Dangers of New Jersey assisted suicide bill too many to overlook.

In the aftermath of the New Jersey Health and Senior Services Committee hearing on assisted suicide, the public debate has continued in the press. One example is George Amick’s column in favor of legalization.

John Kelly

John Kelly, the New England Regional Director for Not Dead Yet was published on June 14 in the Times of Trenton in response to George Amick's column. Not Dead Yet also published Kelly's letter.

Dangers of assisted suicide bill too many to overlook 

George Amick’s column “Bill would allow terminally ill patients to die in humane, dignified manner” (June 9) ignores the many dangers of legalized assisted suicide. 

Assisted suicide makes for a deadly mix with our profit-driven healthcare system. With a lethal prescription costing a mere few hundred dollars, assisted suicide will immediately become the cheapest “treatment.” For example, Oregon Medicaid refused to cover prescribed chemotherapy for Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup, while offering the cheaper assisted suicide. Such distorted medical decision-making is one reason disability rights groups across the country oppose assisted suicide. Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire listened to our objections and rejected bills this year. 

Assisted suicide endangers people who experience depression. Oregonian Michael Freeland easily received a prescription despite a 43-year history of severe depression and suicide attempts. Freeland’s prescribing doctor later said that he didn’t think a psychological consultation was “necessary.” 

If Assemblyman Burzichelli is open to adjustments, he should look to Connecticut, where the legislature listened to disability rights advocates and rejected assisted suicide, then got to work with advocates to craft a pilot program for medical orders for life-sustaining treatment (MOLST). This program, which will protect everyone’s right both to receive and decline medical treatment, passed the Connecticut House unanimously and is now state law. 

– John Kelly
Boston MA 

The writer grew up in Middletown Township and is now New England regional director for the national disability rights group Not Dead Yet.

Sign the Declaration of HOPE to oppose assisted suicide in America.

Children's charities call for child euthanasia in Scotland.

This article was originally published in the HOPE Australia blog.

The Daily Mail in Scotland has a front page article claiming that Scottish Children’s Charities have called for the inclusion of euthanasia for children to be included in the reach of the euthanasia bill under debate in Holyrood (Scottish Parliament).

One group has apparently called for the revision of the extant lower age limit in the bill of 16 years of age if the bill passes into law. No slippery slope eh?

The article cites an unnamed representative of Care Not Killing as saying: 

“Right-minded people will be baffled that such an idea can be advanced, not least from one organisation purporting to represent the interests of children. 

“Such a monstrous idea should be unthinkable.”

This comes after Belgium passed child euthanasia into law in February this year. This new law, which included consent provisions, was later trumped by the Belgian association of Intensive Care Specialists who have claimed the right to decide who gets euthanased to themselves – regardless of consent or not.

Euthanasia: Death is not preferable to living with a significant disability.

Norman Kunc

I'm a non-religious man with cerebral palsy. I oppose legalizing euthanasia because i've seen far too many unrequested do-not-resuscitate orders placed on my disabled friends and colleagues. This occurs because many doctors, like most of society, believe that death is preferable to living with a significant disability.

Legalizing euthanasia doesn't give people the right to die; it gives people the right to request to die.

The doctor, not the patient, gets the power to decide. Legalizing Euthanasia adds significant legitimacy to the practice of placing unrequested DNRs on disabled people.

Privileged non-disabled people are trying to legalize euthanasia so they can gain the right to die. Many marginalized devalued disabled people are opposing legalizing euthanasia because we want the right to be safe in hospitals.

Norman Kunc - New Westminster BC

Previous posts from Norman Kunc:

● Youtube Video by Norman Kunc: Euthanasia at the Water Cooler.

Euthanasia hurts families.

Derek Miedema

By: Derek Miedema, National Post - June 16, 2014

My brother, who is severely handicapped, was once admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. During the few hours my family was not with him, a “do not resuscitate” bracelet was attached to his arm. My mother found out about it by accident when she asked what the purple bracelet was for.

I can imagine the assumption: he’s so severely handicapped that we should let the pneumonia kill him. To have my brother die this way would have been absolutely devastating to our family.

Bill 52, which ushers in doctor-assisted suicide in Quebec, has been discussed a lot by now. However, no one has addressed how arguments over life and death for loved ones can have lasting effects on family relationships and radically alter family dynamics.

Sign the online petition against euthanasia in Quebec.

My brother survived. Not such a happy ending for Tom Mortier, whose mother was killed by euthanasia in 2012. She was clinically depressed and had cut off contact with her son, contrary to his wishes. Tom found out his mother was dead only when he was called to make arrangements for her body at the morgue.

My brother lives in Canada, where euthanasia is currently illegal. Tom Mortier lives in Belgium, where euthanasia is legal. That Quebec’s Bill 52 is modeled on Belgium’s law is fact, not fearmongering. If Quebec’s newly passed euthanasia bill goes unchallenged, euthanasia will soon be tapping on your door regardless of your province. Families may soon face the reality of disagreements not over whether mom or dad should be allowed to die, but whether or not they should be killed.

Euthanasia, you see, is not just an issue of individual choice. Family will be faced with this discussion ahead of time. Or, like Tom Mortier, they must deal with the aftermath of a loved one’s choice to be killed by their doctor.

Prevent Elder Abuse: Say No To Assisted Suicide.

 This letter was written for World Elder Abuse Prevention Day.

Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I am writing to prevent elder abuse by keeping assisted-suicide out of New Jersey.

The landmark 2009 report by MetLife Mature Market Institute describes elder financial abuse as a crime “growing in intensity.” The perpetrators are often family members, some of whom feel themselves “entitled” to the elder’s assets. The report states that they start out with small crimes, such as stealing jewelry and blank checks, before moving on to larger items or coercing elders to sign over the deeds to their homes, change their wills or liquidate their assets. The report states that victims “may even be murdered” by perpetrators.

With legal assisted-suicide under New Jersey’s pending assisted- suicide law (A2770), perpetrators will instead be able to take a “legal” route, by getting an older person to sign a lethal dose request form. Once the lethal dose is in the house, there is no oversight over administration. The person could be coerced or tricked into taking the lethal dose, for example, while under the influence of alcohol.  

With no supervision required, even if the person objected or struggled, who would know? I urge you to tell your legislators to say “No” to elder abuse and assisted suicide Bill A2770.

- Physician Assisted Suicide: A Recipe for Elder Abuse.

Legalizing euthanasia is a dangerous step.

This article was written by Derek Miedema and published in the Waterloo Record on June 13 in response to a June 2 article titled: Euthanasia can and must be legalized.

By Derek Miedema

Sign the EPC - Europe Belgium euthanasia petition.

Legalized euthanasia is not about choice. The Netherlands and Belgium show what it's really about: a societal change that allows doctors to see death as the best solution to suffering. That's bad news for anyone who is suffering and wants help to live.

Imagine, for example, you were diagnosed with cancer. After the doctor drops this bombshell on you, he offers to kill you. You might realize killing is not medicine, but that's exactly what it's become in the Netherlands and Belgium. Here's how.

The Netherlands now permits euthanasia for the terminally ill, the mentally ill, and even babies with certain illnesses if parents approve. There have been discussions to allow anyone 70 and tired of life to be killed if they request it. For nearly all suffering in the Netherlands, death is a solution.

Godelieva De Troyer

Recently in Belgium, Tom Mortier's mother, Godelieva De Troyer, was killed by euthanasia. She was clinically depressed and had cut off contact with her son against his wishes. Mortier only found out when he was called to make arrangements for her body at the morgue.

Nathan Verhulst, 44, was born Nancy — to a mother who hated girls. Nancy eventually had a sex change operation to become a man, but the results didn't meet his expectations. Though his friends pleaded with him to live, Nathan was killed because doctors saw death as the best solution to his suffering.

The Belgian Society of Intensive Care Medicine is arguing that euthanasia should become regular practice in intensive care units in Belgium. "It must be made clear that the final decision is made by the care team and not by the relatives." In other words, doctors alone will decide when death is the solution.

Assisted Suicide bill in Britain is - Fatally Flawed.

Sign the Not Dead Yet - UK petition against assisted suicide.

Fatally Flawed

By Baroness Jane Campbell, published in The Tablet on June 12, 2014.

Baroness Jane Campbell

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill had its first parliamentary reading last week. It allows doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to terminally ill people with just six months to live who wish to end their lives. Here, a leading campaigner warns of the dangers to all those with special needs

As a severely disabled woman, I have seen tremendous improvements in so many aspects of disabled people’s lives over the last 50 or so years. True, I was sent to a “special” school but my adult life has benefited from integration. Accessible buildings and public transport, medical and clinical advances and laws designed to enable disabled people to participate fully in society and to receive the care and support we need to live with dignity made that possible.

Alongside countless others, I campaigned for many of these changes. But now I am on the opposite side of the fence, fighting proposed legislation. This time I am convinced that a change in the law would put our lives at risk. Fortunately I am not alone but we are told we are in the minority.

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill is the latest attempt to change the law on assisted suicide. Despite the failure of previous efforts to convince parliamentarians that the negatives outweigh the positives, a sizeable lobby is determined to keep bringing back the issue, convinced that a tweak here and a change of phrasing there is all that is needed to shift the balance of opinion in their favour.

In their conviction, they ignore the voices of disabled people and many others, writing us off as bigots who are putting our prejudices before alleviating the suffering of others. Their case appears clear and convincing, and they claim public opinion is with them. They say, surely, when people are near the end of their lives, it is our duty to do what we can to ease their suffering, physical or mental? Surely, too, we should respect their wishes and, anyway, don’t we all have a right to say when and how we die? Am I not entitled to ask, and expect, someone else to help me die if that is my wish?

Jane Campbell speaking at a Not Dead Yet Protest

For those of us arguing for the status quo, the issues are so much more complex. A human life should not end because all the boxes have been ticked. Lord Falconer’s bill states that it only applies to persons defined as “terminally ill” and “reasonably expected to die within six months”. Disabled and older people are told that we have nothing to fear. As we are outside those definitions, the law will not apply to us. Yet this is not true.

Many conditions are life-limiting (such as my own) and whether they are defined as a disability or terminal illness is open to debate. In addition, it doesn’t take much imagination to foresee the likely publicity a year or so down the line for the poor soul “forced to suffer” because his or her condition is outside the definition. The law would then be relaxed, the slippery slope would begin.

Next, if a change in the law is necessary, why should it be for some but not all? If the traffic light on the state-sanctioned ending of life is changed from red to green, surely it cannot be simultaneously red for some and green for others?

That many people fear old age, disability and illness is undoubted and understandable. Often people have seen loved ones, especially parents, grow weaker and come to need care. That can be tough to watch. It is natural to want an alternative, for both oneself and loved ones. However, what is so distressing for me and so many other terminally ill and disabled ­people is that the quick fix of an assisted death is being promoted over the many already available preferable alternatives, which have been essential in my life.

Perhaps that is not surprising given the current negativity towards disabled, terminally ill and older people, often portrayed as scroungers, deserving of cuts to benefits. NHS care has been exposed as inadequate and target-driven, leaving patients suffering. That is nothing compared to the abuse of older people in care and nursing homes exposed by undercover reporters. No wonder so many believe they would be better off dead. But how depressing that distinguished parliamentarians such as Lord Falconer choose to facilitate that belief rather than challenge it.

As someone disabled from birth and reliant upon others my whole life, I know how empowering care can be for both giver and receiver. Everything I have achieved has been with support from others. Indeed, I have only lived as long as I have because of the help I have received from my family, the medical profession, other professionals and assisters, some paid, some not. I am reliant upon numerous interventions every day, including help to get dressed, eat and go to work. Help to turn my ventilator on and turn me over at night. The one thing I am not is “special”. I am like thousands of other disabled, terminally ill and older people, who receive the support they need to live their lives to the full.

WE ARE THANKFUL for the support we get and we believe it should be available to all who need it. It is not. Many do not get it and the impact on their lives is acute. Denied my feeding tube, electrical wheelchair and personal assistance, I too might come to believe I would be better off dead. Left to the sole care of my family, they too would become exhausted (mentally and physically) and believe that too. Whatever they felt, I would feel a burden on them. I might think my assisted death would be best all round.

That is why the Assisted Dying Bill is so misguided and dangerous. For it to pass into law would be the triumph of despair over hope. It says, don’t try to make things better – that’s just too difficult and, anyway, would be futile. It is far better to die now. It will be better for you, your family and society. You are defined by your diagnosis, which is also your death warrant. Society doesn’t want you around any more. Well, I don’t want that ­society and I hope that neither do you.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton is a former commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and former chairwoman of the Social Care Institute for Excellence. She is a patron of the think tank Living and Dying Well.

Legalizing Assisted Suicide is a Mistake

The following letter was printed in the New Jersey Courier-Post on June 11, 2014.

Sign the Declaration of Hope to oppose assisted suicide in America.

I am a doctor in Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. I understand that your Legislature is considering taking a similar step.

I was first exposed to this issue in 1982, shortly before my first wife died of cancer. We had just visited her doctor. As we were leaving, he had suggested that she overdose herself on medication.

I still remember the look of horror on her face. She said, “Ken, he wants me to kill myself.”

Our assisted-suicide law was passed in 1997. In 2000, one of my patients was adamant she would use our law. Over three or four visits, I stalled her and ultimately convinced her to be treated instead. Nearly 14 years later, she is thrilled to be alive.

In Oregon, the combination of assisted-suicide legalization and prioritized medical care based on prognosis has created a danger for my patients on the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid).

Helpful treatments are often not covered. The plan will cover the patient’s suicide.

Protect your health care. Tell your legislators to vote “no” on assisted suicide.

Don’t make Oregon’s mistake.

Kenneth Stevens, M.D.
Sherwood, Oregon

Canadian Medical Association President: "Euthanasia is illegal and we're going to follow the law of the land."

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) released their document from the CMA National Dialogue on end-of-life care on June 10. One of the decisions made by the CMA from their National Dialogue was that they would continue to oppose the euthanasia and assisted suicide.

CMA President Dr Louis Francescutti told a press conference where the CMA released its report, End-of-Life Care, a National Dialogue, on nation-wide consultations conducted into end-of-life issues that:

“It’s crystal clear in our minds that the last time we looked at this issue, our policy was not to support physician-assisted suicide,” 

“I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency that we have to change our position or run scared. When physicians don’t know what to do, they consult. . . . And they make decisions at that time. This is not a, I hate to use the term, life-or-death situation that we have to make a decision today.”

Dr Louis Francescutti

In response to a question about the response of physicians, Francescutti stated:

“As it currently stands, it’s illegal in Canada and until that changes, physicians are of the viewpoint it’s illegal and we’re going to follow the laws of the land.”

In response to the consensus that the CMA experienced related to supporting palliative care Francescutti stated:

“we need to do better as a profession to train our medical students and residents and doctors what palliative care is and the importance of referring patients early to palliative care teams. … It’s a bit of a national embarrassment when our veterinary schools teach more about palliative care than the physicians who’ll be taking care of you.”   

“We need a culture change and the first culture change is in our medical schools.”

The Canadian Medical Association says no to euthanasia.

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) held a national dialogue on end-of-life care in Canada that included 5 events between February 20 and May 27, 2014 and an opportunity for input from CMA members and Canadians in general.

As stated by the CMA, the national dialogue on end-of-life care focused on three issues: advanced care planning, palliative care, and euthanasia and physician assisted dying. The secondary focus of the CMA national dialogue was to establish common definitions and terminology and to inform Canadians of the current legal and legislative framework on these issues.

The outcome of the CMA national dialogue was published on the CMA website June 10, 2014 through a media release and a 17 page document titled: End of Life Care: A National Dialogue.

The CMA document makes the following basic recommendations:

1. Canadians need to discuss end-of life wishes and they need to prepare appropriate and legally binding advanced care directives. 

2. All Canadians should have access to palliative care services within a national palliative care strategy. Public and professional education concerning palliative care and its services is also required. 

3. Canadians are divided on euthanasia and physician assisted dying. If the law is changed strict protocols and safeguards are required to protect vulnerable individuals and populations.

On May 28, 2014, the CMA was gratified when Canada's federal parliament passed Palliative Care Motion 456 calling for a national palliative care strategy.

The terminology section on page 5 of the CMA document is helpful in clearing up confusion about euthanasia, assisted suicide, palliative care and medical aid in dying.

The CMA defines Euthanasia as: 

Knowingly and intentionally performs and act, with or without consent, that is explicitly intended to end another person’s life.

The CMA definition for Physician-assisted dying is less helpful because the legal term is Physician-assisted suicide. The CMA definition is: 

The process in which a physician knowingly and intentionally provides a person with the knowledge and/or means required to end his or her life, including counseling about lethal doses of drugs and prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs.

The CMA's definition for Medical aid in dying acknowledges that the term encompasses both euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The CMA definition for palliative care states that: 

it involves the prevention and relief of suffering and the treatment of pain and other physical, psychosocial and spiritual symptoms.

The definition of palliative care is incomplete because it omits that the intent is not to hasten death, but under the commentary by CMA ethicist, Dr Jeff Blackmer, the CMA document states: 

The continuum of palliative care does not include euthanasia or physician-assisted death.

Blackmer’s statement on the continuum of palliative contradicts Québec’s euthanasia Bill 52 that defines euthanasia as part of the continuum of end-of-life care that includes palliative care. The CMA definition for Palliative Sedation is helpful. The CMA states that Palliative Sedation is: 

The use of sedative medications for patients who are terminally ill, with the intent of alleviating suffering and managing symptoms. The intent is not to hasten death, although this may be a foreseeable but unintended consequence of such action.

The CMA has clearly differentiated the proper use of Palliative Sedation from euthanasia and assisted suicide. Palliative Sedation is often abused creating confusion about its purpose and intent. The CMA document allows us to state that the proper use of palliative sedation is not euthanasia.

The section of the CMA document concerning Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Death provided many comments from people who attended one of the National Dialogue sessions.

It was fitting that CMA ethicist Dr Jeff Blackmer pointed out that:

“Physicians go into the profession to relieve pain and suffering and the oath they take obliges them not to hasten death. Legalizing physician-assisted dying would blur the lines about what physicians are supposed to be doing.”

Blackmer then stated:

“Our philosophy is that of care and not killing.”

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) considers the CMA national dialogue on end-of-life care to have been a helpful process to all concerned.

EPC urges the CMA to look further into the actual experience with euthanasia that has occurred in Belgium especially since the Québec government passed euthanasia Bill 52, a law that is very similar to the language and design of the Belgian euthanasia law.

Belgium's euthanasia culture.

The following article was published by OneNewsNow on June 9, 20014.

Euthanasia in Belgium: Please sign the EPC - Europe petition.

Alex Schadenberg

Belgium has released its latest figures on euthanasia -- a practice that is legal there. When introduced, it was only for the terminally ill and could only be carried out under certain circumstances. But as Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition reports, it gets more commonplace every year.

"The number of euthanasia deaths in Belgium in 2013 went up by 26.2 percent to 1,807 deaths, which is a massive increase," he details. "You have to put it in perspective; the year before, there had been another 25 percent increase, and so what you're seeing is this huge increase in the number of euthanasia deaths in Belgium."

The number of qualifying categories is expanding. For example, OneNewsNow recently reported about a woman whom a physician euthanized for depression -- something for which the patient had never been treated. And now, under some circumstances, ailing children or those with disabilities can legally be killed.

"So what you're seeing is this massive euthanasia culture where to actually kill somebody has become a right," Schadenberg laments. "And when it becomes a right in the culture, then it goes right out of whack. And what we're seeing is euthanasia is now becoming commonplace for any and all reasons."

He feels that ought to send a message to Quebec, Canada as it moves to legalize euthanasia.

Euthanasia threatens the lives of the grieving.

My son Frank died in a car accident in 1997. He was 19. He was my oldest child, my only son (I have 3 daughters).

In the first year after his death, I wanted to die. I wanted the agony and pain I was feeling to end. Death seemed to be the only way. Yet, I did not REALLY want to die. I wanted the PAIN to die. The second year after his death was even worse. It was not until the third year that I started to heal.

I became involved in Bereaved Families of Ontario in Kingston Ontario, and I soon realized that almost all mother's feel the same way. I met a mom - both of her daughters were killed on the same day in a car accident (they were 19 and 16) and she had no other children. We hear stories similar to this often on the news.

Israel debates assisted suicide.

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The assisted suicide debate has heated up in Israel, where, on Sunday, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill that would allow assisted suicide. 

Uri Orbach, the Minister for Senior Citizens, submitted an appeal to the assisted suicide bill saying that he would work to:

"save the legal system from this pill of death."

According to the The Times of Isreal, The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill that would provide legal immunity to physicians who prescribe a lethal dose to patients who are defined as terminal.

Orbach stated on facebook that the bill commodified death.

“Death is becoming a commodity or service granted to citizens. The poor doctors now have to supply death for terminally ill patients as well [as medical care]. This is a false liberalism which claims that everything is negotiable as long as it is the free will of the customer. Any other value: social, religious, legal is rejected in the face of the individual’s choice,” 

Québec euthanasia Bill 52: Disturbing questions remain.

Dr Margaret Somerville

Margaret Somerville, is the founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics & Law at McGill University in Montréal.

Sign the petition: Stop Euthanasia in Quebec.

Somerville asks the questions for society to consider in her article about Québec's euthanasia Bill 52. 

We have edited the article which was published in the Montréal Gazette on June 8, 2014. 

Somerville asks:

1. Why, after millenniums of prohibiting the intentional killing of another human being, in particular by physicians, did Quebec politicians think euthanasia is a “progressive” idea that must be implemented without delay?

2. Why did Quebec politicians fail to give sufficient weight to the dangers and harms of legalizing euthanasia, especially to vulnerable people — those who are old and fragile or disabled, and whose lives are denigrated by euthanasia’s message they’re not worth living?

3. Why have their ethical imaginations, human memories (knowledge of history) and examined emotions failed to warn them that they are on the wrong path?

4. Why did they fail to distinguish between obligations to kill people’s suffering through good palliative care and pain management, and killing the person with the suffering?

5. Are Quebec politicians so focused on giving priority to individual autonomy — “choice” — they don’t see the harm to the value of respect for human life at the societal level that legalizing euthanasia unavoidably causes?

6. How will legalizing euthanasia affect law’s and medicine’s capacity to carry the value of respect for life for society as a whole?

7. Has the media’s almost sole focus on heart-wrenching cases of suffering individuals asking for euthanasia blinded us to the larger-picture consequences of legalizing it?

8. Why do politicians use obfuscating language — “medical aid to die” — for euthanasia? An Ipsos Marketing survey found only one-third of Quebecers understood this meant a lethal injection.

Canada's federal government opposes Québec euthanasia law.

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On June 5, the Québec National Assembly passed euthanasia Bill 52 into law.

Sign the petition: Stop Euthanasia Bill 52 in Quebec.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is convinced that euthanasia Bill 52 is imprecise, open to abuse and unconstitutional. EPC is working with groups in Québec to launch a court case to declare Bill 52 as unconstitutional.

The Toronto Sun reported that Canada's federal Justice Minister opposes Québec's euthanasia law that was passed on June 5. The article also stated that a court challenge to the euthanasia law will be launched soon.

The Toronto Sun reported that federal Justice Ministry released the following statement concerning Bill 52:

"It is our government's position that the Criminal Code provisions prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia are in place to protect all persons, including those who are most vulnerable in our society," Paloma Aguilar said. "Furthermore, in April 2010, a large majority of parliamentarians voted not to change these laws, which is an expression of democratic will on this topic."

Michael Racicot, a lawyer with the group Vivre dans la Dignité - Living with Dignity told the Sun that:

"I will not say when we will go to court, but we are going to go to court,"

Racicot also told the Sun that:

euthanasia violates the constitutional right to life, liberty and security of the person.

Euthanasia Bill 52 gives Québec doctors the right, in law, to lethally inject people who have asked for euthanasia and who are living with physical or psychological suffering.

Assisted suicide deaths increase by at least 43% in Washington State (2013)

By Alex Schdenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The number of assisted suicide deaths in Washington State, increased by at least 43% in 2013. Assisted suicide was legalized in March 2009, after a ballot measure.

In Washington State there were 119 known assisted suicide deaths in 2013, which was up from 83 in 2012, 70 in 2011, and 51 in 2010. It is important to note that it is unknown whether 14 of the people who received a lethal prescription died by assisted suicide. It is likely that of the 14 unknown causes of death, many were assisted suicide deaths.

The Washington State assisted suicide annual report stated that there were 173 lethal prescriptions up by 43% from 121 in 2012 with 26 deaths known to have occurred without taking the lethal dose.

Margaret Dore

Information in the assisted suicide annual reports come from the voluntarily reports by the doctors who prescribed suicide. Doctors who prescribe suicide will not self-report when they abuse the law.

Washington State Elder Law Attorney, Margaret Dore, recently published an article outlining her experience with the assisted suicide practice in Washington State. Dore stated:

I have had two clients whose parents signed up for the lethal dose. In the first case, one side of the family wanted the father to take the lethal dose, while the other did not. He spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and traumatized over whether or not he should kill himself. My client, his adult daughter, was also traumatized. The father did not take the lethal dose and died a natural death. 

In the other case, it's not clear that administration of the lethal dose was voluntary. A man who was present told my client that the father refused to take the lethal dose when it was delivered (“You’re not killing me. I’m going to bed”), but then took it the next night when he was high on alcohol. The man who told this to my client later recanted. My client did not want to pursue the matter further.

Illegal Euthanasia Deaths in Belgium.

This blog article was first published on June 6, 2014 on the HOPE Australia Blog.

Sign the EPC - Europe Petition demanding a moratorium on euthanasia in Belgium.

Paul Russell

By Paul Russell, Executive Director of HOPE Australia

I reported yesterday on the breaking news that 57 year old Deacon, Wevelgemse Ivo Poppe had been arrested and charged with 10 counts of illegal euthanasia; the deaths occurring before the Belgian law on euthanasia was introduced in 2002.

News reports today say that Poppe has confessed to killing up to 50 people in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Menen from the 1980s up to 2011. Up until 2002 Poppe was a nurse at the hospital and thereafter worked in a part time capacity as a pastoral assistant.

Poppe has confessed to multiple acts of euthanasia which, according to reports, he noted in his diaries. His defence counsel, Filip De Reuse said today that, "My client acted out of compassion for people in a desperate situation."

Poppe made his confessions after the matter was raised with local police by a third party. He admitted that he would give the patient an overdose of insulin or would smother them with a pillow.

The Belgian authorities are working with the hospital administrators and the local Catholic Diocese to uncover the extent of the deaths and to try to answer the obvious question of how this could have happened.

Anonymous comments will not be published on this blog.

Because of the comments that I regularly receive. I decided long ago to only publish comments from people who care to leave their name. 

Anonymous comments, either supportive or negative will not be published on this blog.

Comments that attack a person, have dangerous illegal or unethical content will not be published either.

If you want your comments to be published on this blog, then you need to have the courage to post your name with your comment.

Alex Schadenberg

Quebec’s elected officials have lifted a vitally important ban.

Living with Dignity denounces the adoption of Bill 52 on end of life care.

Montreal, June 5, 2014 - Dramatic day for Quebec today: by a vote of 94 to 22, the Members of the National Assembly have adopted Bill 52, "An Act respecting end-of-life care". The citizen network Living with Dignity (LWD) denounces the new law, which allows anyone who meets the criteria to request and obtain death on demand by a doctor. Our elected representatives from all parties have failed in their duty to protect the most vulnerable and lifted a ban that has existed since the time of Hippocrates - more than 24 centuries ago– and which is the foundation of medicine and of life in society that is respectful of others.

Now, in Quebec, the act of a doctor who kills a person at his request to end his suffering, instead of relieving the suffering, will be considered health care. Moreover, "medical aid in dying ", as the law calls it, must be offered without exception by all public institutions in Quebec - hospitals, long-term care centres, CLSCs - regardless of the convictions of the management or staff of the institution.

With some exceptions, our elected officials have also chosen to ignore that Quebec does not have jurisdiction to decriminalize euthanasia. Killing a patient, even at his or her request, is not a medical treatment; it is a homicide and, as such, prohibited by the Criminal Code.

The Québec National Assembly votes on euthanasia Bill 52.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) opposes Québec euthanasia Bill 52.

Sign the petition: Stop Euthanasia Bill 52 in Quebec.

Bill 52 legalizes euthanasia by re-defining it as a form of healthcare under the term "end-of-life care."

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition stated:

"Let's be clear, Bill 52 gives Québec physicians the right to intentionally and directly cause the death of persons by lethal injection. This represents an act of homicide and not an act of "end of life care."

Bill 52 claims to limit euthanasia to voluntary requests from people who are at the end of life but Bill 52 does not define end of life.

Québekers should not trust their life to the provisions in Bill 52, which are imprecise, open to abuse and based on the Belgian euthanasia law.

In Belgium, euthanasia is being done to people who are not terminally ill but living with depression, euthanasia has been extended to children and studies have proven that euthanasia is often done to people without request.

The Québec government re-introduced Bill 52 even after people with disabilities and palliative care leaders strongly opposed the bill.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports the efforts of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity) and the Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia who intend to challenge Bill 52 in the Courts as unconstitutional.

Killing is not Caring.

Euthanasia is Lethal.

For more information contact:
Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director - 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 

at: 1-877-439-3348 or 519-851-1434 (Cell) or info@epcc.ca

Nicolas Steenhout, Executive Director - Vivre dans la Dignité/Living with Dignity 

at: 438-931-1233.

Important links:● Opposing euthanasia: Letter writing campaign.
● Medical error, euthanasia and assisted suicide.
● The federal government opposes Québec euthanasia bill.

Disability rights leaders speak out against New Jersey assisted suicide bill.

The New Jersey Health and Senior Services Committee had a hearing on assisted suicide Bill A 2270 on June 5, 2014. 

The following two are the letters from Disability Right leaders: Diane Coleman, President of Not Dead Yet and Marilyn Golden, Policy Analyst for the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)

Dear Health and Senior Services Committee Members:

Diane Coleman

Not Dead Yet is a national disability rights group with members in New Jersey. On behalf of our members, I write to say that we are extremely concerned about A2270, the bill to legalize assisted-suicide, and urge you to oppose it.

Leading proponents of bills to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill often claim that the views of disability organizations aren’t relevant. While it’s true that people with disabilities aren’t usually terminally ill, the terminally ill are almost always disabled. This is one of many reasons that our perspective may shed some light on this complex issue.

People with disabilities and chronic conditions live on the front lines of the health care system that serves (and too often underserves) dying people. One might view us as the proverbial “canaries in the coal mine” who are alerting others to dangers we see first.

Assisted suicide supporters paint themselves as “compassionate progressives” fighting for freedom against the “religious right.” It’s a simple message, and it goes down well, if you ignore inconvenient truths, such as:

● Predictions that someone will die in six months are often wrong;
● People who want to die usually have treatable depression and/or need better palliative care;
● Pressures to cut health care costs in the current fiscal climate make this the wrong time to add doctor prescribed suicide to the options;
● Abuse of elders and people with disabilities is a growing but often undetected problem, making coercion virtually impossible to identify or prevent.

It’s not the proponents’ good intentions but the language and implementation of assisted suicide laws that legislators need to consider.

As one of countless disabled people who’s survived a mistaken terminal prediction, I can’t help but become concerned when the accuracy of a terminal prognosis determines whether someone gets suicide assistance rather than suicide prevention.

The Oregon Reports themselves show that non terminal people are getting lethal prescriptions – up to 1009 days have passed between the request for a lethal prescription and death. One of the many things the Reports hide is specifically how many lived longer than six months, but we do know that there’s no consequence to the assisting doctors for this or any other mistake in the assisted suicide process.

Proponents also claim that 15 years of data from Oregon show that safeguards to ensure that it's voluntary are working. How would they know? The Oregon Reports only tell us what the prescribing doctors indicated were the patients’ reasons for wanting assisted suicide by checking off one or more of seven reasons on a multiple choice state government form.

One of the reasons is feelings of being a burden on others, checked in 49% of the cases last year. But there’s no corresponding requirement that home care options be disclosed as part of informed consent under the law, much less that they be offered or funded.

Although the Oregon Reports admit that the state can’t assess compliance with the safeguards, some independent articles find that safeguards failed in individual cases (see, e.g., Hendin & Foley, MDs, “Physician-Assisted Suicide in Oregon: A Medical Perspective”, Michigan Law Review, June 2008. But the law includes no authority for investigation or enforcement, so nothing happens as a result.

It has been estimated that there are over 175,000 reported and unreported cases of elder abuse annually in New Jersey. Statistically, 90% of elder abusers are a family member or trusted other. Similarly, people with disabilities are up to four times more likely to be abused than their same-age nondisabled peers. In Oregon and Washington, legal assisted suicide has opened new paths of abuse against persons who may qualify to use these laws. One of the most obvious problems is a complete lack of oversight when the lethal drug is administered. If an abuser were to administer the drug without the person’s consent, who would know?

It is simply naive to suggest that assisted suicide can be added to the array of medical treatment options, without taking into account the harsh realities of elder abuse and the related potential for coercion.

We urge you to vote against A2270.

Diane Coleman, JD, MBA
President/CEO Not Dead Yet
497 State Street Rochester, NY 14608
www.notdeadyet.org