Outgoing Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin’s Father’s Death was an Assisted Suicide

This article was published by True Dignity Vermont on January 6, 2017.

Peter Shumlin, the outgoing governor of Vermont, fought hard to legalize assisted suicide in the state; so it was no surprise when he listed it among other “accomplishments” in his farewell speech this week. A big surprise, however, came when the governor revealed that his own father died from assisted suicide. (Link to Youtube video) comments begin at minute 54:50.

Bristling with pride, Shumlin said that never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that his own father would die in this way. In May of 2011, however, True Dignity commented on a speech he made at a VT showing of the film “How to Die in Oregon”. The speech can be viewed at (Link to youtube video) comments begin at Minute 1:40. Speaking about how much he hoped VT would enact legal assisted suicide, he actually used his parents as illustrations of why he felt legalization was important.

Here, in italics are our comments at the time:

We were offended by the governor’s filmed jokes about how his apparently healthy but aged parents haven’t responded as he would have liked to his attempts to have “the conversation” to plan for their dying (in the video the audience laughs when he says he asked where they planned to be in ten years). 

… We need….to fight against the seduction of his not so soothing words about how Vermonters “take care of each other”, when he speaks words like these in the context of a conversation about assisted suicide.

In 2017 we are even more offended than we were in 2011. It is hard to believe that any governor would brag about facilitating a single suicide in his state. It is even harder to hear that governor brag about facilitating the suicide of his own parent.

Back in 2011, we were sorry for and feared for Peter Shumlin’s parents. It is self-evident to us that any suggestion that suicide is a viable end of life option for another person is itself pressure and can never be anything else If we heard the words Shumlin spoke in 2011 from one of our adult children, we would feel pressured, and we would not forget. No act done under pressure, even the most well-meaning pressure, is ever completely free.

We hope one day to live again in a state in which the sick and elderly are legally protected from such pressure, however well-meaning or inadvertent. Our new governor, Phil Scott, voted against legal assisted suicide when it was passed in 2013. Let’s ask him to work for its repeal now. Contact information will follow in the coming weeks.

Vermont Assisted Suicide Law: One year later ...

The following report was published by True Dignity Vermont on May 20, 2014.

A year ago today, at the bill signing party for Act 39 held in the Governor’s ceremonial office, True Dignity Vermont launched a hotline and email address for individuals who suspect that a patient was being unduly influenced to request or ingest lethal drugs, or were being given such drugs against their will. That number is: 1-855-787-5455 or 1-855-STP-KILL, and ReportAbuse@TrueDignityVt.org.

“We expanded our educational role to become a place where our network of health care providers and other supporters would have a place to take their concerns,” stated True Dignity spokesperson, Carolyn McMurray of Bennington. “The most alarming reports we have received to date involve two separate clinical psychologists, dealing with two different patients, both of whom had suicidal tendencies. In each case, the patients revealed their belief that suicide was more ‘acceptable’ now that the legislature had passed this law.”

Shortly after Act 39 went into effect, True Dignity Vermont received a call from a woman convinced that a health care facility was intentionally withholding treatment from her elderly mother. TDVT recommended that she contact the appropriate experts for further investigation.

Nearly six weeks ago, True Dignity Vermont received a call from an 85 year-old Korean War veteran from New Jersey who wanted information about how he could come here and get a “shot” to end his life. During the conversation, he revealed that he was not terminally-ill, nor physically ill in anyway. He said he was depressed, and he said the suffering of depression was terrible. The man believed, with all his heart, that the new law meant that he could come to Vermont and a physician would end his life. True Dignity Representative told him we did not want him to commit suicide and talked to him for as long as he wanted to talk. He said it helped him a lot to talk. The representative told him to get professional help and invited him to call back to talk whenever he wished. He has not called back.

Physician-assisted Suicide Was More Important to Vermont Legislators Than the Wrongful and Tragic Loss of Innocent Human Life

Bob Orleck, sent the following article in italics below, to True Dignity Vermont. Orleck was in the Senate and House for every stage of the assisted suicide debate in Vermont and he knows exactly what happened.  As a pharmacist with detailed knowledge of how the suicide drugs work, Bob is appalled that this law was passed.

Pharmacist and Legislative Observer: Physician-assisted Suicide Was More Important to Vermont Legislators Than the Wrongful and Tragic Loss of Innocent Human Life.

By Bob Orleck, Pharmacist

A very accurate analysis of what Act 39 (physician assisted suicide) will mean in real life practice to real hurting people  was written by Edward J. Mahoney, Vermont Alliance for Ethical Health Care, and published in the 5 July edition of the Burlington Free Press. 

Bob Orleck

While Mr. Mahoney has pointed to many legislative errors, there will be more discovered as application of this law meets the multitude of fact situations and abuses that will present. What was clear from the beginning, even with consideration of the Oregon style bill before it morphed into what we got, was that Vermont’s legislature for political reasons refused to deliberate on the many dangerous facets of this legislation. They focused solely on appealing to special interests both in and out of our State of Vermont and ignored the good of the people. Their work is an embarrassment and needs to be fixed. To have a special session though, with the same cast of characters who walk in lock step, will probably prove fruitless. They were blind to the truth then and they will most likely chose to stay in the dark in the future. A special session though, driven by a realization that serious errors were made, might lead to a more sufficient vetting of the issues and a change in course for our lawmakers, one that realizes they went down the wrong path of being controlled by ignorance, politics and emotion instead of by sound medical  judgment, scientific facts and the best interests of Vermonters.

Our Vermont legislators in their last minute rush to salvage what appeared to be certain rejection of the Oregon styled Physician Assisted Suicide bill, made a deal with an ego driven lawmaker to get some manner of death legislation. In so doing they threw caution to the wind, carelessly drafted language, then failed to do critical examination of their work and instead cranked up the emotion level and crammed it though with pressure from Governor Shumlin and by the recognized hard work of Speaker Shap Smith, who maneuvered and controlled the House debate to gain passage of the bill in his chamber. This may well be the undoing of at least both of these politicians, who did not do their homework on this last minute compromise and who should pay the price by being turned out of office in the future for violating the trust they were given by the people not to do harm. In that they failed miserably and should be held accountable by the voters.

It was so hard to watch the actions of the legislature move toward the passage of physician assisted suicide when there was so much valid and scientific evidence available and presented that was ignored. I could not understand this until True Dignity Vermont made the point that cleared up the whole matter for me. Casualties were acceptable! As simple as that! That is why the legislators ignored the doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, nurses and ethicists. They knew from the beginning exactly what they were doing and what the cost of doing it would be, and there was no way they were going to allow facts to stand in the way.

Throughout the debate on this bad law, Act 39, it was amazing how easily the majority of Vermont lawmakers accepted the fiction that physicians can accurately predict the amount of life left in a person. Medicare and hospice require that a patient, to be eligible for coverage, must have a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less to live if their condition is allowed to run its natural course. It was never intended that this physician’s prognosis be the basis for making a person eligible for a procedure to make that death happen before the six months. So many times these predictions are wrong and the patient lives much longer. In fact under the care provided by hospice their life can and is often prolonged beyond what it would otherwise have been before the six month prediction. This was not meant to be a pronouncement to trigger a life ending procedure but one to provide care to a person who is dying and needs support. But the death proponents had to have a test so they latched on to these often used but scientifically lacking guesses that physicians are called upon to make. For widespread acceptability of physician assisted suicide the proponents had to limit the application to those patients who appeared to be facing imminent death. Without such, they would have failed. But what is troubling to my thinking is that I believe they knew quite well that the test was flawed but were willing to accept that because they had to win at any cost.

I am a pharmacist, and so many times I tried to point out to the lawmakers that there were dangers in the dosing procedure that was to be used to bring about the death and that those dangers would result in botched attempts, horrific side effects and even exacerbation of already painful situations for a large percentage of dying patients. In some cases the patient would not even die from the procedure but would surely suffer greatly. I asked our legislators to address the objective facts supporting my opinion but could not get them to even respond other than to say they thought the bill had safeguards and was a good bill. They had to avoid this evidence just as they accepted the fictional certainty of a six month physician prognosis in order to get their death bill passed. They had to realize there would be casualties along the way but that would be acceptable in order to accomplish their death on demand objective. They wanted this death law and considered the price affordable. For these folks, physician assisted suicide was more important to them than the wrongful and tragic loss of an innocent human life. But now it appears that in their zeal to get the job done, they carelessly and negligently created a monster that will keep raising its ugly head and doing more damage than even they had expected and that might just cost them their position of power.

Vermont Assisted Suicide Law - Legislative Malpractice

The following article was written by Edward J Mahoney and published on July 5, 2013 in the Burlington Free Press under the title: My Turn: Legislative Malpractice.

----------

Edward Mahoney

Edward J. Mahoney, Burlington Free Press - July 5, 2013. President of the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare.

Vermont legislators should be mortified that they have enacted a law to allow and promote “aid-in-dying” with virtually no protections for vulnerable patients. One might contend that they have committed legislative malpractice by cutting-and-pasting together a law that has great potential to be injurious to one group of people and violates the rights of conscience of another group — clear violations of their legislative oath.

S.77 (now Act 39), “An Act Relating to Patient Choices and Control at the End of Life,” raises serious problems for hospitals and other health care facilities as well as physicians and health care professionals. A close reading of the statute reveals that Act 39:

Requires that the patient requesting hastened death be “capable” at the time of the request; however it allows someone other than the patient to interpret a patient’s request if the patient is unable to be understood by the physician.

Does not require that the patient be “capable” at the time of the lethal ingestion.

Requires that the patient request a lethal drug for self-administration, however it does not require that the patient actually self-administer the drug.

Requires that physicians inform all terminally ill patients about all available treatment options (including a drug to hasten death) even if the patient does not ask about it.

States that physicians are legally obligated to answer any specific questions about treatment options without withholding any requested information. There is no exemption for a physician who believes the request is premature, clinically inappropriate, or unethical.

The prescribing physician may not contact the patient’s primary physician unless the patient consents, possibly obscuring pertinent history such as prior incapacity, depression, suicidal statements or attempts.

Provides legal immunity for physicians, but not for nurses, pharmacists or other involved professionals.

Does not establish any oversight at all. The physician is only required to report to the Department of Health that he or she has written a lethal prescription (no patient name required) and has followed the procedure set forth in Act 39. The pharmacist is not required to report filling the prescription. There is no prescription tracking. No data is collected. No annual reports. The state and the public will have no idea how often this practice is occurring.

The Department of Health is required to adopt rules about the safe disposal of unused lethal prescriptions, but there is no way for them (or anyone) to know who has these lethal doses in their possession.

In addition — unbelievably — the legislature has declared an automatic repeal of all procedural steps as of July 1, 2016. After that date, hastening a patient’s death will be as simple as treating bronchitis.

Act 39 should be a national embarrassment to Compassion and Choices, the out-of-state organization that lobbied so hard to convince our legislature that legalization of “aid-in-dying” would be good for Vermonters.

One has to wonder how carefully Gov. Shumlin read this bill with such glaring errors and omissions before he signed it.

Act 39 is so egregious we cannot delay until the 2014 legislature to try to “fix” it. The Legislature should be called into special session to re-address this dereliction of their sworn duty.

Edward J. Mahoney of Essex Junction is president of the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare.

Maine House overwhelmingly rejects assisted suicide bill

An article published in the Bangor Daily News in Maine reports on the overwhelming defeat of the assisted suicide bill in the Maine House. The article was written by Matthew Stone on May 31, 2013 and titled: Maine House says no to physician-assisted suicide law.

The article reported that:

House members voted 95-43 against the measure, which is sponsored by Rep. Joseph Brooks, an independent from Winterport. The bill next heads to the Senate. 

Brooks’ bill, LD 1065, would allow a patient and his or her doctor to sign companion end-of-life care agreements. Those agreements would be signed after the two have discussed the patient’s medical condition and treatment options and the patient has rejected life-extending treatments and agreed to accept “care that is ordered or delivered by the physician that may hasten or bring about the patient’s death.” 

The bill also would free doctors from criminal liability or the possibility of professional discipline for helping a consenting patient end his or her life. 

The vote followed an emotional debate on the House floor in which lawmakers described their experiences caring for parents and friends as their lives ended.Brooks said ill patients should be able to decide to end their lives when they can die in dignity. 

“Dignity was important to this mill laborer,” he said of his father. “Had he been aware that he was lying in a hospital bed in the living room of his home not in control of anything, he would have probably said, ‘Please help me with this.’” 

“How many of us have lost or seen others lose loved ones who linger painfully and unnecessarily for long periods?” asked Rep. Roberta Beavers, D-South Berwick. “We treat ill pets more humanely than we treat ill parents.” 

But in letting doctors administer lethal doses of medication, the assisted-suicide bill would go too far, said Rep. Ann Dorney, D-Norridgewock. End-of-life care has changed for the better in recent years, said Dorney, a physician. 

“We have very good end-of-life care. We have very good hospice care. We have very good palliative care,” she said. “I guess I’m not sure we need this bill.” 

Dorney also worried about the prospect of a guardian who makes medical decisions for a patient making the decision to end that patient’s life. 

Rep. Deborah Sanderson, R-Chelsea, said she wouldn’t want to rob a patient of a natural end to life. 

“I sat with my mom the last five days of her life. I slept in a wheelchair by her bed,” Sanderson said. “The night before my mother passed, my mother said, ‘It’s not like what I thought it would be.’ She said, ‘It’s peaceful.’ And I was very glad to hear that.” 

The Maine House’s rejection of the physician-assisted suicide legislation came more than a week after Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a similar measure into law in that state. Vermont’s law was the first in the nation to be approved through the legislative process. 

Physician-assisted suicide measures on the books in Oregon and Washington passed through public votes. 

In Maine, voters rejected a physician-assisted suicide ballot measure in 1990.

People in Maine with disabilities and those living with chronic conditions should be comforted by the fact that legislators in their state have decided to reject assisted suicide, an act threatens the lives of vulnerable citizens.

'Death with Dignity' claims another victim

This article was written by Paul McHugh, a former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital. This article was printed on page A13 of the US edition of the Wall Street Journal on May 25, 2013

Now Vermont has joined the misguided movement toward assisted suicide.

Paul McHugh

By Paul McHugh, Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2013

Nearly 30 years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Terminator" character made famous the phrase "I'll be back," the implacable cyborg assassin's response to a setback. Today, similarly relentless terminators are among us, also with a deadly mission: to move America toward acceptance of physician-assisted suicide.

On Monday, the terminators gained a victory when Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law the "Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act." The bill had been passed by the state legislature the week before without consulting the electorate, possibly because the lawmakers had seen what happened last fall next door in Massachusetts, where voters rejected a similar initiative. Now Vermont doctors will be able to prescribe lethal medication to patients as the state joins Oregon, Washington and Montana in supporting the practice. (Assisted suicide is technically prohibited in Montana)

Hippocratic Oath

So the terminators are back. The reasons for opposing them and opposing physician-assisted suicide never went away. The reasons have been with us since ancient Greek doctors wrote in the Hippocratic oath that "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it nor will I make a suggestion to that effect." The oath is a central tenet in the profession of medicine, and it has remained so for centuries.

Dr. Leon Kass, in a brilliant essay on the Hippocratic oath in his 1985 book "Toward a More Natural Science," explains why this has been true. Medicine and surgery, he says, are not simply biological procedures but expressions, in action, of a profession given to helping nature in perpetuating and enhancing human life. "The doctor is the cooperative ally of nature," Dr. Kass writes, "not its master." It shouldn't need saying, but the exercises of healing people and killing people are opposed to one another.

Traditionally the public rests its trust in doctors on this understanding of medicine. Doctors occasionally remind the public of it when they explain why they do not participate in capital punishment or bear arms in military service.

But the terminators who champion physician-assisted suicide propose that, as seen in intensive-care units, contemporary medicine prolongs unnecessary suffering.

As a psychiatrist, I work with doctors on such units, and I can testify that all of them realize that human life itself is limited in duration and scope. These doctors regularly consider just how far they should go in sustaining a hope for recovery—cooperating with nature's resilience in treating advancing disease. They also consider when prolonging a futile effort should be replaced by comforting the person as his life naturally comes to an end. The judgment is delicate, though, and most families are justified in leaving it to skilled physicians.

Another argument for physician-assisted suicide is that many patients with cancer live too long in pain. The suffering could be reduced if their legitimate wish for death were fulfilled. These are the arguments pressed by Dr. Timothy Quill and many in the Oregon "death with dignity" group.

Dr. Kathleen Foley

But scientific publications from oncologists such as Kathleen Foley, who studies patients with painful cancers, reveal that, quite to the contrary, most cancer patients want help with the pain so they can continue to live. Suicide is mentioned only by those patients with serious but treatable depressive illness, or by those who are overwhelmed by confusion about matters such as their burden on loved ones and their therapeutic options. These patients are relieved when their doctors attend to the sources of their psychological distress and correct them.

In the nearly two decades that Oregon has permitted physician-assisted suicide, I became suspicious that just such depressed and confused patients number large among those who ask for and take life-ending poisons. Why suspicious? Because the law does not demand a psychiatric assessment before they take the fatal step.
Yet all efforts by psychiatrists anxious to read the medical charts of these patients after their deaths have been thwarted by the champions of their suicides, who have shrouded the patients' mental states in secrecy by raising the "privacy privilege." I believe that these doctors are killing patients of the sort that I help every day.

And then there is this talk about "death with dignity," as the Oregon and Washington laws are titled. Surely what we want is "life with dignity." Seeking life, we're ready to endure much in order to keep it going. Think of the life-saving and life-preserving colonoscopy—all dignity drops with your trousers.

The advance of the hospice movement has made a shambles of the terminators' insistence that medicine prolongs suffering and denies dignity. The doctors, nurses and social workers committed to hospice care demonstrate how an alliance with nature at life's end plays out in just the way that the medical profession intends. As hospice ways become more familiar, the public can overcome the fears that the terminators used to win over the Vermont legislature.

For you see, the terminators ultimately are not merely interested in killing people who are suffering the throes of a final illness. They have even others in mind, as history tells us. The drive to allow doctors to "assist" in suicide is not recent. Its roots are in the Progressive era of the early 20th century, when many Americans placed utter confidence in reform and in technocratic elites. Then the enthusiasts for euthanasia lined up with those clamoring for government intervention in the name of eugenics and population control.

Across the decades, Americans have fought off such dire temptations with reasoned arguments about the nature of medicine. Despite Vermont's unfortunate decision, Americans elsewhere likely will continue to defeat physician-assisted suicide at the ballot box and in the statehouse. But the enemies of life are terminators—they'll be back.


Dr. McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, is the author of "Try to Remember: Psychiatry's Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind" (Dana Press, 2008).

True Dignity Vermont establishes watchdog hotline to protect Vermont citizens from assisted suicide.

Watchdog Group Launches Hotline

True Dignity Vermont has launched an abuse hotline in response to the recently-passed bill that will allow Vermont physicians to prescribe lethal drugs  to terminally ill patients.

Individuals who suspect patients of being unduly influenced to request or ingest lethal drugs, or of being given such drugs against their will, can report such concerns by calling: 1-855-787-5455 (1-855-STP-KILL) or emailing True Dignity Vermont at:  ReportAbuse@TrueDignityVt.org.

A citizen-led, grassroots initiative, True Dignity Vermont worked alongside other organizations to vigorously oppose the legalization of prescription death in Vermont. That effort failed with the passage of an amended bill on May 13, but leaders say they will press forward to work to protect vulnerable Vermonters who will be at risk as a result of what they call “dangerous, poorly conceived legislation.”

“We believe our role must now expand to that of watchdog, as well as providing education and a resource clearinghouse for Vermonters who want to be sure they will be protected from coercion to end their lives,” according to True Dignity spokesperson Carolyn McMurray of Bennington. 

“The bill that Governor Shumlin is signing into law is fraught with problems that will leave vulnerable patients open to abuse, and will damage patient-doctor trust,” she said,  adding that True Dignity Vermont plans to develop a registry of “safe” doctors, nursing homes and other health care providers who will not participate in assisted suicide. 

“Vermonters need to be reassured that the end of life need not be frightening and painful, and that they will be supported properly with the very best palliative care and pain control. Enabling suicide is not a compassionate response to suffering.”

More information about True Dignity Vermont is available at: http://truedignityvt.org/

Vermont House passes the worst assisted suicide bill ever.

This evening (May 13, 2013)  the Vermont House of Representatives passed the worst assisted suicide bill ever by a vote of 75 to 65 making it the third US state to legalize assisted suicide.

Bill S-77 is expected to be signed into law by Governor Peter Shumlim, a long-time assisted suicide campaigner.

Bill S-77 started out as an "Oregon Style" assisted suicide bill with the typical false safeguards. S-77 experienced a bumpy road in the Vermont Senate and was amended, making it a very confusing bill.

Better way to show compassion

Vermont

The following letter was written by Philip Lintilac and published in the comment section of the Burlington Free Press on March 25, 2013. The legislature in Vermont has been debating the legalization of assisted suicide nearly every year since 2007. Governor Peter Shumlin is a long-time supporter of assisted suicide and has stated that he will legalize assisted suicide. So far, every year the assisted suicide bill has been defeated and every year it has returned.

Better way to show compassion

Dear Gov. Shumlin,

I am an 85-year-old Democrat who applauded your election and has approved of all you have done. However, I must question your reported support for the bill before the Legislature now on assisted suicide. This has been touted as solely a matter of individual rights, but it is a matter of grave concern for the whole community.

Passage of this bill will produce the occasion for the ultimate abuse of the elderly, targeting the old dependent and perhaps ailing and depressed who during these hard times can be easily persuaded that they are a burden on their families and have a duty to release them. Indeed many elderly already feel like this.

With such wide ignorance of the hospice programs, which are the real answer to the problem of end-of-life care, and the number still of doctors untutored in palliative medicine, there can still be unnecessary suffering of the sick elderly, but the right action is to rectify these lacks, not to kill off the victims. Some studies have found that so-called mercy killings happen more to relieve the suffering of onlookers, not the patients themselves.

Sir, think again -- which is the better way to serve the community as well as to show compassion?

The medical society has already expressed its disapproval of this bill, knowing it will seriously affect the public image of doctors from healers to death-dealers. The young are already too prone to commit suicide when things get tough -- they do not need the way out modeled for them by the supposed wiser.

If assisted suicide becomes more common will society relax its expensive efforts to find cures to deal better with chronic and end-of-life diseases and the social problems caused by them. Let’s face it -- the more assisted suicide becomes acceptable to the community, the more the temptation will be to encourage the practice for social convenience and economic need as climate changes cause water and food shortages and high cost medical care continues to take a greater share of the nation’s financial resources. We could go the path already taken by the Dutch -- not just the dying elderly with their consent, but the young with chronic diseases and finally people without their consent are receivers of assisted suicide.

Finally, I believe that no doctor with integrity can say with certainty that a person has only six months to live -- there have been remissions and new treatment which have allowed some people to live on for years and I believe in hope as an ingredient of healing and on erring on the side of life.

Treating death as sacred

The debate surrounding death with dignity, or physician-assisted suicide, is understandably polarized; but I think it misses a very significant point, which is the problem of the sacredness of life and of death. We hear the issue framed in terms of those who assert that life is sacred, and that any other position must be profane by definition. But if life is sacred then isn’t death also sacred? Surely this most profound and inevitable transition should be sacred too.

Most religions regard death as sacred in some sense, and provide a means for the dying and the families of the dying to come to terms with the passing of life in ways that are meaningful to them. How can we deny individuals and their families the right to respect this final transition in a way that allows them to control the content and meaning of the end of life? Where is the humanity in demanding that any conscious effort to control the circumstances of death is equivalent to suicide or murder? What is profane about the end of life?

Palliative care services are essential and if thoughtfully administered can do a lot to relieve suffering, but even the most well-meaning hospice care has its limits and can reach the point where we have to face the prospect of being drugged until we can no longer eat and then dying of starvation. I have seen this and it is not sacred. It is isolating and it is humiliating. It denies the dying the privilege of spending their last hours in conscious communion with those who have meant the most to them, and sharing together the recognition of a life well spent and happily ended.

Death is not profane by definition. It is a biological inevitability that under the best of circumstances we would all want to approach without fear. I want to be able to reach out to those I love when my time comes and die with my boots on. I count that as sacred.

PHILIP LINTILHAC

Shelburne Vermont

True Dignity Vermont overwhelms opposition at Senate committee hearing.

The following message is from True Dignity Vermont about the recent hearing on assisted suicide in Vermont.

Opponents of assisted suicide hugely outnumbered proponents at tonight's public hearing before the Vermont Senate Judiciary and Health and Welfare committees. 

Three board members of True dignity got two minutes each to speak, as did many other opponents. The common theme was that legalizing assisted suicide would have unintended consequences such as suicide contagion, elder abuse, the perception by sick people of a duty to die, expansion to euthanasia, expansion to the non terminally ill and the incompetent, and a fundamental and corrupting change in the way both patients and doctors view the practice of medicine.

The proponents did not even try to respond to these concerns. Some actually reinforced them by saying things such as "If I were facing Alzheimer's I would want to have the option of death with dignity.". This is either ignorance or a dead giveaway that the proponents will push for the expansion of assisted suicide to people who are either more than six months from death or incompetent, since that expansion would be necessary to include Alzheimer's patients, who become incompetent earlier than six months before death.

Peter Shumlin, the governor of Vermont, has been pushing for the legalization of assisted suicide throughout his political career. Vermont has faced continuous attempts to legalize assisted suicide over the past several years.

For more information go to: Vermont Governor commits to legalizing assisted suicide, again. 

Vermont Governor commits to legalizing assisted suicide, again.

Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, has stated, once again, that Vermont will legalize assisted suicide in the 2013 legislative session.

Shumlin, who is a long-time supporter of assisted suicide and received money from the assisted suicide lobby during his 2010 leadership campaign, stated in 2011 and 2012 that the Vermont legislature would legalize assisted suicide and both attempts failed.

The Barre Montpelier Times Argus reported in an article published today by Peter Hirshfeld that:

From “death with dignity” to marijuana decriminalization, Gov. Peter Shumlin on Tuesday said he aims to seal the deal on several notable pieces of unfinished business from the last legislative biennium. 

Governor Peter Shumlin

“I’m confident that regardless of who leads the various bodies in the Legislature, that we can pass decriminalization of marijuana, death with dignity and the (unionization) bill for child care workers,” he said. “We’re going to get them done.”

Key lawmakers aren’t so sure. 

Sen. John Campbell, the Windsor County Democrat nominated to a second term as Senate president by his party colleagues Tuesday afternoon, was the Statehouse’s most prominent opponent of the child care unionization bill and legislation that would let terminally ill patients get a prescription that would end their lives. He said Tuesday his positions on those issues have not evolved in recent months, and that he’s not convinced either has the support needed to make it through the Legislature. 

Campbell, however, said he won’t try to squelch a vote on any end-of-life legislation. In fact, he said the topic in 2013 will receive more attention from Senate committees than it did in either of the last two sessions. 

“I recognize that this issue is not going to go away, and if the majority of people want to have a debate, then that debate should happen,” he said.  

Campbell said he envisions joint hearings of Senate committees on the judiciary and health and welfare. He said the hearings come in response to requests for additional debate from people on both sides of the issue. 

“If it passes, it passes. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” Campbell said. “But I think everyone involved in this conversation agrees there are issues that need to be vetted, so I think it’s worth taking the time to vet them.”

At the same time Vermont Public Radio reported that Shumlin is seeking to eliminate the deficit in 2013 through budget cuts and not tax increases. The report stated:

The Shumlin Administration is in the process of drafting its budget for next year and the Governor says he's asking all agencies and departments of state government to submit a level funded spending plan for policy makers to consider. 

Shumlin says the state once again faces a sizeable gap between available revenue and budget demands and he says the solution is not to increase any broad based taxes. 

"We've got some tough fiscal times that need to be dealt with once again," said Shumlin. "I was hoping that we wouldn't be back here dealing with another $50 million to $70 million budget deficit, we are, and I'm going to be presenting a budget that's going to ask the Legislature to once again balance the budget the old fashioned way by making tough spending choices not raising broad based taxes."

Shumlin will be required to reduce the budget through cuts to health care spending. Shumlin made a similar proposal in 2011 that included cuts to health care spending.

Sadly, many people believe that legalizing assisted suicide is a good idea rather than providing access to dignified care and medical support.

I predict that True Dignity Vermont will once again rally Vermont citizens to oppose the legalization of assisted suicide and the Vermont legislature will once again defeat the assisted suicide bill.

Massachusetts should follow the lead of Vermont by defeating assisted suicide Initiative

Massachusetts citizens will be voting on an Initiative to legalize assisted suicide on the November 2012 ballot. Opponents of the Initiative are urging the voters in Massachusetts to reject this proposal, in the same way as the Vermont legislature has consistently rejected attempts to legalize assisted suicide.

True Dignity Vermont, among others, has successfully defeated attempts to legalize assisted suicide in their state over and over again. This Spring the assisted suicide bill was defeated in the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee and then it was re-introduced through the back-door linked to a Tanning Bed regulation bill resulting in it being defeated again by a vote of 18 to 11. In fact, legislation attempts to legalize assisted suicide have been introduced, debated and defeated on several occasions over the past few years in Vermont even though Governor Peter Shumlin has promised to legalize assisted suicide.

Kristian Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute stated to the Catholic News Service:

"We're obviously elated that the Senate in Vermont did the right thing, not only to defeat this onerous bill but also to defeat the political shenanigans that were going on to try to get this bill passed. The whole thing was politics at its worst,"

Second Thoughts

Polling indicates that it will be difficult to defeat the assisted suicide Initiative in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In March, Public Policy Polling released results that showed 43 percent of Massachusetts voters are in favor of assisted suicide, while 37 percent are opposed. The polling indicated that younger people were more likely to support assisted suicide.

Second Thoughts, a disability rights group that opposes assisted suicide, is organizing a strong campaign against assisted suicide in Massachusetts.

Second Thoughts is organizing a educational and organizational meeting on Saturday, May 19 from 2:00 - 4:30 pm at the Cambridge Senior Center in the main floor ballroom (806 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA).

The Second Thoughts website effectively explains why they oppose assisted suicide.

Vermont Senate defeats assisted suicide bill again.

The Vermont Senate has defeated a bill to legalize assisted suicide again.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin promised to legalize assisted suicide during the 2010 election campaign. Shumlin also accepted out-of-state money from the suicide lobby towards his election campaign.

In mid-March the Vermont Senate Judiciary committee rejected a bill to legalize assisted suicide. Bills to legalize assisted suicide have been defeated on several occasions over the past few years.

The suicide lobby appears to be getting desperate in Vermont.

After the assisted suicide bill was rejected in March, the supporters of the bill decided to attach the assisted suicide bill to a tanning bed regulation bill.

After a two hour debate in the Vermont Senate, yesterday (April 12), the Senate voted 18 to 11 to reject the assisted suicide bill again.

The article on WPTZ.com (News Channel 5) stated:

Supporters engineered the showdown earlier in the week when, in a surprise maneuver, the Health and Welfare Committee attached the bill to an unrelated measure regulating indoor tanning salons.

The Judiciary Committee had earlier decided against sending the end of life bill to the Senate floor.

"For ten years we've watched the 'death with dignity' bill in the Senate, for ten years it's stayed in committee with no hope of getting out," said Sen. Claire Ayer, an Addison Democrat. "At least have the discussion, whether the vote is up or down is almost irrelevant."

But opponents, including Sen. Richard Sears of Bennington County who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, railed against what he considered an assault on Senate procedure. At one point Sears told colleagues the bill had been "hijacked" from his committee and if senators stood by, the "people of Vermont would be the big losers."

Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott ruled the tanning and end of life measures were not germane to one another and senators agreed, effectively ending consideration for the year.

But the preceding debate, before a standing room only crowd, including spirited floor speeches zigzagging between the value of providing terminally ill Vermonters with end of life choices, and the relative importance of following Senate protocol.

Spectators witnessed several moments of political theater when Sears questioned Sen. Hinda Miller, the Chittenden County Democrat who had engineered the debate, asking her to explain legal and ethical considerations of the bill.

After Miller was unable to answer a series of questions, she asked for a recess and rushed over to confront Sears.

Senate President Pro-Tem John Campbell then tried to referee the tension between members of his own party.

A moment later, Sears said to Miller, 'If you want to debate, we'll have a debate. If you aren't prepared for the debate, you shouldn't cry foul! It's not abuse."

"Be nice," another Democrat cautioned Sears.

Campbell, who also opposes the legislation, told reporters with so much pressure by advocacy groups, "this debate has to happen."

The bill would permit Vermont doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a patient who had twice requested it, was in the final weeks of life, and who had cleared a series of other eligibility requirements. It is patterned after an established law in Oregon.

Several members spoke passionately about their own family histories with terminal illness, or those of vocal constituents, arguing for or against various dimensions of the proposal.

"I respect those who object on religious grounds, but my choices should not be restricted because of someone else's religious preferences," said Sen. Diane Snelling, a Republican from Chittenden County.

Ahead of the vote, some members made clear they were not passing judgment on the merits of the 'death with dignity' bill, but on the process of the Senate.

Many expect the issue will be reintroduced next year. Gov. Peter Shumlin supports the bill, and House Speaker Shap Smith has said a majority of his chamber would vote in favor of it were the Senate to approve it first.

Dick Walters, president of the advocacy group Patient Choices Vermont, said he "appreciates the attempt by our Senate supporters to bring this bill to the Senate floor for a vote. We celebrate their courage and willingness to discuss an issue that is so important to so many Vermonters."

The roll call vote (to overturn the ruling of Lt. Gov. Scott and proceed with full consideration of the bill) follows:

Ashe - YES

Ayer - YES
Baruth - YES
Benning - NO
Brock - NO
Campbell - NO
Carris - NO
Cummings - NO
Doyle - NO
Flory - NO
Fox - ABSENT
Galbraith - YES
Giard - NO
Hartwell - NO
Illuzzi - NO
Kitchel - NO
Kittell - YES
Lyons - YES
MacDonald - YES
Mazza - NO
McCormack - YES
Miller - YES
Mullin - NO
Nitka - NO
Pollina - NO
Sears - NO
Snelling - YES
Starr - NO
Westman - NO
White - YES

YES-11
NO - 18

 Congratulations True Dignity Vermont.

Vermont - Assisted Suicide bill may get attached to tanning bed regulation bill.

If assisted suicide is good for Vermont then why is the suicide lobby needing to attach the assisted suicide bill to a bill that regulates the use of tanning beds in Vermont?

If the Vermont assisted suicide bill is allowed to be attached to a tanning bed regulation bill, it will make a mockery of an important life and death issue.

This latest action shows the desperation of Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. Shumlin is attempting to push his political agenda, knowing that the legalization of assisted suicide has been consistently defeated in Vermont.

Governor Shumlin received out of state political donations during the last election campaign with the promise that he would legalize assisted suicide in Vermont. Shumlin didn't count on the fact that the majority of Vermont Senators oppose assisted suicide.

The same assisted suicide bill recently died in the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee. The suicide lobby isn't happy that they have lost again in Vermont and have decided to legalize death by lethal dose in Vermont at all costs.

True Dignity Vermont, a group of Vermont citizens who oppose assisted suicide, alerted their supporters to contact their representatives to oppose bringing assisted suicide into Vermont by a sneaky back-door tactic.

An interesting interview was done by Bob Kinzel of several Vermont Senators on Public Radio and this is what was said:

The legislation establishes a process that allows terminally ill people to receive medications that they can use to end their lives.  The bill was bottled up in the Senate Judiciary committee where a majority of members opposed it and it appeared unlikely that the issue would ever make it to the Senate floor. 

(Kinzel) So several members of the Senate Health Care committee added the bill as an amendment to legislation that prohibits minors from using tanning beds. Chittenden senator Hinda Miller is a strong supporter of the bill. She says the issue deserves a full vote on the Senate floor. 

(Miller) "We have the Governor and the Speaker who have for many years wanted this bill to pass and then we have Senate leadership that was not for the bill. So we're representing citizens of Vermont." 

(Kinzel) The question is whether or not the amendment will be considered germane to the tanning bill. Miller says since tanning beds are responsible for the development of certain types of cancer, the connection is definitely there. 

(Miller) "At a certain point you do what you have to do and we have a lot of ways to get things to the floor and sometimes different ways are blocked and you have to be a little creative and we feel strongly that this will be germane and that we will be able to bring this bill to a vote. That's what we want to do." 

(Kinzel) Rutland senator Kevin Mullen is a member of the committee. He opposes the bill and he was shocked that supporters took this action. 

(Mullen) "Extremely disappointed. I mean we were talking about telemedicine and tanning beds today in committee and to think that Death with Dignity all of a sudden comes out of thin air and gets voted on within a matter of minutes is just not the way it should be done." 

(Kinzel) Senate President John Campbell is also a member of the committee and a strong opponent of the bill. He doesn't think the amendment will be found to be germane. 

(Campbell) "Unfortunately I think that this is going to pit this committee against the Judiciary committee which did take the testimony in this matter. So I guess time will tell." 

(Kinzel) As the presiding officer of the Senate, Lt. Governor Phil Scott will rule on a number of procedural challenges to the bill and his decisions can be challenged on the Senate floor. 

If backers are not successful in this initial effort, they say they'll look for other bills to attach their amendment to.

I reiterate: "If backers are not successful in this initial effort, they say they'll look for other bills to attach their amendment to." 

So much for honesty and true democracy.

Assisted Suicide being proposed in Vermont - Again!

If there is one thing you can count on in Vermont it is that there will be an assisted suicide bill introduced in the Legislative session.

How many times does the Vermont legislature need to defeat a bill or determine that the "supposed safeguards" are not sufficient to protect Vermont citizens?

Assisted Suicide bill unlikely to pass in Vermont.

Last Friday I wrote a blog article titled: Vermont Assisted Suicide bill being pushed AGAIN.


Today I am reporting that it is unlikely that the assisted suicide bill will be debated in Vermont in 2012 because the majority of the Vermont Senators do not giving doctors the right to prescribe suicide.


An article from the True Dignity Vermont site states:

Despite the continuing campaign to make assisted suicide legal in Vermont, the Burlington Free Press reported yesterday that the Vermont legislature is unlikely even to consider the issue in its 2012 session. The reason: the votes are not there in the Senate to pass the bill introduced last February. If this bill dies, its passing will mark the ninth failed effort to pass assisted suicide legislation in Vermont. The people who want assisted suicide are nothing if not persistent. So far, they have not been able to wear us down. It is up to the people of Vermont to keep it that way.

Below in italics are the relevant paragraphs from the article, which can be read in its entirety.

Will the Vermont Legislature take up the issue next year? It doesn’t seem any more likely than this year, when the bill never surfaced because of a lack of support in the Senate. House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, on Monday reiterated, “We’re not going to move the bill of there’s not support in the House and Senate. It’s not clear that there’s support in the Senate.” 

Smith said he and Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, have not had any new conversations about reviving the bill next year. 

Campbell indicated Monday nothing has changed from last session. He said though he personally opposes the legislation, he wouldn’t block it from coming up if others in the Senate wanted to. That’s not likely to happen.

True Dignity Vermont and its allies, have done an incredible job at informing Vermont politicians - Why assisted suicide should not be legalized.