Dutch Euthanasia laws passed through covert planning.

Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A letter written by Aycke Smook, a retired physician from Bergen Am Zee in the Netherlands, was published on the euthanasia lobby listserve to commemorate the death of Adelbert Josephus Jitta, a retired Dutch Prosecutor who had worked to change the euthanasia laws in the Netherlands.

The letter explains how Jitta and Smook worked together to change the Dutch laws by establishing euthanasia protocols in the hospital and by undermining the Dutch euthanasia law and by prosecuting cases that were designed to establish precedents by the courts to permit greater access to euthanasia.

Dr. Smook started the article from July 6, 2010 by stating:

I just attended the cremation of Adelbert Josephus Jitta, (Sept 24, 1938 to June 30, 2010)

He was one of the most important protagonists of the Dutch law on euthanasia as a member of D66, a liberal/democratic party.

When he was a prosecutor in Alkmaar, we met each other during a meeting about reporting euthanasia cases in our hospital. Fortunately the board of the hospital was not against euthanasia, because they said that it was a medical decision with legal aspects. This was in the early eighties.

It took us some time and sometimes a keen struggle to get a standard formal procedure, after some prosecutions in one of which he had to prosecute me!

When he informed about that, he said that he had asked one of his colleagues to handle the case and that he already had asked Eugene Sutorius to defend me. After two years of uncertainty and the expense of 40,000 guilders, first paid by the NVVE, later by my insurance company, I was cleared.

And so by trial and error, we succeeded in the end to lay the foundation for our law in the Netherlands in 2002.

It was not an easy period for both of us, working in our totally different disciplines. The good thing of it was that from then on we could openly speak about euthanasia.

Dr. Smook then explains some of the cases Jitta was involved with. Dr. Smook stated:

When I started as a surgeon treating patients with cancer, we, the head nurse of the department and I, gave the last medication behind closed doors on explicit demand of the patient. It was tricky but we had a good feeling about it, because in this way we could carry out the last wish of the patient.

After Adelbert and I started working on a new hospital euthanasia protocol, we once had a patient in the hospital who wanted euthanasia. But alas, it was during the weekend and he (Adelbert) and his family were out sailing and since this happened before the mobile telephone era I could not reach him. Half an hour after we had reported, as agreed, the euthanasia to the local coroner, the police came bursting in the department.

I think, you can imagine the dreadful shock this created on all the nurses, patients and family around us. Adelbert had not yet informed all his colleagues and other people concerned. I was completely overwhelmed and very angry, but after an ample discussion and a good glass of wine, we could continue and refine the protocol.

The letter then explains his involvement with the euthanasia lobby. Dr. Smook writes:

He also was a speaker at the Maastricht conference in 1990 and at the WF (World Federation) meeting in Melbourne. When he stepped down as a prosecutor, he strengthened the board of NVVE. After his retirement he went on with his activities on euthanasia in the member support group of NVVE.

He was a widower for about two years now, which he found hard to accept. When he fell ill, he could take advantage of his own success for which he fought for years in the end.

Many people wonder what happened in the Netherlands. Why would a country that courageously opposed the Nazi's by refusing to institute the T4 euthanasia program institute a wide open system of euthanasia that even accepts the euthanasia of newborn infants with disabilities through the Groningen Protocol and the euthanasia of people with mental illness and depression.

The answer is that it was planned by a small group of people who were willing to put their professional lives on the line.

Reversing the cultural will likely require the same commitment.

Language Matters

Stephen Drake, of Not Yet Dead fame, published a blog comment concerning the language debate concerning the word assisted suicide. He contacted me and asked me for some input, and this is a part of what he published.

Using and Promoting Change of Language to Make the Objectionable Acceptable

Stephen Drake

Last week, I happened to be watching The Ed Show on MSNBC. Thankfully, the host - who I think is trying to be a liberal imitation of Sean Hannity - was on vacation. Christopher Hayes, Washington editor of The Nation, was subbing for the regular host.

I was kind of paying half-attention, getting ready for a road trip the next day, when my attention focused sharply during the start of a commentary by Hayes (starts about halfway through the transcript of the show):

Imagine for a moment our country elected a bunch of people who thought that rape should be legal. Now, these pro-rape politicians knew that simply coming out and proposing that we legalize rape would be toxic and odious and rightly inspire moral revulsion among the populace. So they say this instead. Look, we don‘t support rape, but we want to legalize unilateral physical intimacy. And after they say that, they set out to make sure that no one ever called rape, rape but instead in every instance called it unilateral physical intimacy.

It‘s pretty clear that if supposedly objective news sources, say, for instance “The New York Times”, adopted that same language, they would be granting the pro-rape camp a monumental political victory. Unilateral physical intimacy is not a neutral phrase in our little thought experiment. It is propaganda, as ideologically phrased as the term welfare queen or Islamo-fascist.

Well, the same is true for the pro-torture euphemism enhanced interrogation techniques.

This immediately reminded me of Conflation and Con Job's (aka Compassion & Choices) recent maneuvers to get the Connecticut Superior Court to recognize the term "aid in dying" as separate and distinct from "assisted suicide." This was just the highest profile tactic in a long-term campaign by C&C to replace the term "assisted suicide" with "aid in dying." More commonly, the campaign is carried out with the same talking points in op-eds written by C&C members, like this one that appeared in the July 3 edition of the Bozemon Daily Chronicle.

Why is it important to them? Why spend so much effort and energy on a simple phrase?

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, attended the World Federation of Right to Die Societies Conference in Toronto in 2006. Here is what he says about what he learned at a session conducted by C & C:

One of the speakers at that conference spoke about the focus groups and polling data that had been done by Compassion & Choices. This data found that the term "Aid in Dying" improved the acceptance of the political agenda of their group by 15% over the term assisted suicide. The speaker explained that once the public accepted the term "Aid in Dying" they would be able to win the debate in the public square. The same speaker also explained how the terms assisted death and assisted dying were better than assisted suicide, but then the speaker strongly advised the participants of the conference to stop using the term assisted suicide and always use the term "aid in dying." (emphasis added.)

The term "aid in dying" is a type of soft euphemism. Everyone wants aid in dying, whether that be pain control, symptom management, good care, but most people have no intention of dying by assisted suicide. But if you ask a person, do you support aid in dying, they will more likely say YES, without ever thinking that they are supporting assisted suicide.

The speaker then explained how Compassion & Choices had tried to get the Editorial Boards of the newspapers in California, where an assisted suicide bill had been presented, to change their language use from assisted suicide to "aid in dying". The speaker also explained how they were working to get professional organizations to adopt the term "aid in dying".

It is important that we use accurate language and not help the suicide lobby change the language by using the same language ourselves.

Many people who oppose assisted suicide use the term assisted dying. This is not as bad as "Aid in Dying" but it has similar defects. I may want assistance with dying, but that doesn't mean I want to die by a lethal dose.

Anyway, the Conflation & Con Job's people (Compassion & Choices) are busy attempting to change the language in order to sanitize what assisted suicide actually is.
Link to his blog comment: http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com/2010/07/using-and-promoting-change-of-language.html

Assisted suicide is dangerous

Compassion & Choices appears to be focusing on Idaho. Compassion & Choices has started a media campaign in Idaho and an article published by Kathryn Tucker, the legal guru for the suicide lobby group, falsely stated that Idaho has no law prohibiting assisted suicide. The following letter by Dr. Kenneth Stevens was published in the Idaho Mountain Express.

Assisted suicide is dangerous

I am a doctor in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. I was disturbed to see that the suicide lobby group, Compassion & Choices, is beginning its indoctrination of your state to accept assisted suicide as somehow promoting patient "choice." ("How does one choose end-of-life care?," Idaho Mountain Express, June 23).

When evaluating this claim, remember the names Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. Wagner was an Oregon resident who died in 2008. The Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid) refused to pay for a cancer drug to possibly prolong her life and offered to pay for her suicide instead. This position saved the plan money.

Stroup had a similar experience. The plan would not pay for a drug to prolong his life and ease his pain, but would pay for his suicide. He said: "This is my life they're playing with."

In both cases, the Oregon Health Plan's position was only possible because assisted suicide is legal in Oregon. With assisted suicide now at issue in Idaho, will you and your families be the next Randy Stroups? Will you be the next Barbara Wagners?

Kenneth Stevens, M.D.

Sherwood, Oregon

Link to the article: http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005132145

Associated Press publishes correction in German dehydration case.

The Associated Press corrected their story on the German (euthanasia by dehydration case) but still don't get it right. Nonetheless, at least they corrected the error of calling the German decision an assisted suicide case.

Link to my previous blog comment on the German case: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/06/german-court-makes-wrong-decision-by.html

Reprint of the Associated Press correction:

Correction: Germany right-to-die story

(AP) - BERLIN ­- In a story June 25 about a right-to-die case, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Germany's top criminal court legalized assisted suicide. The court didn't rule on the issue of assisted suicide. The case involved a woman in a vegetative coma who was being kept alive through an intravenous feeding tube, though not terminally ill. The court overturned the attempted manslaughter conviction of a lawyer who had told the woman's daughter she could remove the tube from her mother. The woman had previously said she did not want to be kept alive under such circumstances.

Link to the AP news article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jdo0vCHstOuVPeqVb08e4nbHWHEAD9GN2QK81

Legal assisted suicide leads to doctors killing without consent, expert claims

An article by Martin Beckford that was published today in the Telegraph in UK reports on a one-day seminar that was sponsored by the Royal Society of Medicine. The seminar featured Professor David Jones, a bioethicist from Twickenham, UK and Professor Bregje Onwuteaka-Philipsen from the Netherlands.

David Jones

Prof Jones said that:

If society agrees that it is in some people’s interests for them to end their own lives, (by assisted suicide) it is difficult to resist the logical conclusion that others should be helped to die even if they have not made such a request.

He claimed this situation already exists in the Netherlands, where voluntary euthanasia is legal but where about 500 patients are also killed a year by their doctors without requesting to die.

“My view is that it will lead from people who have asked to die, to people who cannot ask.”

Beckford reported Prof Jones as stating:

Anyone who wants to legalise assisted suicide must believe that it is better for some people, such as the terminally ill, to end their lives (by assisted suicide).

They must therefore agree that it is also right to help physically disabled people to die if they cannot administer the fatal dose themselves.

The logical conclusion of this is that society must permit doctors to kill mentally ill people, who are unable to give consent, if their life is deemed not worth living.

"The point is not that activity might escalate from moderate to extreme behaviour. The logical... argument is that voluntary euthanasia concedes the point that suicide or euthanasia is good for some people.

“It is in their ‘best interests’ to have their life ended. And it is the person assisting or doing the killing who must decide whether to assist in this case.”

Professor Jones explained that:

In the Netherlands, where voluntary euthanasia was legalised in 2002, latest figures show that more than 500 people were killed in 2005 by doctors without having given their consent.

When people realise the situation, they find this “deeply shocking”.

Beckford's then reported the response to Prof Jones by Prof Bregje Onwuteaka-Philipsen a Dutch academic who stated that:

non-voluntary euthanasia remains illegal and that the number of cases has fallen.

She showed the official figures that 0.4 per cent of euthanasia cases were classified by authorities as non-voluntary in 2005, down from 0.8 per cent in 1990.

She said that 90 per cent of doctors now say they would refuse to end someone’s life without their consent.

She also was reported to have stated that:

Although teenagers and those merely “tired of life” can request a doctor’s help in dying in the Netherlands, she said 80 per cent of those who do so are suffering from cancer and most are between 65 and 79 years old.

In other words, Professor Onwuteaka-Philipsen was saying that Professor Jones was correct, when considering the experience with euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands. Her only defense is that only a small number of euthanasia deaths occur without consent and 90% of the doctors would refuse to kill without consent.

As for people who are "tired of living", Prof Onwuteaka-Philipsen is saying that this does occur but most of the euthanasia deaths are for people with cancer.

After reading this article I must conclude that Prof Jones is correct, legalizing euthanasia leads to doctors killing without consent, while Prof Onwuteaka-Philipsen countered by agreeing but contending that it is not that common.

Link to the article in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7865305/Legal-assisted-suicide-creates-slippery-slope-to-doctors-killing-without-consent-expert-claims.html

Suicide ruling ignores abuse

Senator Greg Hinkle

Senator Greg Hinkle, the state senator from Montana who has introduced the Montana Patient Protection Act, was attacked by the suicide lobby after his previous article explaining the purpose of the patient protection act.

For instance, the Baxter decision in Montana did not legalize assisted suicide or physician assisted homicide but rather stated that if prosecuted, a physician could use the defense of consent. Hinkle points out that the court overlooked the issue of elder abuse in its decision.

I have reprinted Hinkle's article from the Missoulian. It is worth reading.

Suicide ruling ignores abuse
Guest column by GREG HINKLE | Posted: Tuesday, June 29, 2010

I have introduced the Montana Patient Protection Act, which prohibits physician-homicide and physician-assisted suicide. The act is in response to the Supreme Court decision Baxter v. State of Montana. This act is based on Montana's public policy to prevent elder abuse and to value all citizens.

Baxter holds that a patient's consent to physician-assisted suicide "constitutes a statutory defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician." In Baxter, the court overlooked elder abuse. The court stated the only person "who might conceivably be prosecuted for criminal behavior is the physician who prescribes a lethal dose of medication."

The court overlooked criminal behavior by family members and others who may benefit from a patient's death, for example, due to an inheritance. Although an aiding perpetrator faces a charge of homicide, "aid in dying" is commonly referred to as "assisted suicide." The term "aid in dying" is also used to describe euthanasia.

There are two states that allow physician-assisted suicide, Washington and Oregon. The vast majority of states that have considered such laws have rejected them. In 2010, a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide was defeated in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in a bipartisan vote of 242-113. A similar law was recently defeated in the Canadian Parliament by 228-59.

In Montana, there has been rapid growth of elder abuse. Nationwide, elder financial abuse is a crime growing in intensity, with perpetrators often family members, but also strangers and new "best friends." Abuse of the elderly and other vulnerable adults is often subtle and difficult to detect. Victims are often unwilling to report due to embarrassment or a desire to protect family members.

Allowing a victim to consent to physician-assisted suicide creates another path of abuse. For example, a perpetrator could encourage an older person to request a lethal dose and then administer the dose without his consent. The older person's prior request, voluntary or not, would provide the alibi. With the difficulty of detecting and proving homicide, generally, and the difficulties in preventing and detecting abuse specifically, considering the unwillingness of victims to report, it is against public policy to allow a victim to consent to his own homicide.

The Baxter decision applies to "terminally ill" patients. Doctor prognoses of life expectancy can be wrong. I have a close relative, who at age 52 had a serious heart attack and was given a prognosis of no more than eight years to live. That was more than 30 years ago and many grandchildren, great grandchildren later he is still enjoying life. Allowing physician-assisted suicide will thus result in some Montanans, with many good years left, cutting their lives short. This situation will be even more evident if the proponents' definition of "terminally ill adult patient" is adopted by the authorities. This definition is broad enough to include a young person dependent on insulin or a young man with stable HIV/AIDS, who could have decades to live. Encouraging Montanans to shorten their lives is contrary to Montana public policy, which seeks to "improve and protect the health and well being, and self reliance" of all Montanans.

Allowing physician-assisted suicide will open the door to the "Barbara Wagner" scenario. Wagner was a resident of Oregon with lung cancer. The Oregon Health Plan refused to pay for a drug to possibly prolong her life and offered to pay for "aid in dying" instead. Unable to afford the drug, she was steered to suicide. Wagner stated, "I am not ready, I am not ready to die." Will young persons with diabetes or HIV/AIDS be the next Barbara Wagners? Montana already has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation. It is a state priority to reduce the suicide rate for persons of all ages. Steering citizens to kill themselves is contrary to this policy.

Montana values all of its citizens, including those who are older or may have chronic conditions or other disabilities. Baxter overlooked elder abuse. It is against public policy to allow consent to homicide; to encourage Montanans to cut their lives short or steer them to suicide. Montanans should reject "aid in dying."

Sen. Greg Hinkle represents Montana Senate District 7, which covers Sanders, Mineral and the northwest end of Missoula counties.

Link to the article: http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/article_15a9cbb8-8385-11df-a993-001cc4c03286.html

Defence wants suicide predator to go free in Kajouji case

Nadia Kajouji

Lee Greenberg published an article in the Ottawa Citizen today explaining that the lawyers for William Melchert-Dinkel are trying to have the charges dropped against their client who was charged with assisting the suicide of Nadia Kajouji, an 18 year old first year Carlton student who died by suicide in March 2008

Terry Watkins, the lawyer for Melchert-Dinkel, the former nurse, who admitted to counseling via the internet several people to commit suicide. Yesterday's hearing was postponed as Watkins plans to challenge some of the evidence that was gathered against Melchert-Dinkel. Watkins also indicated his intention to petition to have the charges dropped.

The article described the case this way:

William Melchert-Dinkel

In April, Melchert-Dinkel was charged with assisted suicide for his involvement in the deaths of Nadia Kajouji, an 18-year-old Brampton girl who killed herself in March 2008, and Briton Mark Dryborough, who hanged himself in 2005 when he was 32.

Melchert-Dinkel, a former nurse with a disturbing disciplinary history, has admitted to trolling online suicide chat rooms in search of severely depressed people to talk into suicide.

In conversations with police, he likened the activity to hunting, admitting he was motivated by "the thrill of the chase."

He told police his interest in death and suicide had become "an obsession," something he'd had to confront when certain of his morbid online chats had been discovered by his teenage daughters. He admitted to forming false suicide pacts with at least 10 depressed people contemplating suicide.

According to his statements to police contained in a criminal complaint, Melchert-Dinkel offered his victims psychological encouragement, "telling them it was OK to let go, that they would be better in heaven."

He is charged with two counts of assisted suicide. Each charge of the Minnesota statute, which targets anyone who "intentionally advises, encourages, or assists" in suicide, comes with a punishment of up to 15 years imprisonment and as much as a $30,000 fine.

The article also quoted Michelle Goodwin, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who stated:

"These cases when it comes to a jury and what a jury is going to buy, it's a much easier conviction when you have physical evidence rather than virtual evidence,"

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition advocates an amendment to the criminal code of Canada in a similar manner to Australia. The Australian government made a minor revision to the criminal code to ensure that the assisted suicide statute included cases that were counseled via the internet or other communications devices.

Harold Albrect, MP - (Kitchener-Conestoga) sponsored Motion 388 that passed unanimously through Canada's parliament. Motion 388 called on the Federal Government to ensure that the law protects people, such as Nadia Kajouji, from internet predators, whether the suicide predator was a Canadian or not.

In the meantime, Melchert-Dinkel is trolling the highways as a long-haul trucker. The judge is expected to rule on whether the trial will go forward on August 27.

No appeal by Compassion & Choices in their legal defeat in Connecticut

Recently the Connecticut court rejected an attempt by Kathryn Tucker, the legal counsel for Compassion & Choices, to strike down the Connecticut law that prohibits assisted suicide. The Compassion & Choices case was based on a word game. It stated that since "aid in dying" is not suicide therefore "aid in dying" is not prohibited by the Connecticut law that prohibits assisted suicide.

The court considered the case to be rediculous. Surprisingly Compassion and Choices is not appealing the Connecticut court decision. Maybe that is because the court was very clear that "aid in dying" is assisted suicide. Further to that, if you read the Compassion & Choices definition of "aid in dying" it is also euthanasia.

I am reprinting the blog comment by Wesley Smith. Smith was absolutely right.

No Appeal on CT Court Refusal to Redefine Assisted Suicide

Wesley Smith

Compassion and Choices has decided not to appeal their ridiculous lawsuit that sought to legalize assisted suicide by redefining it as “aid in dying.” From the story:

In a statement Thursday, Kathryn Tucker, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the decision not to appeal was based on Connecticut’s “unusually strict” sovereign immunity laws. “But the question posed in this case remains,” said Tucker, legal director of Compassion & Choices, a national end-of-life-care advocacy group that backed the lawsuit. “It is essential for Connecticut physicians to know whether providing aid in dying subjects them to criminal prosecution. At present, patients are unsure if they will be able to access aid in dying should they confront an unbearable dying process.”

Tucker is pitching her usual baloney. First, assisted suicide legalization isn’t about “an unbearable dying process,” which can be alleviated by expert palliative care experts even if it requires in rare cases, sedation. Moreover, experiencing an unbearable dying processes are not the reasons why people are committing assisted suicide in Oregon and Washington, rather it is losing the ability to engage in enjoyable activities, fears of being a burden, and worries about loss of dignity, matters that are serious but which expert hospice professionals can address. So, that’s just the sales pitch to scare people into agreeing to legalization. Third, Connecticut doctors know they can’t legally assist sucides of anyone–terminally ill or non terminally ill–just like everyone else in the state. Tucker will now look for a jurisdiction where a judge can be found who is ideological enough to engage in legalization by redefinition. She has been paying a lot of attention to Idaho lately…

But this is good news. Add in the big defeats legislatively handed to assisted suicide advocates in the last year in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Canada, and after a shaky 2008, the anti forces are again doing pretty well holding back the tide.

Link to the Wesley Smith's blog comment: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/06/25/no-appeal-on-ct-court-refusal-to-redefine-assisted-suicide/

Link to my previous blog comment concerning the Connecticut case: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/search/label/Connecticut

Link to the story from Connecticut: http://www.courant.com/health/hc-state-briefs-0625-20100624,0,3189219.story

Elder abuse: nearly half of the people with dementia who participated had been mistreated.

A study done by the Center of Excellence on Elder Abuse and Neglect at the University of California, Irvine, that was published in the Journal of the Geriatrics Society found that of those participating in the study, 47% (61 of 129 participants) had been mistreated by their caregivers.

The study specifically found that: 42% (54) experienced psychological abuse, 10% (13) physical abuse and 14% (18) caregiver neglect.

The study determined the information in this manner. An expert panel met monthly throughout the study, considered the evidence, and decided on occurrences of psychological abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. The pairs of people with dementia and their caregivers were assessed for evidence of mistreatment as well as factors that might be related to mistreatment. Most of the data was provided by the caregivers.

Link to the study from the University of California, Irvine study, from the Center of Excellence on Elder Abuse and Neglect: http://www.centeronelderabuse.org/page.cfm?pgid=68&nid=19

What will it take for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) actually to prosecute someone for assisted suicide?

Peter Saunders, the director of the Care NOT Killing Alliance in the UK is wondering what it will take for the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute someone for assisted suicide? Last year, Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, released new prosecution guidelines. The Care NOT Killing Alliance would like to see the wording in the Prosecution Guidelines tightened in order to protect vulnerable people from assisted suicide.

I have reprinted his blog:
What will it take for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) actually to prosecute someone for assisted suicide?

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer, whose job it is to prosecute people who break the law, announced last Friday that he did not consider it to be in the public interest to bring a case against former GP Michael Irwin, for assisting the suicide of pancreatic cancer sufferer Ray Cutkelvin in 2006.

It was not that he lacked evidence to do so. Irwin had literally begged the DPP to put him away so that he could become a martyr for the pro-euthanasia movement. He had even provided documentary evidence of his involvement in terms of a £1,500 payment towards paying for Cutkelvin's visit to the Dignitas Suicide facility in Zurich.

In fact, Irwin, previously chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now euphemistically rebranded Dignity in Dying) has helped no less than nine people kill themselves, and had even been struck off by the General Medical Council in 2005 for a past attempt.

But nonetheless, the DPP judged that although he had clearly done the deed, it was not in the public interest to make him stand trial.

His justification for this was that Irwin’s case did not fulfil enough of the 22 ‘prosecution criteria’ that he had made public at the request of the Supreme Court ruling on the case of Debbie Purdy last July.

Assisted suicide remains illegal in Britain and still carries a custodial sentence of up to 14 years for convicted offenders. But of over 130 British citizens who have so far travelled to Switzerland to be helped to kill themselves, none have even been tried, let alone convicted.

And the three most recent cases (Downes, Bateman and Rees) have all been let off on the grounds that they were ‘wholly motivated by compassion’ – a mitigating factor seemingly open to liberal interpretation and not easily testable in court (especially given that the key witness in all cases is dead and unable to give evidence).

It appears a pattern is emerging. The police seem reluctant to investigate. The DPP looks to be unwilling to prosecute. Juries are reticent to convict and judges, for those very few cases that do reach this stage, are giving light sentences.

This sort of ‘legal sanction’ is exactly what first happened in the Netherlands and led eventually to an eventual change in the law in that country - legalisation by stealth.

Holland now reports over 1,000 cases of involuntary euthanasia a year, an annual increase in cases of voluntary euthanasia and dozens of disabled children being ‘put down’ under the so-called Groningen protocol.

No wonder that disability rights leaders in this country have just launched a Resistance Campaign asking MPs to sign a charter supporting better care and services for elderly and disabled people and no change in the law.

So far Parliament has stood firm, as have professional groups like the British Medical Association, believing that any change in the law would be a threat to public safety.

One wonders however what it will take for the DPP, the very person appointed to uphold the law, actually to prosecute someone. If he wants the current law to act as an effective deterrent against abuse he will at some point have to be willing to show some teeth.

But the impression he has given with this latest judgement, is that any would-be assisters may go at least as far as Dr Irwin has thus far, without any fear of legal repercussion.

Link to Peter Saunders blog: http://pjsaunders.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-will-it-take-for-director-of.html

Link to my previous blog comment on the Prosecution Guidelines in the UK: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/02/assisted-suicide-guidelines-in-uk-are.html

No dignity in euthanasia

This is a letter to the editor that was published in the Montreal Gazette. This letter explains in a short and clear fashion how the survey that is being conducted by the Dying with dignity commission in Quebec is in fact one-sided. Barbara Bagshaw explains in her letter that in the survey there is no where that she can state that she absolutely opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Then the commission will tell everyone that after consulting with the Quebecois they have found that no one opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide. What a joke.

Thank you Barbara for writing this letter.

P.S. In case you are wondering, I have never had any contact with Barbara in my life. This is a letter from her, even though I am sure that it represents the views of the silent majority, silent because they have not been given a voice.

No dignity in euthanasia

The Montreal Gazette June 27, 2010

As I read the June 20 Gazette, I was struck by some bold type in the middle of an article by Joe Schwarcz which read as follows: "Sometimes there are unseen forces at work behind the scenes in the battle to shape public opinion."

This put me in mind of the current survey titled General Consultation on Dying with Dignity that appears online. The questions are posed in such a way that it is simply impossible to state clearly total opposition either to euthanasia or assisted suicide, the only other choice being "undecided."

Whoever tabulates the statistics arrived at from this survey will be able to say: So many favoured assisted suicide; so many favoured euthanasia, and the rest were undecided. This is a biased survey designed to arrive at a specific conclusion.

Since by answering the survey I did not have the option of stating total opposition to either euthanasia or assisted suicide, I am doing it here: There is no dignity in deliberately ending a human life, but there is a great deal of dignity in alleviating the pain of those who are suffering, and taking care of them with love and compassion to the end.

Barbara Bagshaw Beaconsfield

Link to this letter to the Editor: http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/letters/dignity+euthanasia/3207360/story.html

When doctors kill instead of heal

The Calgary Herald published this excellent editorial on June 27. I am simply reprinting it for your enjoyment.

When doctors kill instead of heal

Calgary Herald - June 27, 2010

Perhaps Dutch health officials are now going to learn how to spell "slippery slope." The Dutch health ministry has launched an inquiry into the law which sets out the guidelines for euthanasia to be performed in the Netherlands, now that a 13 per cent increase in cases in one year has been duly noted.

In 2009, 2,636 Dutch people were euthanized by doctors administering a fatal drug potion, as compared to 2,331 whose deaths were reported in 2008.

The reasons for the increase are uncertain, with Jan Suyver, who chairs the government's euthanasia monitoring commission, claiming the taboo that used to be associated with euthanasia is easing, and suggesting that doctors are also "more likely to report it." Those opposed to euthanasia are blaming a corresponding decrease in the quality of palliative care available to patients.

However, another reason might be that, as the country has become accustomed to euthanasia as an accepted way to die, the guidelines are not being strictly adhered to.

The law says that patients must be suffering intolerable pain and that two doctors must be convinced the patients have given their informed consent. This has been documented to be utter nonsense, of course. Dutch law states anyone over the age of 16 who is in mental anguish or is depressed can request physician-assisted suicide, and in 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that Dutch doctors were euthanizing infants born with spina bifida and cleft palates. An infant cannot give informed consent -- and a teenager, or anyone else, who is depressed needs talk therapy and medication, not death, to resolve the crisis.

There are a number of reasons why reports of euthanasia might be on the increase. Doctors might be killing people without their consent -- and a 1990 report into this phenomenon found that more than 1,000 Dutch people who underwent euthanasia had not given their consent, with about 72 per cent of those having never indicated to anyone that they wanted to die. The number of babies, young children and depressed teens who were killed might have risen, due to broadening latitudes in interpreting the law.

There appear to be two separate inquiries with which the Dutch health ministry should concern itself -- the rise in euthanasia cases and the state of palliative care in that country. The two are not necessarily related, as it is always possible that, regardless of how good the quality of palliative care is, it may be very tempting for physicians to save health-care dollars and find reasons either to encourage their patients to opt for assisted suicide or perform it without their consent.

The Dutch are skidding down the very slippery slope to becoming a culture of death, rather than one that values life and nurtures it tenderly to the very end. Those in Quebec -- and the rest of Canada -- who have voiced enthusiastic support for Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde's right-to-die bill might want to watch events unfolding in the Netherlands and give sober second thought to whether this is what they want Canada to look like. The answer should be a resounding no.

Link to the article: http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/When+doctors+kill+instead+heal/3207897/story.html?cid=megadrop_story

German court makes the wrong decision by approving death by dehydration.

Germany's federal court of justice overturned a conviction yesterday against a lawyer who advised his client to remove the feeding tube of her 72-year-old mother in 2002.

This decision is wrong because the court wrongly defined fluids and food as medical treatment, rather than basic care.

The court approved the direct and intentional dehydration of people who are not otherwise dying. This case was of a person who could not have consented to dying by dehydration, meaning this would be considered a death without explicit request or consent. This decision opens the door to dependent and incompetent people being killed by dehydration, a death that lacks dignity and compassion.

Terri Schiavo died by dehydration in March 2005.

The Irish Times reported:

Five years earlier, shortly before Erika Küllmer suffered a brain haemorrhage and lost consciousness, her daughter Elke Gloor said she had insisted she did not want to be kept alive artificially.

After consulting her lawyer, and with her own brother present, Ms Gloor cut the cable with a scissors only to have care facility staff reconnect it. Ms Küllmer died shortly after of natural causes.

The state prosecutor pressed charges against her daughter and the lawyer, Wolfgang Putz. Charges against Ms Gloor were dropped because the court ruled she had followed “mistaken” legal advice, while Mr Putz was given a nine-month suspended sentence for attempted manslaughter.

The federal court yesterday upheld the lawyer’s appeal against his conviction.

In its ruling, the court argued that cutting the feeding tube made possible a “natural” death because it ended treatment that was being carried out against the patient’s will.

“A person’s free will must be respected, in all stages of life,” the judges ruled, insisting that “death on demand” remained a crime.

Germany’s federal justice minister welcomed the verdict.

“The ruling gives legal clarity on a fundamental question in the conflict over assisted suicide, namely what is permissible in the passive sense and prohibited in the active sense,” said Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the federal justice minister. “This is about a person’s right to decide, and hence touches upon a key question of how to live with dignity.”

Hospice groups spoke of a “black day” for patients’ rights while the German doctor’s union warned of “arbitrariness” in future medical treatment.

The case made headlines in 2002 after Mr Putz reached agreement with Ms Küllmer’s care facility to remove feeding tubes, only for the facility staff to change their mind at the last minute.

After her daughter cut through the feeding tube, Ms Küllmer was removed to a clinic but died two weeks later. Four months later, her son took his own life.

Yesterday’s ruling legalises active measures as well as passive measures to help end a person’s life if it is their wish. It is intended to work alongside a law introduced last year allowing people to make a written declarations for or against treatment to prolong their lives. The German doctors’ union remains concerned that this contradicts their Hippocratic oath to patient care.

Germany’s hospice association criticised the ruling yesterday, saying it opened the door to abuse by not clarifying what was active and what was passive assistance in suicide. It pointed out that Ms Küllmer’s wish not to be kept on life support was given verbally to her daughter and not in written form.

Assisted suicide is particularly controversial in Germany because of memories of the forced euthanasia programme in the Nazi era.

Yesterday a former Hamburg politician was acquitted of manslaughter after aiding an elderly woman to kill herself in 2008 because she didn’t want to move into a home.

To withdraw hydration from a person who is not otherwise dying is ethically a form of euthanasia because the direct and intentional cause of death is dehydration and not a natural death. The distinction is clear, that when a person is dying and nearing death, it is proper care to provide hydration and nutrition until the person cannot physiologically benefit from it. It is important that the care givers not provide too much hydration and nutrition, but to continue providing what the person requires.

Did Hans and Sophie Scholl, who were executed for their leadership of the White Rose Resistance, die in vain? The first method of euthanasia in the German hospitals was euthanasia by dehydation. Then the German doctors perfected the method of killing people with disabilities and others who were determined to be "useless eaters" by gas. Once the technique of killing with gas was perfected by killing people with disabilities, the method was then moved to the death camps. History appears to be repeating itself

The court should have upheld the conviction and stated that medical treatment, is always optional, but food and fluid, even when medically assisted, do not represent a medical treatment but rather a form of basic care. Basic care must be treated as necessary so long as it is needed.

Link to the article in the Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0626/1224273365911.html

Link to the article in Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65O2MD20100625

Dignitas founder, Ludwig Minelli, is making millions

Who says that assisted suicide is about compassion and choices?

Ludwig Minelli

Ludwig Minelli has become a millionaire in the ten years since he set up his Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland.

An article that was published in the Telegraph examined the real motivation for the Dignitas founder, Ludwig Minelli. They reported that he has become wealthy by selling memberships, assisting suicides and getting donations from his vulnerable clients.

The Telegraph newspaper reported:

A newspaper investigation has raised new questions about Dignitas and whether Ludwig Minelli, its founder and director, makes profit from his “mercy killings”.

Previously a human rights lawyer and an attorney at the Zurich bar, Mr Minelli had no taxable personal fortune registered when he set up his suicide clinic in 1998.

A decade later, the Beobachter investigation found, he had an annual taxable income of £98,000 and a personal fortune of over £1.2 million, wealth that includes a luxury villa.

Mr Minelli, who said he would take no salary from Dignitas when opening the clinic 12 years ago, has insisted that his wealth comes from an inheritance, left by his mother.

But the cost of a simple suicide at Dignitas has risen from £1,800 in 2005 to £4,500, fuelling suspicions that the clinic may not be sticking to Swiss laws that are supposed to prevent people “selfishly” profiting from assisted suicide.

The cost of the clinic’s full service, including funerals, medical costs and official fees, is as high as £7,000.

Andreas Brunner, a Swiss prosecutor, has accused Mr Minelli, and Dignitas, of hiding behind Swiss privacy laws to refuse publication of their accounts for the last five years.

Soraya Wernli

”We have never had a good look at their book-keeping but in order to demand that we need a good reason and a concrete example that there is something suspicious to investigate,” he said. “He has promised for years to make the accounts public but it has never happened.”

Dignitas has faced criticism for accepting donations from suicide clients, one patient is said to have signed over more than £60,000.

Soraya Wernli, a nurse employed by Dignitas between 2003 and 2005, has accused the organisation of being a “production line of death concerned only with profits”.

In April this year, police divers found over 60 cremation urns dumped in Lake Zurich. Each of the urns bore the logo of the Nordheim crematorium used by Dignitas.

Mr Minelli, in an interview in March, insisted that Dignitas did not make profits for personal gain but claimed that Swiss law did not prevent money being made from euthanasia.

”If you are helping and abetting without selfish motives, this is quite legal,” he told the American PBS broadcaster.

”If you would take a lot of money for this service, then it might be selfish. But if somebody would do it for normal profit, it would even still be legal. But Dignitas is not working for profit. We are an association, and the association does not make profit. If we make profit, we will take this profit in order to have a higher quality of our services.”

At the same time Stuart Weisberg, a psychiatrist, announced plans to open a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. The Oregon Medical Board has temporarily stopped Weisberg by suspending his license to practise medicine in Oregon. Nonetheless, the law in Oregon does not prevent doctors from competing with Compassion & Choices by setting up lucrative suicide clinics.

At the same time Compassion & Choices has also been able to turn assisted suicide into a lucrative fund raising business with reported income from donations and services in the millions.

Link to a previous article about the Dignitas Clinic: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/7851615/Dignitas-founder-is-millionaire.html

Suicide Psychiatrist has medical license suspended in Oregon

Yesterday, an article,from Oregon Live reported that Dr Stuart Weisberg, the psychiatrist who planned to open a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, had his medical license suspended by the Oregon Medical Board.

The article in Oregon Live stated:

A Portland psychiatrist who plans to open a private facility where people could end their lives under Oregon’s assisted-suicide law was suspended from medical practice Thursday amid a second investigation for improperly prescribing drugs.

The Oregon Medical Board voted 8-0 to suspend Stuart G. Weisberg, 37, a solo practitioner in Northwest Portland specializing in treating addictions.

Weisberg did not return phone calls Thursday for comment.

Kathleen Haley, the board’s executive director, said the suspension means Weisberg “cannot practice, period.”

In 2006, the board gave Weisberg a five-year reprimand for improperly prescribing psychoactive drugs to seven patients who were recovering drug addicts or suffering chronic pain. Last year, the board lifted the reprimand but put Weisberg under the watch of another doctor.

Haley said Thursday the “practice mentor” recently informed the medical board that Weisberg had terminated the relationship. The board learned that during the mentoring, Weisberg had wrongly authorized a medical-marijuana card for a drug addict and had improperly prescribed a different drug for another patient.

This week, Weisberg invited local physicians and politicians to a July 21 dinner at which he was to unveil his plan to open a “Dignity House” in Portland where the terminally ill could end their lives under his care in accordance with Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act.

In the invitation, Weisberg said he had been inspired by Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian, who claims to have ended the lives of 130 people who asked for his help in dying.

Weisberg’s website for his venture, End of Life Consultants LLC, listed a host of charges that would apply for anyone wanting to use “Dignity House” for catering, security, music or flowers.

As much as I found it disgusting that Weisberg planned to set up a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, he probably would have been more transparent than Compassion & Choices in providing relevant information about the assisted suicide deaths that he would have caused.

Link to my previous blog article on this story: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/06/death-with-dignity-house-or-dignitas.html

Link to the article: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/06/oregon_medical_board_suspends.html

Death with Dignity house or Dignitas suicide clinic

Dignitas comes to Oregon.

It appears that Dr. Stuart Weisberg, a Portland psychiatrist, intends to open a Death with Dignity house that is similar in scope to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland.

A recent article in the Atlantic monthly magazine interviewed supporters and detractors of Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, including Soraya Wernli, a former Dignitas employee.

Link to a commentary to the Atlantic monthly article: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/search/label/Ludwig%20Minelli

Dignitas is known for pushing social limits, dumping Urns of ashes from their dead clients into Lake Zurich, experimenting with helium and exit bags on their clients, selling the left-over items from their dead clients to pawn shops, charging large fees for their suicide service, etc. The Zurich government has been unsuccessful in their attempts to stop the Dignitas suicide clinic.

Recently Dignitas opened a new home in Zurich called the "Blue Oasis" which seems very similar to the proposed Death with Dignity house. Weisberg is simply introducing a similar suicide system in Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1998.

Weisberg has invited Jack Kevorkian to join him on July 21 to announce the opening of their Death with Dignity house.

I am sure Jack will make an incredible edition to the project, especially considering his fascination with experimenting with death and on the dead.

Similar to Dignitas, people can purchase extra services for their dying enjoyment. An article stated:

They include catering, security, video taping, music, flowers and -- for an additional $1,200 -- three hours with the psychiatrist and his therapy dog. The total package carries a price tag of $5,000.

Does the dog know about the incredible fees that are being collected by its service?

Not everyone is happy in the suicide promotion lobby. George Eighmey from Compassion and Choices, the group that last year facilitated 97% of all assisted suicides in Oregon, stated:

"Never heard of him,"

"I don't think his setting up a business to do it -- in my opinion is not appropriate, and even the taking of the photographs and videos is ghoulish,".

But then again, Eighmey is also concerned about the potential for competition and about losing control of the law. Compassion and Choices has developed a monopoly on assisted suicide in Oregon to control the information flow about the assisted suicide law and to enable them to convince people that there are no problems with the Oregon law.

Cornering the market on physician-assisted suicide is worth reading: http://www.pccef.org/articles/art77.htm

It is much easier to promote the legalization of assisted suicide when the only real information that is known about the law comes from the suicide promotion lobby. But Eighmey does correctly recognize that Weisberg is planning a Dignitas type death clinic. Eighmey said:

the only place akin to what Weisberg proposes is Dignitas in Switzerland.

Like Kevorkian, Weisberg doesn't appear to have a great record with the medical board. The article in the Oregonian stated:

Weisberg, 37, is a solo practitioner with an office in Northwest Portland. In 2006, the Oregon Medical Board disciplined him for improperly prescribing psychoactive drugs to seven patients who were recovering drug addicts or dealing with chronic pain.

The board's order said Weisberg, who earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2000, was terminated from his four-year residency at OHSU several months before he was to finish. No explanation was given.

On July 9, 2009, the board ended Weisberg's probation a year early and put him instead under the wing of an unnamed "practice mentor," another doctor who was to meet twice a month with Weisberg and file quarterly reports with the board.

Before reading further, I suggest you google Dr. Michael Swango. He was also terminated from his residency program, experienced similar medical complaints, and had a fascination with death and killing.

The reality is that now that assisted suicide is legal and socially accepted in Oregon, it should not surprise anyone that someone would decide to make the practise of killing into a business. By the way, there is nothing in the law to prevent Weisberg from setting up his suicide clinic

Link to the article in the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/portland_psychiatrist_plans_ho.html

Link to the article in Kgw.com: http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Death-with-Dignity-house-planned-in-Sellwood-96938714.html