We mourn the death of Nancy Elliott, an amazing woman and great leader.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Nancy Elliott

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is mourning the loss of Nancy Elliott, the immediate Past Chair of EPC - USA.

Nancy was a former three term New Hampshire State legislator who learned about the issue of assisted suicide while sitting as a member of the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee when they debated an assisted suicide bill.

Nancy Elliott's obituary (Link).

Nancy soon became one of the nations leading experts on euthanasia and assisted suicide as a fierce advocate for the vulnerable, disabled, and elderly regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Nancy served as a leader for more than a decade speaking, writing, and testifying across America and the world on behalf of the EPC-International and as the Chair of EPC-USA.

Nancy was instrumental in contacting key legislators, committee chairs and Governors to convince them to prevent the legalization of assisted suicide. 

Her legacy is in many lives that were saved.

Nancy was featured in the film - Fatal Flaws produced by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Dunn Media. In the film, Nancy spoke about how her husband would have felt if doctors were pushing assisted suicide when he was sick.

For me, Nancy was also a close friend.

Nancy wrote many articles opposing assisted suicide but she was also quoted in many articles world-wide. Here is a list of some of Nancy's great articles:

• Speech to the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee (Link).
• Letter to Massachusetts politicians to reject assisted suicide bill (Link).
• Letter to the Maine Health and Human Services Committee (Link).
• The assisted suicide bill was aimed at people like my husband (Link).
• New Jersey Journal endorses Canadian style euthanasia law. (Link).
• Reject New York assisted suicide bill (Link).
• Mary kills people is a dangerous and irresponsible show that should be terminated (Link).

Book launch - Made To Live with Dr Paul Saba on September 15.

Dr Paul Saba is launching his book - Made To Live on September 15, 2020.

Alex Schadenberg is hosting the Zoom event featuring Dr Saba, who will speak about his new book.

Date: September 15, 2020

Time: 7:30 PM (Eastern Time).

Now that the event has happened. Here is a link to the video of the event (Link).

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

"Dr. Paul Saba’s personal journey to save life demonstrates his caring heart not only for his family but all those around him in the world whom he considers part of his extended family. He recognizes assisted suicide and euthanasia are neither caring nor compassionate. "

—Nancy Elliott
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA

"I consider Dr. Paul Saba to truly be a canary in the coal mine, alerting the world about the fatal flaws associated with euthanasia and assisted suicide.... This book is an incredible addition to the arsenal of data and stories upholding the value of human life and enunciating why killing people is not only bad public policy but simply wrong."

—Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

"In Made to Live, Dr. Paul Saba has provided a timely reminder of the underlying principles of medicine, which are to heal, promote health, and alleviate suffering, and to resist the temptation of killing the patient. Outlining his personal, family, and professional struggles to resist pressure coming from within the medical profession to take human life rather than preserve and cherish it, he provides valuable insight into the dangers posed to true medicine by the corrupting influence of the spread of euthanasia and assisted suicide. With reference to the history of the euthanasia movement, he shows that it is fundamentally opposed to the principles of medicine."

— Dr. Gordon Macdonald
CEO, Care Not Killing, London, UK

Massachusetts assisted suicide bill may permit euthanasia (homicide). Steering is the elephant in the room.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

It is important to examine the language of assisted suicide bills. The promoters of assisted suicide will often claim that a bill does one thing, where in fact the language of the bill has wider interpretations.

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

The Massachusetts assisted suicide bills (S. 1208 and H. 1926) are designed as an application process for obtaining a lethal drug cocktail. 

Most assisted suicide bills state that the person must self-administer the lethal drugs, making it an assisted suicide.

The Massachusetts bills state that the patient can choose to self-administer, meaning that the law permits another person to administer the lethal dose.

The bills states: 

“Self-administer” means a qualified patient’s act of ingesting medication obtained pursuant to this chapter.

This definition does not prevent another person from administering the lethal dose, that the person "ingests." 

When another person administers the lethal dose, the act is called euthanasia or homicide.

Nancy Elliott, EPC-USA Chair, in a letter to Massachusetts politicians states that "steering is the elephant in the room." She wrote:

...Steering is the elephant in the room. I was at a hearing for Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts a few years back where a doctor stated that Assisted Suicide laws were something he was in favor of. He continued with his points and ended by saying that he felt it was the responsibility for a good doctor “to guide people to make the right choice.” I do not think he intended to say that but is there any doubt that this pro suicide doctor would try to persuade his patients to follow his wishes, concerning their Assisted Suicide.

The Massachusetts bill does admit that most assisted suicide deaths are not quick and painless. The bills state:

I further understand that although most deaths occur within three hours, my death may take longer and my physician has counseled me about this possibility. (my emphasis)

An recent article in the Spring Hill Insider looks at human experiments being done to find a cheaper lethal drug cocktail for assisted suicide. 

The article states that assisted suicide researchers are promoting a third generation of lethal drug cocktails. The results of the first two lethal drug cocktails were:

The (first) 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 current drug cocktails have caused painful assisted suicide deaths that may take many hours to die.

Last month a Massachusetts Superior Court decided that there is no right to assisted suicide. The court explained:

Finally the Commonwealth produced expert testimony that the permissible end-of-life alternatives potentially involve far less risk than MAID because they occur in hospitals or other institutions devoted to medical treatment and involve numerous physicians and staff personnel, which together provide an environment that lends itself to oversight and responsibility... MAID, on the other hand, potentially takes place in an uncontrolled environment, without assurance that the patient will administer the medication when close to death and without physician oversight.

The Massachusetts assisted suicide bills are not designed to protect people at a vulnerable time in their life, but rather to protect physicians who are willing to assist in killing their patients. The bill is not limited to assisted suicide and it ignores the decision of Massachusetts citizens who rejected an assisted suicide referendum a few years ago.

Massachusetts legislators need to reject these assisted suicide bills.

Nancy Elliott: Speech to the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee

Nancy Elliott
Chair: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA 
 

Nancy Elliott

HB 1659 begins by talking about reasons why a person should take their life. It talks about emotional stress, the prospect of losing control and independence and embarrassing indignities. This sounds like a disability. Before I lost my husband, this was the description of him. He had lost his independence and needed to rely on me. He also dealt with embarrassing indignities. That is no reason to kill a person. At that point, he learned that life has value at all stages. It is cruel for the State to say that someone, like my husband, should not want to live and be pushed toward Suicide.
 
Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia seek to eliminate the weak, sick and elderly among us, while promoting what they call autonomy, which is only valuing individuals who are healthy and productive. They seek to morph Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” into only the fittest are allowed to survive. While some may choose this, how many were actually steered? I was at a hearing in Massachusetts for Assisted Suicide where a doctor stated that Assisted Suicide laws were something he was in favor of. He continued with his points and ended by saying that he felt it was the responsibility for a good doctor “to guide people to make the right choice.” I do not think he intended to say that, but is there any doubt that this pro-suicide doctor would try to persuade his patients to follow his wishes, concerning their Assisted Suicide.

If a doctor or nurse had suggested to my husband that he should kill himself, it would have devastated him. It would be like saying you are worthless, a piece of junk and should get out of the way. Many would say this can’t happen yet, this did happen to a woman in Oregon, named Kathryn Judson. She took her husband to the doctors and sat down exhausted in a chair. Her ears perked up when she heard the doctor pitching Assisted Suicide to her husband, with the clincher, “Think of your wife.” They left and never came back. Her husband went on to live another five years. What they did to this man is heartless, allowed by an insensitive law. Fortunately Mr. Judson and my husband had someone to look out for them, however there are many in our state who do not.

Conference (January 14): Fighting assisted suicide in New York.

This article was published by OneNewsNow on January 6, 2020.

Opponents of assisted suicide are organizing to fight the legalization of the practice in New York.

The New York Legislature will soon debate on whether the state will make it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to assist a person in taking his or her own life.

"Sadly, the push in New York is but one of the strongest in the nation," Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition tells OneNewsNow. "The governor has stated that he wants assisted suicide legalized. There's a bill that's ready to go. They also have a situation where recently New Jersey has legalized assisted suicide."

The neighboring state's law went into effect last summer. But while proponents have momentum, so do the opponents. Schadenberg will be hosting an event later this month at the state capitol to organize and focus the latter group.

"The January 14th event is featuring quite a few people from different perspectives, but the fact of it is there's physicians, there's people with disabilities, there's legislators, there's people who are going to be opposing assisted suicide," the Coalition leader asserts.

Schadenberg has 20 years of experience of clearly indicating the fallacies of assisted suicide, including in Oregon, where the laws dealing with the practice are not enforced. Still, it is legal in a total of seven states and Washington, D.C.

Fighting assisted suicide and euthanasia in New York State. Conference - January 14.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - USA and New York Against Assisted Suicide have a conference/training session at the Albany Statehouse (Albany NY)

Tuesday January 14, 2020 from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm.

There will be a press conference at 9 am.

 

Nancy Elliott

More details coming soon. 
The speakers include:

Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) Founder and Executive Director

Nancy Elliott, EPC-USA Chair and former three term New Hampshire State Representative.

Dr Paul Saba

Dr Paul Saba, co-founder and co-preseident of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice

Dawn Eskew, Founder, New York Against Assisted Suicide.

Register by emailing info@epcc.ca

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said that he supports assisted suicide.

This event is will inform and activate New York citizens to defeat assisted suicide.

More information about assisted suicide.

• Disability advocates worry about making it easier for physicians to cause death. 
• Assisted suicide: What can seem like dignity can turn out to be anything but.
• Oregon 2018 assisted suicide report.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA reprimands WMAL conservative radio for promoting Assisted Suicide group in a “Bait and Switch" scheme

Press Release

November 12, 2019

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA condemns Compassion and Choices (C & C), the pro assisted suicide organization who urge people to use Advance Directives to write down unwanted medical treatment, including food and fluid and spoon-feeding, so their "end of life choices" would be respected. 

According to a promotion on WMAL, a conservative radio station, the pro-assisted suicide (C & C) group is featured in a financial seminar, put on by Ric Edelman's financial advisory firm. C & C are featured because they don't want Advance Directives honoring a patient’s choice to be kept alive, based on "devastating" financial results for the family. 

Talk about a “Bait and Switch”! If you write down that you wish to live, they are looking for a way for your heirs to kill you anyway. 

Financial Elder Abuse is rampant. 

Why would we take your choice away and give it to potentially greedy heirs. Being a “financial seminar” this can only be about getting at the money sooner.

EPC-USA would also like to know why conservative talk radio station WMAL is promoting a conference featuring the prominent pro assisted suicide organization, C & C. This group is not consistent with their values.
 

EPC - USA is co-sponsoring a conference on November 2 in Bristol CT.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - USA is co-sponsoring a conference to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2019 in Bristol, CT. 

Nancy Elliott

Among other topics, this conference will include a keynote speech by Nancy Elliott, President of the EPC-USA and other national and local speakers on assisted suicide and euthanasia. 

There will also be workshops on how to contact your local legislators, how to write a letter-to-the-editor, a showing of Fatal Flaws film and more. If you want to learn more about the importance of fighting assisted suicide on the local level, this conference will provide an excellent foundation. 

Tickets for this day-long conference are only $15 and include lunch. More details and registration is available at: (Registration link).

Nancy Elliott letter to Massachusetts politicians to reject assisted suicide.

Dear Senators & Representatives,

Nancy Elliott

Please reject identical bills S.1208 and H.1926, the “End -Of-Life Options Act”. I know there are some that believe we have a right to die. Anyone can kill themselves. What Assisted Suicide laws do is give rights to doctors to make you dead. They are also giving rights to the government to decide who has the right to live and who is deserving of death. Governments should not be trusted with this power.

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia are at their heart are eugenic. They seek to eliminate the weak, sick and elderly among us, while promoting what they call autonomy, which is only valuing individuals who are healthy and productive. They seek to morph Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" into, only the fittest are allowed to survive. This thinking was gaining traction in the US until the Nazi's tried their human experiment and Americans were repulsed.

Proponents say the new Euthanasia is not like the earlier form. They claim it is entirely voluntary. While some may think they chose this, how many were actually steered? Steering is the elephant in the room. I was at a hearing for Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts a few years back where a doctor stated that Assisted Suicide laws were something he was in favor of. He continued with his points and ended by saying that He felt it was the responsibility for a good doctor “to guide people to make the right choice”. I do not think he intended to say that but is there any doubt that this pro suicide doctor would try to persuade his patients to follow his wishes, concerning their Assisted Suicide.

Then there is steering done by family and “so called” friends. It is easy to persuade people that they should give up. Perhaps they are tired of caring for a person or are looking to inherit. We see the most egregious example in the Dutch woman, whose doctor had the family hold her down while she fought and was euthanized against her will. Our opponents call this compassionate, caring and choice.[1]
 
Seniors are at risk and easily fall victim to coercion as the process is open to that. In most states, heirs can be there for the request and even speak. Anyone can pick up the lethal dose. Once in the house all oversight is gone, there is no witness required at the death. Even if they struggled who would know.
 
Eligible people are not necessarily dying. Think of John Norton who testified to this committee in the past. Diagnosed as a young man with ALS. He stated that had assisted suicide been legal he would have done it. A few years in, the progression of the disease just stopped. He was in his 70’s the last time I heard him testify. He had a grandchild and was happy to be alive. His life would have been wasted. What about new cures that could come up and save a person’s life? Why rush into death? You will always have another opportunity.
 
What about the 5% of incorrect medical diagnosis? With Assisted Suicide on the table these mistakes are deadly.
 
This is about disability. If you have a disability you are encouraged to commit suicide. If, on the other hand, you are young and healthy, you are given suicide counselling. This is discrimination. This law is a “special” carve out, for the sick, elderly and disabled. 

Follow the money. There are people and entities that stand to make a profit if "expensive" individuals are euthanized at the earliest moment. Winners would include, insurers, nursing homes, hospitals, government entities and people who are heavily invested in these areas.

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia are not in the public interest. Please keep this bill from passing as it is dangerous to the people of Massachusetts.

[1] (Link)

Sincerely,
Nancy Elliott
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA