Massachusetts assisted suicide bill may be fast-tracked to a vote.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sign the petition: Reject Massachusetts Assisted Suicide bill S.1208/H.1926. (Link).

Massachusetts legislature.

The Massachusetts assisted suicide bill S.1208/H.1926 recently passed in the Massachusetts state legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health (note: the bill was amended and is now S.2745).

According to Colin Young, whose article was published by Wicked.com, the bill may be fast-tracked to a vote. According to Young:

The committee said the House and Senate versions were each redrafted with the same language and referred back to their respective chambers. The committee’s redraft lays out requirements that must be met before a patient can receive a lethal dose of medication...

Advocacy group Compassion & Choices and other supporters said the legislation should get votes in the House and Senate as quickly as possible.

In January 2020, Massachusetts Superior Court judge Mary K. Ames in Kligler, et al. v. Healey, et al found that there was no right to assisted suicide in Massachusetts. In her decision she found:

There is also evidence that the problem of competency is particularly acute at the time at which a patient self-administers the medication because patients may be alone or accompanied by those who support his or her end-of-life decision... In such a situation there is a great risk that temporary anger, depression, a misunderstanding of one's prognosis, ignorance of alternatives, financial considerations, strain on family members or significant others, or improper persuasion may impact the decision.

I echo the concerns of the disability rights group Second Thoughts Massachusetts that stated (link to the press release here):

“It is wrong to move a bill at a time when those who will be harmed are on lockdown due to COVID-19, depriving us of the opportunity to fully address in person this threat to our health and well-being”

Decisions to request assisted suicide are made by people who are going through a vulnerable time of their life.
 
Assisted suicide causes death rather than providing needed care.

• Click here to contact members of the Massachusetts state Senate 
• Click here to contact members of the Massachusetts state House
  

Link to pamphlet: Five Reasons to Oppose Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Assisted suicide by Zoom

This article was published by First Things on June 5, 2020

*Sign the petition: Healthcare regulations must not permit assisted suicide approvals by telehealth (Link).

By Wesley J Smith

Those who advocate the legalization of physician-assisted suicide always claim that doctor-prescribed death will involve a meticulous process of intimate conversations and hands-on examinations by qualified physicians. They promise that patients who request assisted suicide as a solution to illness or disability will receive a physical to determine the extent of the disease. If declared terminally ill, the patient must next be referred for a second opinion. Only then can the doctor dispense the lethal prescriptions.

But once it’s legal for doctors to prescribe poison, opinions about death and suicide quickly change. Assisted suicide boosters come to see “protections” as unjust “barriers” to attaining a “peaceful death.” This leads to cutting legal corners and breaking public policy promises.

The COVID-19 crisis has provided a pretext for further eroding supposedly ironclad guidelines. When the crisis first hit, assisted suicide advocates wrung their hands because people would be unable to access the medical examinations necessary to obtain doctor-prescribed death. Technology to the rescue! The American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying—a newly formed association of doctors who assist suicides—recently published formal guidelines that permit doctors to assist suicides via the Internet. These guidelines state that examination should include a review of medical records and a video meeting via Zoom or Skype. The second opinion can simply be done by phone. This means that assisted suicides will be facilitated by doctors who never actually treated patients for their underlying illness, who may be ignorant of their family situations and personal histories, and who have never met their patients in the flesh.
 

Tele-assisted suicides have already been done. An article published in The Conversation quoted a doctor who quietly began doing streamed suicide consultations years before the COVID pandemic began.

“My patients love telemedicine,” Dr. Carol Parrot, a physician who lives on an island in Washington, told me during a Skype interview in 2018. “They love that they don’t have to get dressed. They don’t have to get into a car and drive 25 miles and meet a new doctor and sit in a waiting room.”

Parrot says she sees 90% of her patients online, visually examining a patient’s symptoms, mobility, affect and breathing. “I can get a great deal of information for how close a patient is to death from a Skype visit,” Parrot explained. “I don’t feel badly at all that I don’t have a stethoscope on their chest.”

Parrot told the interviewer that she “sometimes” consults the suicidal patient’s primary care physician. This means that she sometimes does not even bother to discuss the patient with the medical professional most familiar with the patient’s case. 

*Sign the petition: Healthcare regulations must not permit assisted suicide approvals by telehealth (Link).
 
The dichotomy between advocates’ easy promises and actual practice was apparent long before the COVID crisis. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1994, one of the so-called “protective guidelines” requires doctors to refer patients for psychological “counseling” if the prescribing physician suspects that the patient has a mental condition “causing impaired judgment.” Alas, this supposed protection has proved specious. Few physicians ever make these referrals, and when they do, the resulting consultation is often superficial.

Here’s an example. In 2008, an article in the Michigan Law Review—written by the late suicide expert Herbert Hendin and Kathleen Foley, perhaps the nation’s foremost palliative care doctor—described the assisted suicide of Joan Lucas. Lucas tried to kill herself after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, but failed. She next sought assisted suicide. The death doctor referred her to a psychologist only “to protect my ass.”

The consultation was hardly a professional interaction. From the article:

The doctor and the family found a cooperative psychologist who asked Joan to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory, a standard psychological test. Because it was difficult for Joan to travel to the psychologist’s office, her children read the true-false questions to her at home. The family found the questions funny, and Joan’s daughter described the family as “cracking up” over them. Based on these test results, the psychologist concluded that whatever depression Joan had was directly related to her terminal illness, which he considered a completely normal response.

In other words, the psychologist never personally saw the patient and never considered suicide prevention. As Foley and Hendin wrote, “The psychologist’s report in Joan’s case is particularly disturbing because ‘on the basis of a single questionnaire administered by her family, he was willing to give an opinion that would facilitate ending Joan’s life.’”

Promises were broken in Oregon's very first doctor-prescribed death in 1997. Assisted suicide boosters always depict such deaths as taking place in the context of long-term, caring relationships between doctor and patient. But according to Issues in Law and Medicine, when “Mrs. A” was diagnosed with cancer and asked for assisted suicide, her treating physician refused. So she simply went doctor shopping. A second doctor also declined and diagnosed her as depressed. She then contacted an assisted suicide advocacy organization that referred her to a new doctor—one known to be a proponent of physician-assisted suicide. This doctor gave Mrs. A the deadly injection a mere two and a half weeks after first meeting her.

Even when patients do not qualify legally for doctor-assisted death based on the nature or extent of their illness, advocates for euthanasia and assisted suicide manage to find ways around the diagnostic impediment. Canada permits lethal injection euthanasia only if death is “reasonably foreseeable.” But what about people whose deaths are not foreseeable? No worries—they can receive a lethal jab too. An ethics opinion from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia decided that patients who are not eligible under current law for euthanasia can become eligible by starving themselves until they are sufficiently weakened and death becomes “reasonably foreseeable.”

What can we learn from all of this? “Protective guidelines” serve mainly to give a wary society a false sense of security about assisted suicide. But once we accept suicide as an acceptable answer to suffering caused by illness or disability, our attitudes toward death become so warped that obtaining suicide for requesting patients quickly becomes the overriding priority. Over time, practices become progressively unregulated—and nobody much cares.

Because many state legislatures are not in session due to the COVID crisis, attempts to legalize assisted suicide in states like New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland are temporarily paused. But these proposals have not gone away. When the political battle resumes, we will again hear many blithe assurances of strong protections. But history demonstrates that “protections” matter little once it is legal for doctors to help patients kill themselves.
More articles on this topic:

• Stop assisted suicide by telehealth (Link).
• Assisted suicide by telehealth and medical misdiagnosis (Link).

Reject Massachusetts End of Life Option Act

This article written by Margaret Dore and published by Choice is an Illusion.

Sign the petition: Reject Massachusetts Assisted Suicide bill S.1208/H.1926. (Link).

There has been an amended assisted suicide bill introduced in Massachusetts. S.2745 / S.1208.

I. Introduction

I am an attorney in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal.[1] The proposed bills seek to legalize “aid in dying,” a traditional euphemism for active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.[2]

Most states reject these practices.[3] Other states have strengthened their laws against them.[4] If enacted, the bills will apply to people with years or decades to live. Individuals with money, meaning the middle class and above, will be especially at risk. I urge you to reject the proposed bills.

II. Definitions (Traditional)

A. Physician-Assisted Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

The American Medical Association defines physician-suicide as occurring when “a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act.”[5] For example:

[T]he physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide.[6] Assisted suicide is a general term in which an assisting person is not necessarily a physician. Euthanasia is the administration of a lethal agent by another person.[7]

B. Withholding or Withdrawing Treatment

Withholding or withdrawing treatment (“pulling the plug”) is not euthanasia if the purpose is to remove burdensome treatment, as opposed to an intent to kill the patient. More importantly, the individual will not necessarily die. Consider this quote from Washington State regarding a man removed from a ventilator:

[I]nstead of dying as expected, [he] slowly began to get better.[8] 

III. Assisting Persons Can Have an Agenda

Persons assisting a suicide or euthanasia can have an agenda. Consider Tammy Sawyer, trustee for Thomas Middleton in Oregon. Two days after his death by legal assisted suicide, she sold his home and deposited the proceeds into bank accounts for her own benefit.[9] Consider also Graham Morant, convicted of counseling his wife to kill herself in Australia, to get the life insurance.[10] The Court found:

[Y]ou counselled and aided your wife to kill herself because you wanted ... the 1.4 million.[11] Medical professionals too can have an agenda. New York physician, Michael Swango, got a thrill from killing his patients.[12] Consider also Harold Shipman, a doctor in the UK, who not only killed his patients, but stole from them and in one case made himself a beneficiary of the patient’s will.[13]

IV. Patients will have Years or Decades to Live

The bills apply to persons who are “terminally ill,” which is defined as an illness or condition expected to cause death within six months.[14] Such persons may in fact have years or decades to live. This is true due to actual mistakes (the test results got switched) and because predicting life expectancy is not an exact science.[15]

Indeed, doctors can sometimes be very wrong. Consider John Norton, who testified before this body in 2012. Diagnosed with ALS at age 18, he was told that he would get progressively worse (be paralyzed) and die in three to five years.[16] Instead, the disease progression stopped on its own. His affidavit states:

If assisted suicide or euthanasia had been available to me in the 1950's, I would have missed the bulk of my life and my life yet to come.[17] 

V. How The Bills Work

The bills have an application process to obtain the lethal dose, which includes a lethal dose request form. Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight. No doctor, not even a witness, is required to be present at the death.[18]

VI. The Bills are Stacked Against the Individual

Proponents claim that bill passage will assure individual choice, which is not true. See below.

A. Patient Protections will not be Enforceable

The bills set forth multiple patient protections, for example, that the attending physician “shall” refer the patient to another physician prior to prescribing the lethal dose.[19] The bills also say that actions are to be carried out in “accordance” with the bills.[20]

The bills do not define “accordance.”[21] Dictionary definitions include “in the spirit of,” meaning in thought or intention.[22] In other words, a mere thought or intention to comply is good enough. The protections will not be enforceable.

B. The Bills will Allow Other People to Communicate on the Patient’s Behalf
.
The bills describe patients as being “capable.”[23] This is a specially defined term, in which other people will be allowed to communicate on the patient’s behalf during the lethal dose request process, as long as the communicating people are “familiar with the patient’s manner of communicating.” The bills state:

"Capable” means having the capacity to make informed, complex health care decisions; understand the consequences of those decisions; and to communicate them to health care providers, including communication through individuals familiar with the patient’s manner of communicating if those persons are available. (Emphasis added).[24]

 Being familiar with a patient’s manner of communicating is an extremely low standard for something so important. Consider, for example, a doctor’s assistant who is familiar with the patient’s manner of communicating in Spanish, but she, herself, does not understand Spanish. That, however, would be good enough for her to communicate on his behalf during the lethal dose request process. The patient would not be in control of his fate.

C. “Even if the Patient Struggled, Who Would Know?”

The bills have no required oversight over administration of the lethal dose.[25] In addition, the drugs used are water and alcohol soluble, such that they can be injected into a sleeping or restrained person without consent.[26] Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, puts it this way:

With assisted suicide laws in Washington and Oregon [and with the proposed bills], perpetrators can . . . take a “legal” route, by getting an elder to sign a lethal dose request. Once the prescription is filled, there is no supervision over administration. Even if a patient struggled, “who would know?” (Emphasis added).[27] 

VII. The Bills Will Allow Euthanasia as Traditionally Defined

The bills state that patients may choose to “self-administer” the lethal dose.[28] This is a specially defined term, which paradoxically allows other people to administer the lethal dose to the patient. The bills state:

"Self-administer” means a qualified patient’s act of ingesting medication [the lethal dose] ....(Emphasis added)[29] 

The bills do not define “ingest.”[30] Dictionary definitions include:

[T]o take (food, drugs, etc.) into the body, as by swallowing, inhaling, or absorbing.” (Emphasis added).[31] 

With these definitions, someone else putting the lethal dose in a patient’s mouth qualifies as self-administration if the patient swallows the lethal dose, i.e., ingests it. Someone else placing a medication patch on the patient’s arm will similarly qualify as self-administration because the patient will then be “absorbing” the dose, i.e., “ingesting” it. Gas administration initiated by another person will also qualify because the patient will be “inhaling” the dose, i.e., ingesting it. With self-administer defined as mere ingesting, someone else is allowed to administer the lethal dose to the patient, which is euthanasia as traditionally defined.

VIII. Legally, Deaths Will Be Due to a Terminal Disease, not Euthanasia or Homicide

The bills require deaths via the lethal dose to be listed on the patient’s death certificate as caused by a terminal disease, not euthanasia or homicide. The bills state:

The attending physician may sign the patient’s death certificate which shall list the underling terminal disease as the cause of death. (Emphasis added).[32]
[and]

Actions taken by health care providers and patient advocates supporting a qualified patient exercising his or her rights pursuant to this chapter, including being present when the patient self-administers medication, shall not for any purpose, constitute elder abuse, neglect, assisted suicide, mercy killing [euthanasia] or homicide under any civil or criminal law or for purposes of professional disciplinary action. (Emphasis added).[33] 

IX. Death Certificates Will Report Deaths as “Natural”

Massachusetts’ death certificates have seven categories for reporting the manner of death, five of which are substantive: natural cause; accident; homicide; suicide and therapeutic complication.[34]

As noted in the previous section, euthanasia deaths will be reported as caused by a terminal disease, not euthanasia or homicide. The death is also not an accident due its being intentionally performed; it is not suicide due to it’s being performed by another person; it is not a therapeutic complication. This leaves “Natural.”

With this situation, the manner of death for a traditional euthanasia must be reported on the death certificate as Natural. The significance is that doing so will create a legal inability to prosecute for murder. The official legal manner of death will be natural, not homicide, as a matter of law. The bills will create a perfect crime.

X. Dr. Shipman and the Call for Death Certificate Reform

Per a 2005 article in the UK’s The Guardian newspaper, there was a public inquiry regarding Dr. Shipman’s conduct, which determined that he had “killed at least 250 of his patients over 23 years.”[35] The inquiry also found:

that by issuing death certificates stating natural causes, the serial killer [Shipman] was able to evade investigation by coroners.[36] Per a subsequent article in 2015, proposed reforms included having a medical examiner review death certificates, so as to improve patient safety.[37] Instead, the instant bills move in the opposite direction to require a legal coverup in which doctors and other perpetrators will be empowered to kill with impunity.

XI. Perpetrators will be Allowed to Inherit

Slayer statutes block persons from receiving an inheritance when they murder a person from whom they stand to inherit.”[38] The rational is simple.[39] No one should financially benefit from his or her own crime.”[40]

In Massachusetts, the slayer statute applies when there is a murder conviction for homicide. Actions taken pursuant to the bills, however, are not homicide.[41] Again, the bills state:

Actions taken by health care providers and patient advocates supporting a qualified patient exercising his or her rights pursuant to this chapter, including being present when the patient self-administers medication, shall not for any purpose, constitute elder abuse, neglect, assisted suicide, mercy killing [euthanasia] or homicide under any civil or criminal law or for purposes of professional disciplinary action. (Emphasis added).[42]

With this situation, the slayer statute will not apply to deaths pursuant to the bills because legally there will be no homicide, and therefore no murder. It won’t matter that the lethal dose was administered to the decedent against his or her will or that he or she was tricked into taking it. Perpetrators will be allowed to inherit.

XII. Participants will be Traumatized

A. The Swiss Study: Physician-Assisted Suicide can be Traumatic for Family Members

A European research study addressed trauma suffered by persons who witnessed legal physician-assisted suicide in Switzerland.[43] The study found that one out of five family members or friends present at an assisted suicide was traumatized. These people, 

experienced full or sub-threshold PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] related to the loss of a close person through assisted suicide.[44] 

B. My Clients Suffered Trauma in Oregon and Washington State

I have had two cases where my clients and their family members suffered severe emotional trauma due to legal assisted suicide. One case was in Oregon, the other case was in Washington State.

In the first case, one side of the family wanted the father/patient to take the lethal dose, while the other side did not. The father spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and torn over whether or not he should kill himself. My client, his adult daughter, was severely traumatized. The father did not take the lethal dose and died a natural death.

In the other case, it’s not clear that administration of the lethal dose was voluntary. My client, although he was not present, was severely affected by the incident and also by the sudden loss of his father.

XII. Conclusion

If enacted, the bills will apply to people with years or decades to live. Some assisting persons, including doctors and family members, will have an agenda, with the more obvious reasons being inheritance and life insurance, but also, as in the case of Dr. Swango, the thrill of seeing someone die.

The bills’ lack of required oversight at the death, coupled with the mandatory falsification of the death certificate will provide cover for murder and create a perfect crime. Families and individuals will be traumatized.

I urge you to vote “No” on H. 1926 and S. 1208. 

Click here to view pdf version.
 
Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA
Law Offices of Margaret K Dore, P.S.
Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation
www.margaretdore.com
www.choiceillusion.org
Footnotes:

[1] A copy of my bio is in the appendix, at page A-1.
[2] Craig A. Brandt, Model Aid-in-Dying Act, Iowa Law Review,
1989 Oct; 75(1): 125-215, (“Subject: Active Euthanasia ....”); and
Maria T. CeloCruz, “Aid-in-Dying: Should We Decriminalize
Physician-Assisted Suicide and Physician-Committed Euthanasia?,”
summary pages, in the appendix, at A-2 & A-2A.
[3] Patient’s Rights Council, “Assisted Suicide Laws in the United States,”
http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/assisted-suicide-state-laws/
[4] In the last nine years, at least eight states have strengthened their laws against assisted suicide and/or euthanasia. These states include: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio and Utah. See backup documentation in in the appendix, at pages A-3 to A-7. See also https://www.choiceillusionnewmexico.org/2016/07/new-mexico-upholds-assisted-suicide.html (regarding a New Mexico Supreme Court decision overruling legal assisted suicide); http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3795 (regarding Ohio’s statute) and https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/HB0086.html (regarding Utah bill).
[5] The AMA Code of Medical Ethics, Opinion 5.7, in the appendix, page A-8.
[6] Id.
[7] Opinion 5.8, “Euthanasia,” attached in the appendix, at page A-9.
[8] Nina Shapiro, “Terminal Uncertainty: Washington’s new ‘Death With Dignity’ law allows doctors to help people commit suicide—once they’ve determined that the patient has only six months to live. But what if they’re wrong?,” Seattle Weekly, 01/13/09, attached in the appendix, at pp. A-10 to A-12; quote at A-12.
[9] "Sawyer Arraigned on State Fraud Charges," KTVZ.COM, 08/16/16, attached in the in the appendix, at page A-13.
[10] R v Morant [2018] QSC 251, Order, 11/02/18, excerpts in the appendix, at pp. A-14 and A-15. Full opinion available here: https://archive.sclqld.org.au/qjudgment/2018/QSC18-251.pdf
[11] Morant opinion, ¶ 78, attached in the appendix, at A-15.
[12] Charlie Leduff, “Prosecutors Say Doctor Killed to Feel a Thrill,” The New York Times, 09/07/00, attached in the appendix, at pages A-16 to A-18, https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/ny-times-killed-to-feel-a-thrill-1.pdf (“Basically, Dr. Swango liked to kill people. By his own admission in his diary, he killed because it thrilled him.”) See also: CBSNEWS.COM STAFF, “Life in Jail for Poison Doctor,” 07/12/00, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/life-in-jail-for-poison-doctor
[13] David Batty, “Q & A: Harold Shipman,” The Guardian, 08/25/05, at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/25/health.shipman. (Attached in the appendix, at A-19 to A-21). See also Fiona Guy, “Healthcare Serial Killers: Doctors and Nurses Who Kill,” Crime Traveler, (2015, Sept 09), available at https://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/doctors-and-nurses-who-kill.pdf
[14] The bills state:
“Terminally ill" means having a terminal illness or condition which can reasonably be expected to cause death within 6 months, whether or not treatment is provided. H. 1926 and S. 1208, lines 78 to 79. A copy of H. 1926 is in the appendix, at pages A-22 to A-38.
[15] See: Jessica Firger, “12 Million Americans Misdiagnosed Each Year,” CBS NEWS, April 17, 2014, attached in the appendix, at A-39; and Nina Shapiro, “Terminal Uncertainty ...,” supra, excerpts attached hereto in the appendix, at A-10 to A-12.
[16] Affidavit of John Norton, attached in the appendix, at A-40 to A-42.
[17] Id., ¶ 5.
[18] See the bills in their entirety, which are currently identical. Bill H. 1926 is attached in in the appendix, at pages A-22 to A-38.
[19] The bills, § 6, lines 151 to 179, attached in in the appendix, at A-30 & A-31.
[20] The bills state:
(1) The attending physician shall: ...
(k) ensure that all appropriate steps are carried out in accordance with this chapter before writing a prescription for medication for a qualified patient .... (Emphasis added). The bills, line 152, and lines 178 to 179, attached in the appendix, at A-30 and A-31.
[21] See the bills in their entirety.
[22] Definitions attached in the appendix, at pages A-45 to A-46.
[23] The bills, § 1, lines 14-17. (Attached in the appendix, at A-23).
[24] Id.
[25] See the bills in their entirety.
[26] In Oregon and Washington State, reported drugs include Secobarbital, Pentobarbital, Phenobarbital and Morphine Sulfate, which are water and/or alcohol soluble. See excerpts from Oregon’s and Washington’s annual reports, in in the appendix, at pp. A-43 and A-44. See also http://www.drugs.com/pr/seconal-sodium.html, http://www.drugs.com/pro/nembutal.html and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2977013
[27] Alex Schadenberg, Letter to the Editor, “Elder abuse a growing problem,” The Advocate, Official Publication of the Idaho State Bar, October 2010.
[28] The bills, Section 1, line 10, attached in the appendix, at A-22
[29] Id., lines 76 to 77.
[30] See the bills in their entirety.
[31] Attached in the appendix, at A-47.
[32] The bills, §6(2), lines 189 to 190, attached in the appendix, at A-32.
[33] The bills, lines 252 to 256.
[34] See Massachusetts “Death Certificate Medical Certifier Worksheet,” attached in the appendix, at A-48.
[35] David Batty, attached in the appendix, at A-19.
[36] Id., attached hereto at A-21.
[37] Press Association, “Death Certificate Reform Delays ‘Incomprehensible,” The Guardian, January 21, 2015, attached in the appendix, at A-49 to A-50.
[38] Cushing and Dolan, PC, Attorneys at Law, “What are Slayer Statutes,” January 28, 2015, in the appendix, at A-51 to A-52.
[39] Ilene S. Cooper and Jaclene D’Agostino, Forfeiture and New York’s “Slayer Rule,” NYSBA Journal, March/April 2015, attached in the appendix, at A-55.
[40] Id.
[41] Cushing and Dolan, in the appendix, at A-52. See also “Taking from deceased victim’s estate prohibited,” attached in the appendix, at A-53. The bar to inheritance applies “only to murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree or manslaughter.”
[42] The bills, lines 252 to 256.
[43] “Death by request in Switzerland: Post-traumatic stress disorder and complicated grief after witnessing assisted suicide,” B. Wagner, J. Muller, A. Maercker; European Psychiatry 27 (2012) 542-546, available at http://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/family-members-traumatized-eur-psych-2012.pdf (Cover page attached in the appendix, at A-56).
[44] Id.

Media Release: Danger of Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Bill

This media release was published by Not Dead Yet on June 2, 2020.

For Immediate Release: June 2, 2020
Contact: John B. Kelly 617-952-3302, SecondThoughtsKelly@Gmail.com, @2ndThoughtsMA

Bill Legalizing Assisted Suicide Remains Dangerous, Targets the Vulnerable

Second Thoughts Massachusetts issues the following statement in opposition to the favorable report given by the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health to Bill S.1208/H.1926, legislation that would legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts.

John Kelly

“I’m amazed and disappointed that as a deadly virus is stalking and killing older, ill, and disabled people, and systemic racism and healthcare disparities lead to disproportionate deaths of Black people, the Public Health Committee decides now would be the time to further endanger the same groups of people. Assisted suicide legislation sends a message of ‘better dead than disabled’ while completely immunizing doctors, heirs, and stressed caregivers who can encourage or even engineer a person’s death without fear of prosecution,” said Second Thoughts Director John B. Kelly.

“It is wrong to move a bill at a time when those who will be harmed are on lockdown due to COVID-19, depriving us of the opportunity to fully address in person this threat to our health and well-being,” Kelly continued.

Anita Cameron, Director of Minority Outreach for Not Dead Yet, said “I am utterly disgusted that as COVID-19 ravages the Black community due to the results of racial disparities in healthcare, the Public Health Committee has decided to try to slip this bill through. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Black community; we are dying at frightening rates. This bill promotes death over life, and by pushing it, the legislature is sending a clear message to us Blacks that we are burdens and should die by suicide.”

Diane Coleman, Not Dead Yet’s President and CEO, said “The doctors who decide who’s eligible for assisted suicide are the same doctors who have been perfectly comfortable putting older, ill and disabled people at the back of the line for receiving COVID-19 treatments. Why should anyone think they will move us to the front of the line for other life-saving treatments if assisted suicide is legal?”

Five months ago, Suffolk Superior court Judge Mary K. Ames in Kligler, et al. v. Healey, et al. ruled against any state constitutional right for assisted suicide, holding that at the point of a patient ingesting the lethal drugs, they would be vulnerable to improper persuasion. “In such a situation, there is a greater risk that temporary anger, depression, a misunderstanding of one’s prognosis, ignorance of alternatives, financial considerations, strain on family members or significant others, or improper persuasion may impact the decision.”

“The Massachusetts legislature should heed this warning by the court. If assisted suicide is legal, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through insurance denials, mistakes, and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted, or even proposed, that can prevent this outcome which can never be undone once it is put into effect,” Kelly concluded. Second Thoughts Massachusetts is a group of disability rights advocates opposed to the legalization of assisted suicide. We testified against the bill S.1208 at the hearing in June of 2019 and held a well-attended legislative briefing a few days after. It is the state affiliate of Not Dead Yet, the national grassroots group opposed to assisted suicide and life and death discrimination against disabled people.

Did the Massachusetts assisted suicide lobby change its tactic or are they just lying?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Massachusetts legislature

Last Friday, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health, sadly advanced assisted suicide bills S.1208 and H.1926. I do not think there is time, in this legislative session to pass these bills into law, but the fact that they passed in committee is concerning.

It is also concerning that a commentary that was published in a Massachusetts newspaper causes more confusion as to what assisted suicide is. The article titled: In support of passing death with dignity law states:

There is nothing mandatory in this bill. No doctor may prescribe terminal sedation (my emphasis) requested by a patient unless the patient:
■ is mentally capable, and not suffering from clinical depression or anxiety severe enough to impair his/her judgment;
■ can take the prescribed medication by him or herself;
■ has requested the medication orally and in writing, with two witnesses, one of whom cannot be included in the patient’s will;
■ has met with two physicians and one mental health professional who each attest first to the patient’s understanding and awareness of the full consequences of her/his request, and second to the diagnosis of a terminal illness that will in all likelihood end her/his life within six months.

First, terminal sedation is not assisted suicide. Terminal sedation is a medical act to sedate a person who is experiencing uncontrolled symptoms. Terminal sedation can be abused, by intentionally overdosing or by sedating a person and then dehydrating the person to death, nonetheless terminal sedation is not assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide is to intentionally prescribe lethal drugs, knowing that the person intends to use the lethal drug cocktail to die by suicide.

Is equating terminal sedation with assisted suicide a way to change the way assisted suicide is viewed?

Secondly, people who die by assisted suicide in Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal for more than 20 years, are rarely sent for a psychological assessment, even though a study found that more than 25% of patients who request assisted suicide are experiencing depression or feelings of hopelessness. 

According to the 2019 Oregon assisted suicide report, that out of 188 reported assisted suicide deaths only one of those people were sent for a psychological assessment.

Finally, the assisted suicide lobby promotes assisted suicide as a "peaceful death." The fact is that many assisted suicide deaths are prolonged and painful deaths.

Legalizing assisted suicide gives doctors who agree to cause the death of patients complete legal protection for doing so.

There are many more problems with assisted suicide. We believe in caring, not killing.

Massachusetts assisted suicide bill permits euthanasia.

This is the article that the Boston Globe refused to print.

Massachusetts Legislature.

As advocates for people at the most vulnerable time of their life, we are deeply troubled by two so-called “aid in dying” bills, now before the Massachusetts legislature [1]. 

Currently the two bills (S.1208 and H. 1926) would open the door not only to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), but also to euthanasia—sometimes called “mercy killing.” Unlike PAS, which involves a person self-administering a lethal, prescribed “drug cocktail”, euthanasia involves another person’s administering the lethal drugs.

Both bills state that “A terminally ill patient may voluntarily make an oral request for aid in dying and a prescription for medication that the patient can choose to self-administer…”. However, “self-administer” is defined as “a qualified patient’s act of ingesting” the lethal medication. This definition does not prevent another person from administering the lethal dose that the person then "ingests." Moreover, the bills require no medical oversight of the “act of ingesting”, which may be subject to family pressures; and which sometimes results in prolonged death (24 hours or more), nausea, vomiting, gasping, and awakening from unconsciousness.[2]

Neither PAS nor euthanasia is permitted under Massachusetts current statute Ch. 201D §12). [3] In January, the Suffolk Superior Court ruled that the Commonwealth's laws and constitution do not guarantee a right to physician-assisted suicide, and PAS was rejected in a 2012 state referendum. The legislature should now reject these two dangerous bills.

Ronald W. Pies, MD
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,
Tufts University School of Medicine

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

References:

1 https://www.deathwithdignity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2019-MA-S1208.pdf

2 https://www.mdmag.com/medical-news/twelve-myths-concerning-medical-aid-in-dying-or-physicianassisted-suicide

3 https://statelaws.findlaw.com/massachusetts-law/massachusetts-euthanasia-laws.html

Massachusetts doctors urge lawmakers to reject assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The State House News Service reported that more than 100 Massachusetts doctors and healthcare professionals signed a letter urging lawmakers to reject assisted suicide. The letter stated:

"As physicians and healthcare professionals, we embrace a culture where ALL people receive appropriate medical care, regardless of economic state, ethnicity, age or disability," the physicians wrote in an open letter organized by the Massachusetts Alliance Against Doctor-Prescribed Suicide.  

"We believe that the most vulnerable patients will suffer from legalization of lethal drugs by creation of a financial incentive for insurance companies and governments to save money by approving coverage of cheaper lethal drugs and denying lifesaving treatment, as has happened in states where assisted suicide is legal."

For the past five years, the Massachusetts legislature has referred assisted suicide bills to the Joint Committee on Public Health, where they have died.

Massachusetts voters rejected an assisted suicide ballot initiative in 2012.

Assisted suicide bills are not what they appear to be.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The assisted suicide lobby has introduced assisted suicide bills in at least 18 States in 2020. All of these bills include "safeguards" that appear to provide oversight of the law.

Recently I published an article explaining how the "safeguards" are written with loosely defined language to permit the laws to be redefined over time. I also explained that the "safeguards" are designed to convince legislators to legalize assisted suicide, while the assisted suicide lobby intends to remove them overtime. 

For instance, the Hawaii legislature passed an assisted suicide bill in 2018 that came into effect on Jan 1, 2019. There were 27 assisted suicide deaths in 2019.

The assisted suicide lobby is proposing to expand the assisted suicide law after only one year. The Hawaii legislature is debating bills SB 2582 and HB 2451 to expand the assisted suicide law by:

• permitting nurses to prescribe the lethal drugs,
• shortening the waiting period in general, and 
• waiving the waiting period when someone is "nearing death."

The Hawaii legislature also debated bill SB 3047 that would have allowed:

• assisted suicide for incompetent people who requested death in an advanced directive,
• physicians to waive the counseling requirement, 
• assisted suicide to be approved by "telehealth" and 
• require insurance companies to pay for assisted suicide.

Its hard to believe that the assisted suicide lobby wants death by "Telehealth."

The Washington State legislature is debating Bill 2419, a bill to study the "safeguards" in their assisted suicide law. One of the issues to be studied is allowing euthanasia (lethal injection) rather than limiting it to assisted suicide.

Last year the Oregon legislature expanded their assisted suicide law by waiving the 15 day waiting period.

Assisted suicide may not be a peaceful death.

The assisted suicide lobby has been using experimental lethal drug cocktails as they attempt to find a cheaper way to kill. The current assisted suicide drug cocktails have caused painful deaths that may take many hours to die. A recent article stated:

The (first drug mix) turned out to be too harsh, burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain. The second drug mix, used 67 times, has led to deaths that stretched out hours in some patients — and up to 31 hours in one case.

The assisted suicide lobby is working on their third experimental lethal cocktail. Assisted suicide is not guaranteed to cause a "peaceful or painless death."

Our greatest concern is the New York assisted suicide bill. Governor Cuomo stated that he will sign an assisted suicide bill into law.

New York Assembly Bill A2694 and Senate Bill S3947 where introduced as the Medical Aid in Dying Act.

As Margaret Dore, the President of Choice is an Illusion stated in her article: New York: Reject Medical Aid in Dying Act:

“Aid in Dying” is a euphemism for euthanasia.[3] The Act, however, purports to prohibit euthanasia. On close examination, this prohibition will be unenforceable.

If enacted, the Act will apply to people with years or decades to live. It will also facilitate financial exploitation, especially in the inheritance context. Don’t render yourself or someone you care about a sitting duck to heirs and other predators. I urge you to reject the proposed Act.

Assisted suicide is an act whereby one person (usually a physician) provides a prescription for a lethal drug cocktail knowing that the other person intends to use it for suicide.

Euthanasia is an act whereby one person (usually a physician) lethally injects another person, usually after a request.

Several of the assisted suicide bills have language that can be interpreted to permit euthanasia.

Assisted suicide bills are usually designed as an application process for obtaining a lethal dose.

For instance the Maryland assisted suicide bill HB 0643 may permit euthanasia (homicide) because it doesn't require the person to self-administer. The Maryland bill doesn't protect the conscience rights of medical professionals either.

The Massachusetts assisted suicide bill can also be interpreted to permit euthanasia.

The New Hampshire assisted suicide bill gives physicians the right to write a lethal prescription but the term self ingest is not found in the main text of the bill. Only within the life insurance section is there a statement that may be construed as limiting the act to assisted suicide where it states:

Neither shall a qualified patient’s act of ingesting medication to end such patient’s life in a humane and dignified manner have an effect upon a life, health, or accident insurance or annuity policy.

Even this statement does not refer to self-ingestion.

The New Hampshire bill permits euthanasia by giving a physician the right in law to write a lethal drug prescription, but it does not limit how the lethal drugs can be used.

New Hampshire assisted suicide bill will create a perfect crime (Link).

Assisted suicide bills are intentionally written in a deceptive manner, so that if legalized, the legislation can be interpreted in a wider manner. Further to that, the assisted suicide lobby has no intention of maintaining the "safeguards" in the bills. These "safeguards" are simply mean't to sell assisted suicide to the legislators.

Hawaii is debating the expansion of its assisted suicide law only one year after it came into effect, and Washington State is examining all of the safeguards, while Oregon expanded its assisted suicide law last year.

Clearly assisted suicide bills are not what they appear to be.