for the entire segment was Annette Corriveau, a Canadian mother with two adult children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. Normal at birth, the siblings’ condition has deteriorated over time due to a rare genetic disease. Janet and Jeffery, now in their 30s, appear to be largely unable to communicate, see, or hear. They survive by being tube fed. They live in an assisted living facility where Annette visits them every other month or so.

Janet & Jeffrey.

Cue a clip of Janet and Jeffery, confined to wheelchairs and seemingly unaware of their surroundings.

The audience were hooked: A “loving” mother tortured by the horrible existence of her severely disabled children and who, at her wits’ end, sees killing them as the only solution. While it wasn’t so crassly stated, Annette wants to put them out of their misery. Killing as a loving parental act.

Things went downhill from there. Enter Geoffrey Fieger, the pro-death Kevorkian lawyer who eloquently argued that death is what the siblings deserve because it would release them from their existential hell on earth.

Right at the end of the segment, Dr. Phil introduced Ruthi, a mother of several children with disabilities, as the counter argument to all the death talk. In tears, Ruthi argued valiantly against what Corriveau and Feiger wanted to do. She was allowed three or four sentences, and that was that.

Ruthi, by the way, had to make her argument seated in the audience. No stage time for her and her views.

The segment was over except for one more thing: Dr. Phil asked the audience if they agreed with Corriveau and Feiger that Janet and Jeffery were better off dead. Almost everyone raised their hands to agree.

The audience response was not surprising seeing that the drumbeat throughout the segment was to end lives, lives most seemed to agree were not worth living.

Better to discard these creatures unable to reciprocate love and affection that cause their mother increasing emotional trouble. That’s why Annette Corriveau wants them dead more than anyone. She was closely followed, apparently, by the audience whose enthusiastic voting for death was little better than a Roman mob entreating the emperor for a thumbs-down death of a wounded gladiator.

Here was the pro-death monster unveiled: Death is better than life; poison or a needle can end all suffering. If you’re not exactly perfect you can’t possibly want to live in that condition, nor should your loved ones be put upon to visit you. Therefore, the put-upon have the right to get rid of you because they know what’s best for you (and for them, of course).

The pro-death bias lives on at the Dr. Phil Show website.

First, three photos from the segment’s guests, all of equal size (Feiger, Janet and Annette, Ruthi), convey the idea that they were each equally part of the segment. Not true.

Second, there are video clips of Corriveau, Dr. Phil, Janet and Jeffery, and Fieger. Ruthi only rated a brief quote right at the bottom of the story report.

At the very least, given his celebrity status, Dr. Phil should air another segment equally biased but this time on the side of human kindness, human dignity, and with the quite universal understanding that it is how we treat the most vulnerable among us that in time defines us as a society.

Until that happens, people with disabilities and their loved ones should steer clear of the show because pro-death apologists in very influential positions are the last thing we need.

Dr. Mark Mostert is the president of Disability Consultants International and is recognized nationally and internationally as an expert on disability issues. He is a consultant for the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network.

The Swiss death clinic, Dignitas, is in the news again.

Mark Mostert

I was looking through my emails and came across this excellent blog comment by Mark Mostert from the Institute for the Study of Disabilities & Bioethics. Here is what he wrote:

Dignitas: Kill Them All

You’ll recall that Dignitas has gained notoriety as a fee-for-service killing venue for those who wish to die via assisted suicide. Dignitas has been most exposed by high-profile visits from UK citizens who travelled to the clinic to die because in the UK assisted suicide is illegal, and allows for the prosecution (at least on paper) of those who help people kill themselves.

However, there’s a very ugly underbelly to all the spin that Dignitas is a haven of care and a celebration of human autonomy.

There have been reports of dingy and dirty surroundings, less than dignified treatment of those who come to be killed both before and after they die, and the nagging fact that this is all offered at a rather exorbitant fee.

It gets worse. Several months ago hundreds of urns with the cremated remains of Dignitas’ victims were discovered dumped in Lake Geneva. This matter is currently under investigation.

Dignitas is again in the news, and I’m not sure why this latest issue so surprises the media, because Dignitas is doing exactly what it has always said it was doing: Helping anyone who wants to to kick the bucket.

The latest flap involves Dignitas’ providing a suicide kit to a 39 year-old Spanish man with severe psychological problems. From London's Daily Mail:

Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas is under investigation over claims that it ignored a patient's distressed mental condition to give him drugs to end his own life. . . . But now details have emerged of a patient who was allegedly given a DIY suicide kit prescribed by a Zurich gynaeologist despite suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. . . . But a Dignitas report on the 39-year-old Spanish man's mental state was a few lines that barely covered half a page of A4 paper, say local media reports on the death.

Oops.

Or maybe not.

Here’s why: All the chatter about “transparency,” policies to “protect,” rigid controls to ensure that no “mistakes” are made is all smoke and mirrors on the way to the only goal the pro-death crowd have always wanted: Assisted suicide and euthanasia on demand and available for anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Don’t take my word for it, take those of Dignitas’ owner Minelli:

'Every person in Europe has the right to choose to die, even if they are not terminally ill.'

Chilling.

Link to Mark Mostert's blog: http://disabilitymatters.blogspot.com

Attacks on the Schindler family are unfounded. The real question is what did Michael Schiavo do with all the money?

Standing in solidarity against an evil and unfounded attack.

A recent attack news program by a television station in Florida has created a controversy over the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. They have accused the Schindler family of lining their pockets with foundation money.

Wesley Smith reported the complaint in his article that was published in the National Review online. Schiavo was reported as saying to the attack news program:

Schiavo’s widower, Michael Schiavo, says the family should be ashamed of what they are doing. He adds if Terri ever knew this was happening she’d be horrified. Michael Schiavo is talking about the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. While Terri Schiavo’s brother Bobby says the organization is set up to help families in similar situations, Michael Schiavo says he doesn’t believe it. Instead Schiavo says they are using their deceased sister’s name to make money.

Smith destroyed the accusations in his article when he stated:
"And as for profiteering–Bobby Schindler’s salary is $37,500 annually, and all speaking fees he receives go to the foundation. His sister Suzanne, makes less and is 14 months in arrears in receiving her compensation. It is also worth noting, that after receiving complaints, the IRS investigated the foundation and gave it a clean bill of health in 2008."

An article written by Pamela Hennessy that was published in the North County Gazette reveals even more about the false accusations in the attack news program. She stated:

the Foundation provided the reporter with their latest 990 income and expense filing, a letter from the Internal Revenue Service (giving the Foundation notice of compliance and approval for the continuance of their tax-exempt 501(c)3 status) and a letter from their attorney, asking that the report be tabled in light of the Schindlers’ good standing with the authorities.

Care to guess which one of those documents were posted to WTSP’s website? Yes. Just the letter from the attorney. Deeson kept the other, rather pertinent, information from viewers.

Mark Mostert, from the Institute for the Study of Disability and Bioethics stated:

All innuendo and spin. Why would we expect anything else? Even all these years after her death, Bobby, Suzanne, and Mary spend countless hours trying to correct misleading reporting about the circumstances of Terri’s death. This is just one more media attack in a long string of animus posing as “news” and comes just a few weeks after Fox’s The Family Guy made horrible fun of Terri and her disabled condition.

Concerning the attack by Michael Schiavo, the man who used the money that was awarded by the courts to care for Terri for the rest of her natural life, that the Schindlers are not even fulfilling the goals of the Foundation. Smith correctly stated:

Had the reporters wanted to find out the kind of help the foundation offers others, producers could have called me or a myriad of others active in this field, who are quite aware of the selfless giving and effort each surviving member of Terri’s family offers to others. Indeed, I have personal knowledge of case after case in which the Schindlers worked selflessly–and without financial compensation of any kind–to assist family members save their cognitively disabled loved ones from suffering the same dehydration fate as Terri. The Lauren Richardson food and fluids dispute and the Andrea Clarke futile care case are just two that come to mind.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition arranged to have Randy Richardson, the father of Lauren Richardson, speak at the Second-International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide that we had co-hosted near Washington DC. Like Wesley, I can attest to the fact that the Schindler family has been incredibly successful in helping families prevent a similar fate to their loved ones, as had happened to Terri.

The Schindler family have been operating the Foundation on a tight budget. The reports prove that the charitable money they received in 2008 was less than $100,000 and yet they have done an incredible service with that budget.

The real question is: What did Michael Schiavo do with the money that was awarded for the care of Terri for the rest of her life?

Article by Wesley Smith in the National Review online:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/05/01/i-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-schindlers-against-sleazy-media-attack/

Article by Pamela Hennessy in the North County Gazette:
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2010/05/01/all_the_news/

My blog article about dehydration deaths:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/02/stop-dehydration-deaths-says-terri.html

The original article attacking the Schindler family:
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=78447&catid=28

Gotta Love the Dutch, Those Merciful Killers!

Mark Mostert has once again states the truth. Mark has a style that challenges the lies from the culture directly. I have reprinted his blog comment to allow you to read the truth:

Mark's blog:
Let’s open the New Year as we left the old year, shall we?

You know - that part about how we are now becoming quite accustomed to killing people because somebody has decided they are not worth keeping alive.

All in the decedents’ best interests, of course.

Media in the Netherlands reports that there was an increase in the number of people euthanized in 2009 – including people in the early stages of dementia. No surprise there, but I think it’s instructive to look at what is reported, and the subtle subtexts that are nevertheless coercive in slanting a favorable impression of medicalized killing.

Sidebar: I’m not suggesting that the reporter deliberately thought this through, but I think it’s obvious that things in the Netherlands are so pro-euthanasia that the article’s bias is assumed to be “balanced coverage,” which it’s not.

From a piece DutchNews entitled More Cases of Euthanasia in 2009.

First, the obvious is reported, that there were more 200 more cases of euthanasia in the Netherlands last year than 2008, where the killing total was 2,500.

Then:

It is not known how many cases of mercy killing there actually are in the Netherlands, but in 2007 experts said around 80% of instances are registered with the monitoring body.

Well, mercy for whom, exactly? What exactly is the nature of this “mercy?” How can we be assured that the “mercy’ is not for those left behind who found the patient too much of a burden? What about the survivors benefitting from such “mercy” as they inherit goodies from the person they coaxed to assume a duty to die? No way to tell, of course.

“Merciful” because people are in unbearable pain and suffering? Not exactly, because many people who are euthanized are not in pain, and because, in the Netherlands, you can request euthanasia for just about any reason at all, pain or no pain.

Also, after all the fanfare in the Netherlands about making euthanasia legal so that it could be officially controlled, what do we find? Well, it’s not controllable.

Remember, too, that the registering “monitoring body” (sounds so nice, certain, and transparent) is a review panel that examines the circumstances of the killing AFTER it has occurred.

Now, here's the next snippet that contradicts the whole pain-and-suffering angle:

There were also six registered cases of euthanasia on elderly patients with senile dementia, all of whom were in the early stages and able to make their wishes known.

Ah, I see. Where to begin? Dementia, though tragic and unfortunate, is not physically painful (originally, at the top of the slippery slope, euthanasia was ONLY for untreatable physical pain among the terminally ill). Psychologically painful? Clearly, for persons who are aware that their faculties are diminishing, but how do other people make this determination? (Those with dementia don’t euthanize themselves, after all). Where is the bright clear line between someone with early dementia who requests euthanasia (in their right mind, so to speak) and someone who’s condition is more far advanced and is judged not competent to request euthanasia?

Don’t worry, the Dutch doctors have a solution for this latter group – they kill them too. The explanation? Had these people been in their right mind, they would have requested euthanasia anyway.

On we go:

The law states a number of criteria, which must be met before euthanasia can be administered. For example, the patient must be suffering unbearable pain and the doctor must be convinced the patient is making an informed choice. The opinion of a second doctor is also required.

More shooting fish in barrels here: Where’s the “unbearable pain” in dementia? How can a doctor ever possibly be sure that, knowing a diagnosis of dementia has already been made, calibrate that the dementia is not affecting the request for euthanasia?

Short answer, I’m afraid: All the contortions of logic and single-mindedness betray, with increasing smugness, that in many places we have decided who should live and who should die.

First those who are terminally ill and in untreatable pain. Then people who are not terminally ill but who might have physical or psychological pain. Then people who are judged to never be able to have a better quality of life. First adults. Then children.

Who’s next?

Link to this blog article by Mark Mostert: http://disabilitymatters.blogspot.com/2010/01/gotta-love-dutch-those-merciful-killers.html

Euthanasia of infants with disabilities in the Netherlands

Mark Mostert has written an interesting blog comment about the fact that the Dutch are considering allowing euthanasia of newborns based on possible future pain.

Link to his blog posting: http://disabilitymatters.blogspot.com/2009/12/killing-children-now-in-case-they-might.html

The article admits that infants with disabilities have been dying by euthanasia because of possible future pain since the enception of the Groningen Protocol. I have written about this issue in the past and an article in the Hastings Center Report (Jan-Feb 2008) admitted to the fact that this practise was already happening.

Remember, the Dutch tend to go ahead and push the boundaries, and then they later decide to legalise the existing practise under the guise of regulation.

And they say that there is no slippery slope in the Netherlands! That is only because they are already at the bottom of the slope.

Congress to examine modern eugenics.

Asianews.It is reporting about an upcoming Congress to be held in Rome - February 20 - 21, 2009 about modern eugenics, or as I usually call it - The New Eugenics. The Congress is entitled: The New Frontier of Genetics and the Risk of Eugenics.

I usually refer to Peter Singer, the Princeton University chair of bioethics, as the father of the New Eugenics, but it is possible that this new type of discrimination pre-dates Singer's philosophy.

Monsignor Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life was reported to state to the media today:

"No one can decide what is a “normal” life. Yet breakthroughs in genetics, as positive as they might be, are giving rise to the idea that “some people are less valuable than others”, because of the conditions in which they live, such as poverty or lack of education, or because of their physical state, for example people who are disabled, mentally ill, people in a 'vegetative state', or the elderly who suffer serious disease."

Eugenics, a word no one uses because of its association with experiments carried out by the Nazis, will be the subject for the Pontifical Academy for Life Congress.

Fisichella stated:

Genetic breakthroughs, resulting from technological progress, have effects on the diagnostic and therapeutic fields. But “the danger that genetics might drift [in the wrong direction] is not mere theoretical. Sadly it belongs to an outlook that is slowly but inexorably spreading.”

“Eugenics was once thought to be a thing of the past. Just mentioning the word still evokes horror. But as it is often the case, underlying dangers have been lost from sight as a result of a subtle linguistic formalism coupled with advertising backed by big economic interests. An outlook that can no longer recognise objective evil and formulate corresponding ethical views is the result. Thus, whilst the word eugenics has no place in democratic societies that in principle are respectful of human rights, the idea has for all intents and purpose found its way back into our consciousness without much angst.”

"eugenics today shows the “reassuring face of those who want to physically improve the human species.” Such practices “find expression in various scientific, biological, medical, social and political projects, all of them more or less interrelated. These projects require an ethical judgement, especially when it is sought to suggest that eugenic practices are being undertaken in the name of a 'normality' of life to offer to individuals, which still needs to be defined and requires undisputable ways to determine who can claim the power to establish the rules and purpose of a person’s ‘normal’ life. Whatever the case, such an outlook exists, however short-sighted it may be, and tends to view that some people as less valuable than others, either because of the conditions in which they live, such as poverty or lack of education, or because of their physical state, for example people who are disabled, mentally ill, people in a 'vegetative state', or the elderly who suffer serious disease.”

With reference to the Eluana Englaro case, Monsignor Fisichella stated:

"when it comes to people in “vegetative state” we must “distinguish between the medical act of inserting the tube” and the processes of “hydration and feeding which we view as therapies.” Since water and food “are basic elements in a person’s life, we believe they must be guaranteed” and cannot be considered “futile medical care”.

Mgr Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life, stated:

Eugenics “represents the main discriminatory use to which discoveries in genetic science can be put. This is what the congress wants to examine. Obviously, the main objective is to call people's attention to the considerable benefits we may obtain from genetic research if, as seems correct and appropriate, it attracts the efforts of researchers and public and private investments, while overcoming any temptation to follow the deceptive shortcuts presented by eugenics.”

Link to the article in asia news:
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14504

P.S. My good friend, Dr. Mark Mostert, publishes a very insightful blog on eugenics, euthanasia and disability rights. He also has a website entitled: "Useless Eaters". He is worth checking out.

Dignitas Clinic - Follow the Cash

Mark Mostert

Mark Mostert has written a commentary about the Article in London's Daily Mail concerning the Dignitas Clinic and the way Ludwig Minelli, the founder treated the suicide "clients" and hungered for cash.

Link to the commentary:
http://disabilitymatters.blogspot.com/2009/01/swiss-way-part-iii-follow-cash.html

The Swiss Way Part III: Follow the Cash

Well, I hadn't planned a Part III about the Swiss death machine Dignitas, but as I suspected, we're starting to see a trickle of information about the rotten underbelly of the business of killing in the heart of civilized Europe.

It's the money, stupid……..

Soraya Wernli

On Sunday, London's Daily Mail reported that nurse Soraya Wernli, who was all for helping people kill themselves, went to work for Dignitas several years ago.

Dignitas bigwig Ludwig Minelli put Nurse Wernli quickly to work sorting out the contents of black plastic bin liners that were cluttering a stairwell.

What she found changed what she thought of Dignitas, it’s claims to dignified dying, and put pay to the whole notion of patients and their loved ones being treated with respect:

Minelli said I should empty the sacks onto a long table - they were huge - and sort through everything. I opened one up and was horrified by what was inside. Mobile phones, handbags, ladies' tights, shoes, spectacles, money, purses, wallets, jewels.

I realised these were possessions which had been left behind by the dead. They had never been returned to family members. Minelli made his patients sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas and then sold everything on to pawn and second-hand shops.

Ludwig Minelli

I felt disgusted. You see these old photos of people in Nazi death camps sorting through the possessions of those who had been gassed. Well, right then and there, that is how I felt.

Wernli soon realized that Dignitas was, first and foremost, about cold, hard, cash. It was, she said, a 'production line of death concerned only with profits.'

She recalls clashing with Minelli about his deadly production-line. One case that especially irked her was the death of 74-year old Brit Reginald Crew:

Mr. Crew arrived in the morning and was dead just hours later,' she says. 'This was another of my many clashes with Minelli. I argued that it wasn't right that people land at the airport, are ferried to his office, have their requisite half-an-hour with a doctor, get the barbiturates they need and are then sent off to die.

This is the biggest step anyone will ever take. They should at least be allowed to stay overnight, to think about what they are doing. But Minelli would have none of it. He once said to me that if he had his way, he would have vending machines where people could buy barbiturates to end their lives as easily as if they were buying a soft drink or a bar of chocolate. I support assisted suicide - but not the way he went about it.

All well and good, Nurse Wernli, but your assumption is [misguided] compassion.

Minelli's is money. A simple cash flow issue.

More people dead, more money made.

A win-win:

People want to die.

Minelli charges to help kill them.

They die.

He goes to the bank.

What's not to like?

Peddlers of death look to Africa

This is a copy of Mark Mostert's blog comment on the push by the peddlers of death look to Africa:

For the last several years, ground zero for the promulgation of assisted suicide and euthanasia has been Europe.

The Netherlands now legally sanctions assisted suicide for almost anyone for any reason. There’s also lots of evidence that hundreds of Dutch patients are euthanized against their will every year.

In Switzerland, Dignitas, whose sole purpose is to facilitate the deaths of its clients, routinely hosts patients from other countries where assisted suicide is illegal.

Belgium recently legalized assisted suicide. It’s being seriously considered in almost every European capital.

In the UK, proponents of assisted suicide are waging a fierce battle to have it legalized. A Scottish parliamentarian is calling for legalized assisted suicide for children.

The warriors of the culture of death are now looking to make their ideas mainstream in Africa.

No surprise there.

However, they’re using a novel, utilitarian argument.

From east Africa's Business Daily:

Mr John Hurst, a British investor and the managing director of Dignity International, is the man behind the plans to introduce the Doctor Assisted Suicide (DAS) in Kenya. He says the logic behind assisted-suicide is that since the terminally ill patient will eventually die, it would be better to hasten their death to save the patient from pain and the family from the financial burden that may arise after prolonged treatment.

Note, Hurst is an investor. Could it be that he wants to make money on killing people? (Of course).

Note the logic:

The patient is going to die (so, why not kill them sooner rather than later?)

Killing earlier saves suffering later (no mention that not every terminally ill person is in pain, let alone unbearable pain)

Killing is a cost saving measure (particularly appealing t people in the developing world who are poor).

How crass.

How brutal.

How absolutely predicable.
Africans need to begin mounting opposition to this horrible influence – NOW.

Link to Mark Mostert's Blog comments:
http://whatsupwithbioethics.blogspot.com/2009/01/peddlers-of-death-look-to-africa.html

Stop Descrimination Against Down Syndrome

Dr. Mark Mostert, director, Regent University, Institute for the Study of Disability and Bioethics - Virginia Beach and an upcoming speaker at the Euthanasia Symposium in Winnipeg, defends the right of people with disabilities to be treated with equality.

Mostert wrote on the USA Today blog:

"I really don't care about Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's political views. But here's what I do care very much about: She refused to discriminate against her unborn child when the Down syndrome diagnosis came in."

Mostert continued:

"As a society, we prattle on about equality, diversity and "access." The notion of inclusiveness rules the day as long as we're not talking about people with an extra chromosome."

Mostert concludes his comment by saying:

"Good for Palin for making the statement that needs to be made much more often: Genetic discrimination against people with Down syndrome must stop. Now. No excuses."

Link to blog:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/09/stop-discrimina.html

I have come to live before I die

Dr. Mark Mostert has written a poinant blog posting about his friend Tony who has Motor Neuron Disease.

Mark was a speaker at the First International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide on Nov 30, 2007.

Tony has lost most of the physical functions that you or I have, but he is actively living his life and not actively dying.

Read the Blog posting:
http://disabilitymatters.blogspot.com/2008/08/words-to-learn-from-i-have-come-to-live.html