Members of the Belgium Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission appear to be in a deadly Conflict of Interest?

Dr Tom Mortier

Dr. Sc. Tom Mortier, Leuven University College
Dr. Med. Georges Casteur, General Medical Practitioner, Ostend

Parts of this article were published by the Belgian Medical Newspaper (www.artsenkrant.com)

In October 2013, the leading euthanasia doctor in Belgium, Wim Distelmans, received international media attention for the second time. Under his “medical” guidance, he killed 44-year-old Nathan Verhelst, who was born as Nancy. Distelmans, who is an oncologist, said on the Belgian radio that his patient met “all” the conditions of the euthanasia law. Furthermore, Distelmans said that unbearable suffering under the Belgian euthanasia law can be both physical and psychological.

In the case of Nathan Verhelst, euthanasia was done for reasons of psychological suffering. Distelmans said that it is not exceptional for mentally ill patients to be euthanized. When he was asked about the terms of the legislation, Distelmans replied laconically that a second opinion should be sought from two other doctors, and when the patient is not terminally ill, one doctor must be a psychiatrist. Furthermore, a month must pass between the written request for euthanasia and the lethal injection.

However, according to the Belgian euthanasia law, the opinions of the two other doctors are not binding; and the doctor who does the euthanasia can ignore a negative opinion and still give a patient the lethal injection. Basically, in Belgium, a person only needs to find a euthanasia doctor who is willing to kill! The euthanasia doctor only has to have two written reports in the medical record approving euthanasia of the patient and the doctor can ignore any negative reports.

It is striking to see that Distelmans, as the leading euthanasia doctor in Belgium, has been given so much freedom. Distelmans has become a Belgian media icon who continually propagates his ideology through various newspapers and magazines. His institutional background also has enabled him to be honoured as the “hero of the Belgian euthanasia law.” He has been the chairman of the Belgian Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission (Belgian Commission) for more than 10 years.

Furthermore, he has started his own ideological association (Leif) that is giving awards to other members of the Belgian Commission. For instance, the retired Senator Jacinta De Roeck, a pro-euthanasia activist, was recently honoured by Distelmans with a “lifetime achievement award,” which is ironic as already more than 8000 euthanasia cases have been registered in Belgium since 2002.

As the chairman of the Belgian Commission, Distelmans is “controlling” his euthanasia law, while continuing to administer lethal injections after “consulting” with his close colleagues. Therefore, we strongly question whether independent consultations, a legal requirement of the law, are actually occurring during these so-called medical consultations. Is it not a conflict of interest when Distelmans declares euthanasia cases performed by himself to the Belgian Commission when he is also the chairman and when the members of the Belgian Commission include pro-euthanasia activists like Jacinta De Roeck and Jacqueline Herremans?

Furthermore, there will never be a two-thirds majority to send a case to a judge because the members of the Belgian Commission and its chairman are in a conflict of interest!

It appears that Distelmans has become both the judge and the executioner.

If the euthanasia law in Belgium has taught us anything, it is that in Belgium the euthanasia doctors have been given all of the power in contrast to the patients who are given lethal injections!

Dr Tom Mortier is also a member of the Belgian group - Euthanasie Stop.

Links to similar articles:
Belgium euthanasia promoter admits that there are problems with the Belgian euthanasia law.
Euthanasia: An easy way to cover-up medical mistakes.
Belgian bill would extend euthanasia to children with disabilities and people with dementia.

The BBC rightly earned its title of euthanasia cheerleader by sensationally propagating Ray Gosling’s lies as truth.

The following article was written by Dr Peter Saunders, the campaign director of the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK, and published on his blog on November 20, 2013.

Peter Saunders

By Dr Peter Saunders

As reported by the BBC today, Journalist, broadcaster and gay rights activist Ray Gosling has died in hospital in Nottingham.

My sympathy is with Gosling’s family.
However his death revives memories of the time when the BBC’s flagrant promotion of assisted suicide and euthanasia arguably reached its greatest depths.

When the former television journalist confessed on BBC’s Inside Out programme on 15 February 2010 that he had taken a pillow and smothered a gay lover with AIDS who was in ‘terrible, terrible pain’ it very quickly became an international news story.

But it later transpired, after a police investigation involving 32 officers, lasting six months and taking 1,800 hours at a cost of over £45,000 in taxpayers money, that Goslings’ ‘confession’ was simply made up. He did not kill his lover and in fact was not even in the country at the time he died. Furthermore the man did not die in pain.

Gosling was given a 90-day suspended prison sentence at Nottingham Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to wasting police time. The judge in passing sentence branded him as ‘a sheer liar and fantasist’ guilty of ‘creating and maintaining this cruel fabrication’.

It was very clear at the time the story broke that the BBC intended it to have maximum impact.

The Care Not Killing Alliance (CNK) started getting media calls hours before the programme was originally broadcast regarding a ‘new euthanasia story’ involving a ‘prominent BBC employee’ but we were not allowed to know any of the details. Meanwhile every regional and national BBC news outlet was lining up interviews for the ensuing 24 hours.

We later learnt that Gosling had made his original confession to BBC colleagues four months earlier over a ‘beery lunch’. And the programme itself was filmed some months before it was shown and eventually screened just one week before the Director of Public Prosecutions published his prosecution policy for cases of assisted suicide.

Why did the BBC not inform the police during this time or more carefully investigate what was effectively a confession of murder? How many BBC employees actually knew about it? Was this actually a cynical attempt to influence public and judicial opinion at a critical point in time?

These questions were never satisfactorily answered.

In the days that followed the screening, as well as giving a spate of national and regional broadcasts in the UK (including Five Live and BBC breakfast), I was interviewed by a host of international outlets covering the story – including Italian and Spanish newspaper journalists, Russian, Bolivian, Brazilian and Indian television and the BBC world service. The international interest was huge.

The very same week, both the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph carried the story of Lord Carlile, CNK Chairman, writing to the BBC Director General to allege media bias and to accuse the corporation of adopting an ‘incredibly zealous’ ‘campaigning stance’ on assisted suicide.

The BBC has a long history of acting as a cheerleader for euthanasia and assisted suicide, but with the Gosling affair it plumbed its greatest depths.

The corporation cynically planned months ahead to release a story that was total untrue at a time and in a manner guaranteed to maximise its international impact and to influence public policy.

Not only did it fail in its duty to provide fair and impartial broadcasting. It also failed to report a criminal act to the police, opting instead for the sensational proliferation of partisan propaganda and, in this case, downright lies.

And it used our licence fees to do it.

Link to a previous article on the same topic.

Dignity in Dying proves that it lives in the same fantasy world as Ray Gosling.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition launches complaint concerning CBC national program.

Spoon Feeding is basic care.

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article published in the Vancouver Sun and written by Pamela Fayerman concerning the Bentley - Spoon Feeding case, is reporting on the preliminary hearing in the Vancouver court. 

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) requested to intervene in the Bentley case. Later this week, the plaintiffs will argue against the EPC intervention, while our legal team will argue in favour. A three day trial has been set for mid December.

The Vancouver Sun (article) reports that the BC government lawyer stated that not feeding Margaret Bentley could constitute criminal charges of culpable homicide. Crown lawyer, Jonathon Penner stated:

"To the extent that (the patient's living will) constitutes an instruction to assist her in committing suicide, it cannot be enforced without the commission of an offence ...,"

The case concerns a statement in a living will document, signed by Bentley in 1991, stating that if she had an incurable condition that she would not want nourishment or liquids.

My records show that the document states that she didn't want nourishment or liquids by artificial means, which is interpreted as tube feeding.

The article also reported that the defendant has introduced a more recent living will signed by Bentley that states:

"I accept basic care however and request aggressive palliative care, drugs or any other measures to keep me free of pain or distress, even if they shorten my life."

John Bentley, Margaret's husband, claims that the other living will must have a forged signature and her daughter stated that her mother never discussed that there was another living will.

The article then quotes from the affidavit by Gina Gaspard, a gerontology nurse for Fraser Health who stated:

"while patient autonomy is a fundamental principle in health care, the goal of feeding Bentley is not to prolong her life but rather an activity of daily living meant to keep her comfortable. 

Bentley is still being spoonfed because she can still swallow. When she doesn't open her mouth to the tap of the spoon, she is not force-fed."

The EPC intervention application proves that 'spoon feeding' is recognized internationally as basic care and not medical treatment. We are also concerned that people continue to have the right to change their mind. Bentley is not being forced fed.

The Bentley family is asking the BC Court to re-define spoon feeding as medical treatment in order to force the nursing home and Fraser Health to stop feeding Bentley by spoon.

If spoon feeding is defined as medical treatment, then everyone with dementia will be at risk of having their power of attorney decide to stop feeding or hydrating them, even when they can swallow effectively.

This case concerns the right of vulnerable people to eat.

Links to similar articles.
If spoon feeding is no longer a right, I will be afraid for my life.
British Columbia court to hear spoon feeding case.
Mild stroke led to mother's forced death by dehydration.

Care Not Killing responds to Scottish Assisted Suicide bill

This article was original posted on November 14 on Peter Saunders blog.

Margo Macdonald MSP (pictured) launched her new assisted suicide bill in Scotland. The Scottish government has said it does not support a change in the law and the British Medical Association (BMA) has in response reiterated its opposition to assisted suicide. 

The bill comes the day after the launch of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Europe (EPCE) in Brussels. The Care Not Killing Alliance, a founding member of EPCE, has today produced a detailed response which is reproduced here. Macdonald’s last bill was overwhelmingly defeated by 85-16.

In 2010 MSP Margo MacDonald's very similar End of Life Assistance Bill was defeated by 85 votes to 16, in a free vote at the Scottish Parliament.

This should have settled the debate in Scotland for a generation.

Yet, Ms MacDonald now proposes her Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill, under which people as young as 16 would be able to tell their GP about their desire for assisted suicide.

Despite the fact that 65 per cent of responses to the consultation process were opposed to the Bill the MSP plans to take her Bill forward, essentially on a system based on that operating in Oregon, USA.

There, the annual number of assisted suicides has risen by 450 per cent since legalisation in 1997. One in six of those are depressed, less than one in 20 receive psychiatric assessments. Some patients have been denied medical care and offered assisted suicide as a cheaper alternative.

Care Not Killing, which is spearheading opposition to the proposed Bill, is an alliance of individuals and more than 40 organisations which brings together disability and human rights groups, healthcare providers, and faith-based bodies and believes that assisted suicide is unneccessary, unethical and uncontrollable.

Peter Saunders

Dr Peter Saunders, Campaign Director of Care Not Killing said:

“MSPs rejected Ms MacDonald's last attempt to legalise physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Scotland by an overwhelming majority of 85-16 recognizing that such a move would seriously endanger public safety. Instead, they sent a ringing endorsement to making the very best palliative care widely available and accessible. 

“The right to die can so easily become the duty to die and vulnerable people who are sick, elderly or disabled will inevitably feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to end their lives so as not to be a burden on others. The stories of incremental extension presently coming out of Belgium and the Netherlands give a stark warning about the dangers of going down this road. 

“Ms MacDonald’s new proposals are effectively her old ones dished up again. I expect the Scottish Parliament to give them short shrift.”

Euthanasia is discrimination against people with disabilities.

The following article was written by Michael Swan and published in the Catholic Register on Wednesday November 13, 2013. Amy Hasbrouck, who is interviewed in this article, is the leader of Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet, a secular disability rights group in Quebec.

By Michael Swan

Demand for doctor-assisted suicide isn’t about dying, it’s about disability, the director of a Quebec disability rights organization told a national anti-euthanasia symposium in Toronto Nov. 8.

“The popular support (for assisted suicide) is rooted in disability discrimination. It’s rooted in the idea that life with a disability is a fate worse than death,” Amy Hasbrouck told The Catholic Register during a break at the Euthanasia Symposium 2013 in Toronto.

A video Toronto microbiologist Dr. Donald Low made eight days before he died of cancer has reignited calls to strike down laws against assisted suicide. But the seven-minute YouTube video from the man who guided Toronto through the 2003 SARS crisis barely mentions death, said Hasbrouck.

“In the video Dr. Low produced before he died he talked about the things he was afraid of,” said Hasbrouck of Toujours Vivant — Not Dead Yet. “But most of those things related to disability and not death. He talked about his fear of having to be carried from the bed to the bathroom. That’s a disability issue, it’s not a dying issue. He talked about his fear of having to use a feeding tube. Well, people with disabilities use feeding tubes every day. You just deal with it, but it’s not a fate worse than death.”

If Canada passes laws to enable doctors to kill patients who fear needing assistance and struggling with limitations the country will have decided we are all better off dead than disabled, Hasbrouck argues.

“People with disabilities have traditionally been ignored in our society, not treated as equals on an intellectual and social basis,” she said. “It’s been very difficult for us to participate in this debate, even though the debate is completely fixed on our lives.”

Where society supports suicide prevention hotlines to prevent able-bodied people from killing themselves, they are now convinced that disabled people should be offered a suicide option in the guise of medical treatment, argues Hasbrouck.

Toujours Vivant — Not Dead Yet predicts that the proposed Quebec law which would redefine doctor-assisted suicide as a medical procedure, circumventing Criminal Code of Canada laws against assisting another person to kill themselves, will pass. Quebec’s National Assembly voted the bill through second reading Oct. 28. Toujours Vivant — Not Dead Yet is now focused on trying to mitigate the damage, first by challenging the law in courts and then by lobbying for strict regulations before implementing the law.

But the issue and the debate are not just a Quebec concern.

“It’s absolutely something of concern to the rest of Canada,” she said. “The details of the legislation aren’t that important. The fact is there is a huge push everywhere for this kind of thing.”

People who see the dangers in reclassifying deliberate killing as medical care need to pay more attention to the issue of disability, Hasbrouck said. The anti-euthanasia movement is currently a coalition of religious, right-to-life and disability rights organizations. However, religious arguments gain little traction and abortion-related arguments and organizations are deeply polarizing. Canadians are hearing too little of the disability rights arguments, said Hasbrouck.

“Because of the changing influence of religion in our society today, the arguments related to disability rights and policy arguments are much stronger now and are more effective with the general public than the religious arguments,” she said.

Laws which permit doctors to end the lives of people who are distressed by the prospect of disability will effectively devalue the lives of all disabled people, said Hasbrouck. Arguing for the equal rights of disabled people makes it less possible for pro-euthanasia advocates to portray all those who disagree as hardline ideologues and religious fundamentalists.

Symposia like the Toronto event bringing together all sides of the anti-euthanasia movement are an important opportunity to sharpen arguments against assisted suicide, Hasbrouck said.

“We get isolated in our little bubbles,” she said. “We need to know what messages work and which don’t work.”

Palliative care specialists reject euthanasia in Australia and New Zealand

This article was written by Xavier Simons and published by BioEdge on November 16.

Palliative care is undermined by euthanasia and assisted suicide, according to many palliative care organisations. In Australia, where end-of-life issues are hotly debated, the leading palliative care body has joined the chorus of opposition.

The Australia and New Zealand Society for Palliative Medicine (ANZSPM) has released a new position statement on the practices, arguing that euthanasia and assisted suicide are not a solution to patient suffering, and that legalising the procedures would take attention away from the real issue - a lack of access to palliative care.

In the document the ANZSPM emphasises, "There is a clear distinction between good care for the dying and active interventions instituted in order to deliberately end the life of a patient." Instead of providing VE or PAS, doctors should try to alleviate symptoms: "When requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide arise, particular attention should be given to gaining good symptom control, especially of those symptoms that research has highlighted may commonly be associated with a serious and sustained ‘desire for death’ (e.g. depressive disorders and poorly controlled pain)."

Out of a the ten point policy statement, three points stressed "the significant deficits in the provision of palliative care in Australia and New Zealand". ANZSPM called for new government "health reform programs", as well as increased carer support for respite care, so as "decrease the sense of burden for many patients at the end of life."

Links to similar articles.

Palliative care leaders oppose Quebec euthanasia bill (Bill 52).

Poll: The majority of palliative care doctors oppose assisted suicide.

Canadian society of palliative care physicians oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

New group launched in Europe to oppose euthanasia

The following article was written by Michael Cook,  published by Bioedge on November 16.

Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick

Concern about the steady expansion of the boundaries of euthanasia in Belgium is growing. The Belgian parliament is currently considering whether to extend the right to euthanasia to children and the demented, sparking considerable debate on the issue locally and overseas. One response has been the formation of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - Europe. The director, a Welsh disability activist, Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, says:

“The UK, France and Germany are currently considering legislation, but overwhelming evidence from jurisdictions where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is legal, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, demonstrates beyond doubt, how quickly and easily euthanasia is extended to others, especially disabled people and elderly people. High-profile cases here have provoked international outrage leading commentators to think of Belgium as the new world leader in exploiting euthanasia against those with disabilities and mental health issues.”

Alex Schadenberg @ debate

The group held a press conference at the European Parliament in Brussels followed by a debate between Dr Jan Bernheim, a Belgian oncologist and euthanasia pioneer with Alex Schadenberg, the Chair of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - International.

See the video.

Links to similar articles:

• Belgian euthanasia promoter admits problems with the Belgian euthanasia law.
• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - Europe launches to halt growing threat of state sanctioned euthanasia.

Belgian euthanasia promoter admits that there are problems with euthanasia in Belgium. The author of the Belgium law admits it was designed for people with disabilities.

Alex Schadenberg with
Sari Essayah from Finland

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) Europe was launched on Wednesday November 13 with a press conference in Brussels Belgium at 2:30 pm at the European Parliament followed by a euthanasia debate in the evening between Dr. Jan Bernheim, an oncologist, medical researcher and biomedical consultant and Alex Schadenberg (myself), the executive director and International Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Bernheim is a physician who lobbied for the legalization of euthanasia in Belgium.

The evening event, known as the 'Great Debate,' started with introductions by the sponsoring groups and then a short speech by Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, the director of EPC Europe and a leader of Not Dead Yet UK. The evening continued with the debate and then there was a question and answer session with Dr Jan Bernheim and Professor Etienne Vermeersch (an author of the Belgian euthanasia law) with Carine Brochier (the European Institute of Bioethics) and myself.

Bernheim spoke first in the debate. He explained that euthanasia is necessary to eliminate suffering, and that euthanasia was already occurring in Belgium before it was legal and since euthanasia is legal it is now regulated. He stated that the number of euthanasia deaths did not increase after legalization. 

Bernheim used data in his presentation that was limited to 2002 - 2007 statistics and he did not include any of the more recent data that uncovers abuses of the law.

Bernheim also explained that in Belgium, he was a pioneer in palliative care. He stated that: 

Unlike Dame Cicily Saunders who developed palliative care in the UK to prevent euthanasia, Bernheim said he developed palliative care in Belgium in order to legalize euthanasia.

During the debate I went through the data from the recent Belgian studies indicating that: 32% of the assisted deaths are done without request, that 47% of the assisted deaths are not being reported, and that nurses were euthanizing patients, even though the law specifically states that only doctors can do euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg

I explained that the data proves that assisted deaths that are being done without request, the assisted deaths that are done by nurses and the unreported assisted deaths share a high co-relation with the same demographic group, that being people over the age of 80 and who are incompetent to make decisions for themselves. These people are more likely to die in a hospital and usually had an unpredictable end-of-life trajectory. This vulnerable patient group is at risk of having death imposed on them. Sadly these people are also referred to as bed blockers.

I also spoke about the recent euthanasia cases in Belgium, including: the Belgian twins who died by euthanasia because they feared becoming blind, the woman with Anorexia Nervosa who died by euthanasia after her psychiatrist had sexual relations with her, the depressed woman who died by euthanasia, and the person who died by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation.

All of these euthanasia deaths were done for the reason of psychological suffering, a term which cannot be defined and is being done to an ever expanding group of people. Usually these people are not terminally ill nor physically suffering, who are being abandoned by a system that would rather kill them than provide them with excellent medical care and social support.

I stated that legalizing euthanasia is not safe and that the supposed "safeguards" are often ignored and do not work. 

I then stated that people who do not want euthanasia are not protected by the law, but rather the law protects the doctors who euthanize their patients. There has never been an attempted prosecution for killing a person outside of the parameters of the Belgian euthanasia law.

We then went to the question and answer session.

Bernheim and Vermeersch insisted that the practise of euthanasia has improved since 2002, when euthanasia was legalized in Belgium and they also insisted that similar problems exist in nations where euthanasia is not legal. 

Vermeersch, blaimed the Walloons, the french region of Belgium, for the problems with the euthanasia law, even though all of the studies that I referred to were from the Flanders Region of Belgium and the data shows that the percentage of euthanasia is lower in Wallonia.

Vermeersch suggested that there was not enough euthanasia deaths occurring because Catholic hospitals frowned on euthanasia. A 2011 Belgian study found that only 5% of the requests for euthanasia in Belgium are refused. 

Finally Vermeersch explained that the euthanasia law was specifically designed to allow people with disabilities or chronic conditions to die by euthanasia. When Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, the director of EPC Europe and a leader of Not Dead Yet UK asked him to clarify his statement, he said: 

Just wait until you are paralysed.

As the questions from the audience became more intense, Bernheim then stated:

There are problems with the Belgian euthanasia law. 

He then stated that there is a study that may be published soon where the data shows other problems with the practise of euthanasia in Belgium.

Then Bernheim, once again, insisted that these same problems occur in nations where euthanasia is prohibited. 

I stated that there are problems in Canada, but doctors do not have access to Barbituates to kill their patients, meaning that we are not comparing apples to apples. 

I also stated that in Canada, if a complaint were filed about a doctor who intentionally kills a patient, that the doctor could be prosecuted with homicide, which is a very serious crime, whereas in Belgium where many euthanasia deaths are done outside of the law, that there has never been an attempted prosecution.

Carine Brochier thanked Bernheim for admitting that the Belgian euthanasia law is abused. She pointed out that the recent 10 year report on the practise of euthanasia and a recent book on the Belgian euthanasia law has received significant attention outside of Belgium but no attention in Belgium.

Bernheim and the euthanasia lobby ignore that euthanasia is the direct and intentional killing of a person. Abuses of the euthanasia law amount to intentional killings, acts that are defined as homicide or manslaughter in nearly every jurisdiction in the world.

It is nice that Bernheim admitted that there are problems with the practise of euthanasia in Belgium but that is cold comfort to people who are dead.

Laws that prohibit euthanasia and assisted suicide are designed to protect people.

The press conference in the afternoon was also a great success. 

The event opened with comments from David Fieldsend, the manager of CARE for Europe, he was followed by Sari Essayah, a member of the European Parliament from Finland who also sponsored the event. I then followed Sari by explaining the how important it is that EPC - Europe is being launched to oppose the legalization of euthanasia in Europe and to push back where euthanasia has already become legal.

The feature of the press conference was Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, the director of EPC Europe. Fitzpatrick explained how euthanasia was a form of discrimination for people with disabilities and other vulnerable people. He also spoke about how euthanasia is being falsely promoted as a form of personal autonomy.

Dr Fitzpatrick made it very clear that euthanasia is not safe and that judgments that determine that a person's life is not worth living are particularly dangerous for people who have already been socially devalued in society.

Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick

Dr Fitzpatrick concluded, 

‘EPC-Europe brings people from a wide variety of backgrounds together to oppose the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide, promote the best care and support for vulnerable people and to help people to find meaning, purpose and hope in the face of suffering and despair.  We invite others who share our concerns to join us and work alongside us.’

On November 14th I was interviewed by a German TV station.

I would like to thank the many people who organized the press conference and the "Great Debate" on November 13th in Brussels. Several people who attended the debate stated that they never hear about what is really happening with euthanasia in Belgium. Some of those who attended the "Great Debate" stated to me afterwards that they now understand why legalizing euthanasia is not safe. It was a great success and is an incredible beginning for EPC Europe.

Link to a youtube video on the EPC-Europe launch and debate.

Links to similar articles:

• EPC Europe launches ahead of Scottish assisted suicide bill.
• EPC Europe launches to halt 'growing threat' of state sanctioned euthanasia.
• Euthanasia deaths increase by 25% in 2012 in Belgium.

Imagine the pain of knowing you are being dehydrated to death.

This article was written by Wesley Smith and published on his blog on November 12, 2013.

Wesley Smith

We dehydrate to death helpless people to death in this country because they have a catastrophic cognitive impairment. Advocates for dehydration say it is just medical ethics, the withdrawal of the medical treatment of tube feeding. (Now, there is even a lawsuit to compel starvation by withholding spoon feeding–not a medical treatment!)

Dehydrating helpless people to death was once unthinkable. Then, in the 80s, bioethicists began advocating withdrawing tube-supplied food and fluids. And so it came to pass.

Advocates for dehydration started by claiming it should be reserved strictly for those who are unconscious. They have, of course, broadened the dehydration caste since. But recent scientific studies have now also shown that many supposedly unconscious patients aren’t unaware at all.

And now we learn some are paying attention to their surroundings!  From the Cambridge University report:

A patient in a seemingly vegetative state, unable to move or speak, showed signs of attentive awareness that had not been detected before, a new study reveals. This patient was able to focus on words signalled by the experimenters as auditory targets as successfully as healthy individuals. If this ability can be developed consistently in certain patients who are vegetative, it could open the door to specialised devices in the future and enable them to interact with the outside world.

And get this:

These findings suggest that some patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state might in fact be able to direct attention to the sounds in the world around them.

If this is true of other patients, imagine the horror of hearing doctors and family discussing removing your food and water. Imagine the pain of the actual event!

Actually, we know what that is like. Kate Adamson, thought mistakenly to be unconscious after a brain stem stroke, underwent abdominal surgery with inadequate anesthesia. She was then left unfed (but hydrated via drip) during the healing process–and it was more painful than the sensation of being cut open!

I wrote about this during the Terri Schiavo fiasco. From my piece, “A Painless Death?”

In preparation for this article, I contacted Adamson for more details about the torture she experienced while being dehydrated. She told me about having been operated upon (to remove the bowel obstruction) with inadequate anesthesia when doctors believed she was unconscious: 

“The agony of going without food was a constant pain that lasted not several hours like my operation did, but several days. You have to endure the physical pain and on top of that you have to endure the emotional pain. Your whole body cries out, “Feed me. I am alive and a person, don’t let me die, for God’s Sake! Somebody feed me.” 

Unbelievably, she described being deprived of food and water as “far worse” than experiencing the pain of abdominal surgery. Despite having been on an on an IV saline solution, Adamson still had horrible thirst: 

“I craved anything to drink. Anything. I obsessively visualized drinking from a huge bottle of orange Gatorade. And I hate orange Gatorade. I did receive lemon flavored mouth swabs to alleviate dryness but they did nothing to slack my desperate thirst.”

By the way, the take away from all this? Many will say these patients are suffering by knowing of their condition, justifying doctors to lethally inject, anesthetize and dehydrate, or kill by harvesting their organs. Indeed, some bioethicists already have.

P.S: If someone you love is thought to be unconscious, assume they can still hear you. Stories of “unconscious” people recalling all that went on around them are ubiquitous.

British Medical Association (BMA) rejects Scottish assisted suicide bill

By Alex Schadenberg

The Pulse news service reported today that the British Medical Association (BMA) stated that it will oppose the euthanasia bill that is being sponsored by MSP Margo MacDonald in Scotland.

The Pulse reported that Dr Lewis Morrison, chair of the Scottish BMA consultants committee said:

‘Despite the change in approach to this, Ms MacDonald’s most recent attempt to legislate on assisted dying in Scotland, the BMA will continue to oppose the introduction of such a law.’

The BMA was quoted by the Pulse as stating:

The BMA said that doctors would be taking on a role that was ‘alien’ to their role as a care giver and that it could not support it. 

The bill was brought by MSP Margo MacDonald - an independent member for the Lothian region - in Edinburgh today and would extend to patients who had been diagnosed with chronic, degenerative diseases. 

The bill is a revision of one defeated in 2010, it drops the contentious element of physician-assisted dying and stipulates the ‘cause of death must be the person’s own deliberate act’.

Dr Morrison was also quoted as stating:

‘If doctors are authorised, by law, to kill or help kill they are taking on an additional role which we believe is alien to the one of care giver and healer. The traditional doctor-patient relationship is founded on trust and this risks being impaired if the doctor’s role encompasses any form of intentional killing.’

Margo MacDonald's last attempt to legalize assisted dying in Scotland was defeated by a vote of 85 to 16.

Links to similar articles.

EPC Europe is launched ahead of Scotland euthanasia bill.

Dr Stephen Hutchison: Assisted Suicide is not safe.

MacDonald proposes new bill to legalize assisted suicide in Scotland.