France: Vincent Lambert to die by dehydration (euthanasia).

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Vincent & Viviane Lambert

On April 12, Figero news reported that Viviane Lambert announced that she was told on April 9, that her son Vincent Lambert, would have his fluids and food withdrawn and die a slow and agonizing death by dehydration, also known as euthanasia by dehydration.

Vincent Lambert was cognitively disabled in a motorcycle accident injury in 2008. His wife unsuccessfully petitioned the court to have all treatment and care ceased including food and water in 2015. His parents urged that their son be transferred to a rehabilitation center.

In the Figero news report Viviane Lambert stated (google translated):

My son was sentenced to death. His name is Vincent Lambert, he is the father of a little girl, he lives, and has committed no crime. And yet, this Monday, April 9, 2018, in France, a doctor told me that in ten days my son would begin the slow and long agony of dying of hunger and thirst. 

...Mr. President: my son did not deserve to be hungry and dehydrated. Who would dare, in this respect, to speak of "dying with dignity"? Why impose this sentence?

To intentionally kill a person by withdrawing fluids, when the person is not otherwise dying is euthanasia by dehydration since the person is directly and intentionally killed by dehydration.

• Link to previous articles about the Vincent Lambert case.
• We remember Terri Schiavo.

US nurse charged with murder. Assisted suicide laws will not protect people from medical killers.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

George Davis

The assisted suicide lobby argues that legalizing assisted suicide will prevent "underground" killing. They suggest that legalizing and regulating assisted suicide will protect people from illegal acts. 

Today we are hearing the shocking news of a former Texas nurse, George Davis, who has been charged in the murders of two people and causing significant injury to at least 3 others. According to KSLA news:

The affidavit describes seven incidents involving patients at the Peaches and Louis Owen Heart Hospital at CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances, five of whom suffered significant injuries and two who are deceased. 

The document names one person who died, Christopher Greenaway, 47, and family members confirm that the second person who died is Perry Frank, age 61, of Grapeland. Frank died on June 22, 2017. He was the band director at Grapeland High School. 

Two others who were left with severe injuries, Joseph Kalina, 58, and Pamela Henderson, 63. It also lists several unnamed patients - a 58-year-old man, a 54-year-old man and a 56-year-old man.

Will assisted suicide laws protect people from medical killers?

In February 2018, Ivo Poppe, a former nurse and Catholic deacon was sentenced to 27 years after being convicted of killing at least 5 people, including his mother, but he indicated that he may have killing at least 20.peoplw

Poppe was arrested in early 2014 after he confided to a psychiatrist that he had "euthanised dozens of people." According to news reports Poppe allegedly killed his first victim in 1978 and his last alleged victim may have been his own mother who died in 2011. Most of the deaths connected to Poppe were done while euthanasia was legal in Belgium.

The Poppe case is similar to the Wetlaufer case in Canada because her crimes remained unknown until she told her psychiatrist that she had killed patients.

There is also Niels Högel's, the German nurse who was convicted of killing 2 patients between 2000 - 2005, and suspected in the deaths of at least 102 people. In December 2016, an Italian emergency room anaesthetist Leonardo Cazzaniga, and nurse Laura Taroni, were arrested in the deaths of at least five patients but prosecutors were examining the medical files of more than 50.

Poppe is not the only medical professional who kills patients in Belgium. 

A study published in the NEJM on March 19, 2015 on the experience with assisted death in Flanders Belgium found that 1.7% of all deaths in the Flanders Belgium, in 2013, were intentionally hastened without explicit request. Based on the data, more than 1000 people were killed in Flanders in 2013 without request.

The Associated Press interviewed Belgian ethicist Freddy Mortier who stated:

Mortier was not happy, however, that the 'hastening of death without explicit request from patients,' which can happen when a patient slumbers into unconsciousness or has lost the capacity for rational judgment, stood at 1.7 percent of cases in 2013. In the Netherlands, that figure was 0.2 percent.

The number of assisted deaths without request are lower in the Netherlands than Belgium, but for Magreet, who is featured in the Fatal Flaws film explaining how her mother died by euthanasia without request in the Netherlands, a few deaths are too many.

Why does this occur?

Euthanasia and assisted suicide laws are designed to cover-up abuse of the law. Laws permitting assisted death require the doctor, who completes the act, to also report the act. These laws are based on a self-reporting system. None of these laws require a third party pre-death assessment or independent oversight of the law. Based on the data from Belgium and the Netherlands, we can conclude that doctors do not self-report abuse of the law.

Further to that, studies indicate that as many as 23% of the assisted deaths are not reported in the Netherlands and 40% of the assisted deaths not reported in Belgium.

Legalizing euthanasia and or assisted suicide does not prevent medical murders or even "underground" killing but rather they give physicians, the right in law, to kill. A right that most physicians do not want to have.

The Opioid Crisis and Suicide

This article was written by Nancy Valko and published on her blog on April 10, 2018

Nancy Valko

By Nancy Valko

Statistics show that more than 115 Americans a day die after overdosing on opioids. Opioids are a class of drugs that include both illegal drugs like heroin and legal prescription pain relievers such as codeine and morphine.

We are told that we have an opioid crisis that needs immediate solutions such as suing drug manufacturers, spending more on drug treatment centers, making drugs like Narcan more available to reverse the overdose if given in time, prescribing few-in any-opioids after surgery, adding more drug education in schools, etc.

Some of these ideas are worthy but are we missing a big existential part of the problem?

In a recent Kaiser Health News article asking “How Many Opioid Overdoses are Suicides?”, reporter Martha Bebinger relates a heartbreaking interview with a young drug addict:

“She wanted to be dead, she said, glancing down, a wisp of straight brown hair slipping from behind an ear across her thin face. 

At that point, said Ohlman, she’d been addicted to opioids — controlled by the drugs — for more than three years. 

“And doing all these things you don’t want to do that are horrible — you know, selling my body, stealing from my mom, sleeping in my car,” Ohlman said. “How could I not be suicidal?… “You realize getting clean would be a lot of work,” Ohlman said, her voice rising. “And you realize dying would be a lot less painful. You also feel like you’ll be doing everyone else a favor if you die.”” (Emphasis added)

Having had a daughter with drug addiction and relapses for 16 years who finally succumbed to suicide in 2009 using a horrific assisted suicide technique, I recognize the same pain this young woman expresses. I also know the frustration and fears of families and friends desperate to help.

The Kaiser article goes on to quote Dr. Maria Oquendo, immediate past president of the American Psychiatric Association, who said that “[Based on the literature that’s available], it looks like it’s anywhere between 25 and 45 percent of deaths by overdose that may be actual suicides,” *(Emphasis added).

The article also quotes a pair of distinguished economists who say that “opioid overdoses, suicides and diseases related to alcoholism are all often ‘deaths of despair’” caused by “underlying deep malaise”. (Emphasis added)

We have both a suicide and a drug crisis that often overlap due to an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness.

Examining the scope of the problem.

As psychiatrist Dr. Oquendo notes in a related article, US suicide rates were declining until they “abruptly stopped in 1999” and now have increased 25%, especially among adolescent girls.

Now, there are about 123 reported suicides per day in the US but the real figure may be as high as 3 to 5 times that number because many suicides go unreported as suicide because of reasons like the stigma of suicide and the difficulty in determining intent.

Additionally, nearly half of US adults have a close friend or family member with a current or past drug addiction.

We have more drug treatment centers and suicide prevention programs than ever (with unfortunately varying levels of quality and allowed family involvement) but the problems continue to persist and even worsen.

Conclusion

What has happened in the US since suicide rates started rising two decades ago and drug abuse has surged?

First, we must recognize that American culture, law and politics changed radically in the last two decades and this has drastically affected all of us, especially our young people. For example, the legalization and glamorization of assisted suicide and mind altering drugs like recreational marijuana have not helped anyone want to embrace personal responsibility and caring for others as worthy goals.

We also now have a culture where religious values are often derided as judgmental and even harmful to social progress. Obscene language and violent, hypersexualized entertainment is applauded as liberating rather than offensive. Having children is portrayed as more of a potential economic, professional and personal burden rather than a joyful manifestation of love, commitment and family.

We owe our society and especially our young people a more hopeful, less selfish view of life rather than just the pursuit of money, fame and pleasure.

Without a strong foundation of love, strong ethics and ideals, the resilience required to weather both the ups and downs of life without drugs or succumbing to suicide can be lost.

As much as we need good, affordable suicide and drug treatment programs, we adults also need to be examples of a truly “good life” and step up to fight the dangerous influences that are killing our young people.

And we must never give up!

Mary Kills People is a dangerous and irresponsible show that should be terminated.

Nancy Elliott

By Nancy Elliott

Chair – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - USA

A recent article written by Lindsay Kornick, entitled “Euthanasia Drama Claims Death Can ‘Be a party’” gets it right. It seems that the series “Mary Kills People” is at it again. As she and her accomplice go around killing people, they try to candy coat it for their victims. The latest one is a sick man that instead of encouraging him to fight his disease, she tells him death is a party. First everyone knows that you do not encourage a suicidal person. Second as a doctor she should know that a person fighting a disease needs encouragement and not a kick to the pavement. Additionally, Mary acknowledges that the treatment is working. This is one of the main reasons that legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia is so detrimental to the health care of us all. Once doctors start killing their patients as a treatment for disease they no longer will work to cure people. This time is valuable to the individual. Yet Mary and those who subscribe to her thinking are OK with pushing people under the bus.

• Mary Kills People promotes euthanasia.

Let’s go back to the flippant comment used to push her death agenda, Death can be a Party. This is not an original thought. The pro death groups have been having death parties for some time. I heard of one in Oregon, where the friends and family of the soon to be departed, gathered to urge him on. The alcohol flowed making it hard for the victim to back down. There was another one where a woman allegedly danced all night at her death party and then encouraged by those around her took the poison, and let’s not forget the California woman who had the full weekend death party ending with someone helping her drink the poison. These are stories that are used to glamorize death by suicide. But is it really glamorous to commit suicide. No it is not. 

Jeanette Hall

The targets for assisted suicide and euthanasia are the sick, elderly and people with disabilities. It is a discriminatory policy that has a special carve out to kill certain people that society thinks are less important. And just like the man that was winning with his chemotherapy, they are not necessarily dying. In Oregon, a young otherwise healthy diabetic qualifies for legal assisted suicide if he refuses insulin. How many others people who are on meds become terminal if they cease their medication and what about all the treatable cancers and other diseases. People could be throwing away years and even decades. Jeanette Hall in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to a year to live. She wanted to use the act to have her life ended. Her doctor talked her into treatment instead and she was cured. Now 17 years later she is happy to be alive.

Doctors who kill their patients instead of treating them, encouraging them and showing them true compassion when they are in need, are lazy, incompetent, murderers, lacking in human empathy or compassion and deserve jail time. I would not want to go to a doctor who ends their patients life as I would not think my life is safe in their hands. And what about Hollywood and more of their usual garbage glamorizing doctors that kill their patients, they are no better than the Nazi’s in Germany who produced films to soften the public to accept euthanasia, and we all know how well that turned out. 

Mary Kills People is a dangerous and irresponsible show that should be terminated.

Nancy Elliott
Chair – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - USA

Assisted suicide push gains little ground in state legislatures

Alex Schadenberg

This article was published by OneNewsNow on April 5, 2018.

Supporters of assisted suicide are having little luck this year in convincing lawmakers to pass bills to legalize helping others die.

Bills failed in 26 states in 2017 and this year they have been introduced in 25 states.

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says so far Connecticut, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and New Hampshire have said no to the assisted suicide lobby.

"Utah actually passed a bill this year which criminalizes assisted suicide," he notes. "So opponents are leading in the effort to educate the public and lawmakers on the dangers of doctors helping people take their lives."

But the "success rate" for defeating pro-killing bills is not a complete victory this year, he adds, pointing out that Hawaii has passed an assisted suicide bill.

"Nonetheless," Schadenberg says, "the other side will want you to think that it's this massive victory in the U.S. in 2018."

Rhode Island assisted suicide bill will create the perfect crime.

Margaret Dore

Contact: Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA, President (206) 697-1217

Providence, RI -- Attorney Margaret Dore, president of Choice is an Illusion, which has fought assisted suicide legalization efforts in many states, including Rhode Island, made the following statement in connection with the hearing on bill H 7297 seeking to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia in that state.

"There is a bill pending before the Rhode Island House of Representatives, which seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia as those terms are traditionally defined," said Dore. “The bill seeks to legalize these practices for people with years, even decades, to live.”

“The bill is sold as assuring patient choice and control. But when you look at what the bill actually says and does, the bill is a recipe for elder abuse.” Dore explained, "The patient's heir, who will financially benefit from the patient’s death, is allowed to actively participate in signing the patient up for the lethal dose. After that, no doctor, not even a witness, is required to be present at the death. If the patient objected or even struggled, who would know? The bill will create the perfect crime.”

"Other states are pushing back against assisted suicide,” said Dore. “This year, Utah passed a bill clarifying that assisted suicide is a crime. Last year, Alabama passed a bill banning assisted suicide. Two years ago, the New Mexico Supreme Court overturned assisted suicide: Physician-assisted suicide is no longer legal in New Mexico.”

“The Rhode Island bill seeks to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia for people who are ‘terminal,’ which is defined as a doctor’s prediction of less than six months to live.“ Dore added, “In real life, such persons can have years, even decades, to live.”

“Doctors can be wrong about life expectancy, sometimes way wrong." Dore explained, "This is due to actual mistakes and the fact that predicting life expectancy is not an exact science. A few years ago, I was met at the airport by a man who at age 18 had been diagnosed with ALS and given 3 to 5 years to live, at which time he was predicted to die by paralysis. His diagnosis had been confirmed by the Mayo Clinic. When he met me at the airport, he was 74 years old. The disease progression had stopped on its own.”

“If the Rhode Island bill becomes law, there will be new lethal paths of elder abuse, which will be legally sanctioned,” said Dore. “People with years, even decades to live, will be encouraged to throw away their lives or have their lives thrown away for them. Even if you like the concept of assisted suicide and suicide and euthanasia, the proposed bill has it all wrong.”

For more information:

1. Margaret Dore, Legal/Policy Analysis of H 7297, Rhode Island House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare, memo available here: Attachments available here: 

2. Margaret K. Dore, “Death with Dignity’: What Do We Advise Our Clients?,” King County Bar Association, Bar Bulletin, May 2009,  (available here).

Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation working against assisted suicide and euthanasia, worldwide

www.choiceillusion.org
1001 4th Avenue, Suite 4400
Seattle WA USA 98154

Nancy Elliott: People who qualify for Assisted Suicide are not necessarily dying.

The following testimony was submitted by Nancy Elliott Chair, EPC-USA to each Rhode Island committee member and the committee clerk on behalf of EPC USA.

Dear Health, Welfare and Human Services Committee Member,

Nancy Elliott

Please reject H7297. Proponents say that this is about autonomy and choice. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are no safeguards that ensure that the choice is yours and not someone else's. As a matter of fact all the “so called” safeguards can be gone around. Proponents claim there is no “slippery slope” yet we see as soon as something is passed they go in to expand their death policies. Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, just passed legislation that will allow for the starvation and dehydration of incompetent people. Belgium’s law has expanded to euthanize children, those who are incompetent and people who are not dying at all. And Canada who recently passed it is has already expanded it to prisoners.

I would like to point out a few of the people who will be hurt. Three groups that are the target for Assisted Suicide are the sick, the elderly and the disabled. While there are many other problems with this kind of law, I want to focus in on them.

It is said this is only for the sick and dying. One of the biggest problems is people who qualify for Assisted Suicide are not necessarily dying. Think of a 21-year-old otherwise healthy insulin dependent diabetic. He qualifies if he rejects his insulin. This would be the same for many other people with serious conditions, who take prescription medications. What about all the curable cancers? They qualify. What about incorrect medical diagnosis? With Assisted Suicide on the table these mistakes can be deadly.

I was at an oral submission on Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts a few years back when a gentleman named John Norton gave evidence, that as a young man he was diagnosed with ALS. He stated that had Assisted Suicide been legal at that time he would have used it. A few years in, the disease’s progression just stopped. Now in his late 70’s he stated he has had a great life with children and a grandchild. With Assisted Suicide on the table he would have lost all of that.

Steering is a big deal with all three of the groups that I mentioned. At that same Massachusetts proceeding, a doctor stated that Assisted Suicide laws were something he was in favor of. He continued with his points and ended by saying that He felt it was the responsibility for a good doctor “to guide people to make the right choice”. I do not think he intended to say that, but is there any doubt that this pro suicide doctor would try to persuade his patients to follow his wishes concerning their Assisted Suicide.

These laws are abusive in their very nature. To suggest to someone that they should kill themselves is abuse. My husband was terminally ill and I went to a lot of doctor appointments with him. If medical personnel were to suggest Assisted Suicide to him, he would have been devastated. While he never would have done that, it would be like saying to him, “You are worthless and should die. That is abuse! The proponents say that would never happen, but that did happen to an Oregon woman named Kathryn Judson. She had gone to a doctor’s appointment with her seriously ill husband and exhaustedly sunk into a chair where she overheard the doctor pitching Assisted Suicide to her husband with the clincher, “Think of your wife.” They left and never came back. The husband went on to live another five years.

Next seniors are at risk and very easily fall victim to coercion as the process is very open to that. In most states, heirs can be there for the request and even speak. Anyone can pick up the lethal dose. Once in the house all oversight is gone, there is no witness required at the death. Even if they struggled who would know. If that is not enough, the death certificate is falsified to reflect a natural death. All the information is sealed and unavailable to the public. Even if someone suspected foul play, the death certificate says no crime here. Taking advantage of seniors is epidemic in the States. Look at the case of Thomas Middleton. He made Tami Sawyer his trustee and moved into her home. Within a month he was dead by Oregon’s Assisted Suicide law. Two day after his death Ms. Sawyer listed his house and sold it and deposited the money into three companies she owned with her husband. We will never know if or how much coercion or foul play took place in this case.

Finally those with a disability are at risk. Most people that “qualify” for Assisted Suicide at that point in their life have a disability. Many with long term disabilities have been labeled terminal all their lives. Without meds, treatments, and assistance they would not survive. This is about disability. If you have a disability you are encouraged to give up, commit suicide. If, on the other hand, you are young and healthy, you are given suicide counseling. This is discrimination against people with disabilities. Why should they trust that they will not be coerced into Assisted Suicide, when they are already discouraged to seek treatments and are not treated fairly? When you think about it this is a law that is written just for them. It is a “special” carve out, for the sick, elderly and disabled.

In closing, I just want to add that Assisted Suicide has been rejected in over 100 legislative, ballot initiative and judicial attempts in the USA, including my state New Hampshire. The more it is studied the more uncomfortable people become with it.

Nancy Elliott 
Former three term NH State Representative 
Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - USA

Euthanasia opponents and disability rights activists take concern to Members of Parliament

By Deborah Gyapong and published by the Catholic Register on April 3.

Alex & Susan Schadenberg with
Taylor Hyatt and Bev Shipley (MP) 

Euthanasia opponents and disability rights activists are uneasy about a process to liberalize Canada’s euthanasia law — a law which they say still lacks regulations and proper safeguards.

“I’m very concerned about the direction of things,” said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Schadenberg and Taylor Hyatt, policy analyst and outreach co-ordinator for the disability rights group Not Dead Yet, spent two days during the last week of March visiting about a half dozen Members of Parliament to outline their issues with the laws governing assisted suicide, which has been legal in Canada since June 2016.

“One thing I especially wanted to bring up was the many holes in assisted suicide monitoring,” said Hyatt. “I hope we can bring a disability rights analysis into this and see that in the quest to pursue death so quickly, so many questions are being left untouched.”

Hyatt pointed out that in 2016 Health Canada asked the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), an independent private research organization, to examine the possible expansion of Canada’s so-called Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) law to include mature minors, allow advanced directives for those with a dementia diagnosis, and allow MAiD for those with psychological suffering without the necessity of death being reasonably foreseeable.

“We’re talking about the direction of the Council of Canadian Academies,” said Schadenberg. “We’re concerned about where it’s going.”

While the CCA has solicited input, its process is “completely closed,” said Hyatt, whose group did make a submission to the CCA.

CCA set up an “Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying” and, according to its website, it will “not be making policy or other recommendations. It also will not be recommending changes to the current legislation or seeking views and opinions on the topic of MAiD more generally.”

The CCA set up three panels to study each area of possible expansion of assisted suicide. Each panel is preparing drafts of its findings for final meetings in November. The CCA will submit its reports to the government by the end of 2018.

“We have no idea of how the government plans to move on it, whether immediately or not,” said Schadenberg. “This leaves people outside of the Prime Minister’s Office having no idea of what they’re going to do.”

Schadenberg pointed out the federal government is funding this process, but its experts examining the questions have “a separation from Members of Parliament.” The fact they are separate “makes it hard to lobby them.”

The pair also informed MPs about the research Hyatt has done on the draft guidelines for assisted suicide across Canada.

“There’s enough holes in these guidelines that you can drive a hearse through them,” said Schadenberg.

Hyatt and Not Dead Yet’s executive director Amy Hasbrouck sent a nearly 30-page study of the guidelines to Health Canada last year.

Among the criticisms is the “lack of demographic information on the people who are seeking death,” said Hyatt. “It’s the name, the address, basic things, but no information on what accessibility needs are going unmet in their lives.”

Questions such as where they are living, whether they are homeless or in a long-term home, or if there are “any other issues where their circumstances are pressuring them to end their lives, are going unnoticed,” she said.

Hasbrouck had also done an analysis of euthanasia in Quebec and it “shows you that already the safeguards that are in place are being broken or being violated,” Hyatt said.

Another concern about the guidelines or regulations is they “base everything” on a “good faith” analysis, which is “the lowest possible standard,” said Schadenberg. “When I’m dead by lethal injection, therefore, and there might be some questions about the decision about my death, the only question to the physician then is, ‘Was this done in good faith?’”

Joint Euthanasia of Canadian Elderly Couple

This article was published by National Review online on April 3, 2018.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith

Canada is fast becoming the Niagara Falls of euthanasia, rushing to join the “infamous three” — the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium — by now permitting the joint euthanasia of elderly couples.

A Globe and Mail reporter interviewed the couple before they were put down, and the family was well aware of their plans. There were apparently no efforts at suicide prevention.

The first time the couple asked to be killed, their doctor — a pro-euthanasia advocate — approved both their deaths. But the second-opinion MD refused to certify because the husband did not have a diagnosed condition. So, the couple carried on for another year.

The next time they asked for joint euthanasia, the first doctor made sure that the required second opinion was made by a different doctor. From the Globe and Mail story:

The doctor who first assessed Mr. Brickenden for his eligibility in January, 2017 – the same doctor who would ultimately inject the lethal medications on the evening of his death – said that kind of stoicism and the fact that Mr. Brickenden still looked good at the time of his appointment may have played a role in his being turned down for an assisted death the first time. 

More than a year later, after Mr. Brickenden’s fainting and heart problems surfaced, a different, second doctor assessed Mr. Brickenden and found him eligible.

I’ll bet the second doctor is known as pro-euthanasia too. Death-doctor shopping. If one MD won’t give you death, just find a different doctor who will. This happens in the U.S. too.

There was a time when the joint suicides of elderly people — technically, these were homicides — were deemed to be tragic, and families wracked their hearts wondering what could have been done to save them.

No longer. This joint killing was celebrated and romanticized with a going away party held by the family and supported by the local Anglican dean:

Two nights before their death, the Brickendens went out for one last date at Opus, their favourite restaurant in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood. 

The next night, they bid farewell to more than 20 members of their immediate family at a bon voyage dinner at their daughter Pamela’s apartment. 

The evening of their deaths was more intimate, Pamela, Angela and Saxe told me two days later. “It couldn’t have been a better way to go. Totally peaceful,” Angela said. “It allowed them to bow out gracefully together, as they lived.” 

Present were Pamela, Saxe and Angela, their spouses, the two doctors and Andrew Asbil, the Dean of Toronto’s St. James Cathedral, who later told me he had “without hesitation” supported the couple’s wish for their funeral to be held at the Anglican church.

This is how the culture of death is normalized.

I have no reason to doubt this family loved their folks and think they were doing right by them. That’s part of the problem with euthanasia!

But anyone who doesn’t think that elderly euthanasia could also be coerced or arise out of fears of abandonment, doesn’t understand human nature or our elder-abuse crisis.

For those with eyes to see, let them see.

‘Medical Conscience’ has become a controversy

This article was published by National Review online on April 2, 2018.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith

Should doctors and nurses be forced to participate in interventions they find morally abhorrent or unwarranted? As one example, should ethical rules require pediatricians to medically inhibit normal puberty as demanded by parents to “treat” their child’s gender dysphoria — even if they are morally opposed to the concept and/or the supposed treatment?

Some say yes. Thus, influential bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel argues that medical professionals are obligated to accede to the patient’s right to receive legal interventions if they are generally accepted within the medical community — specifically including abortion. Emanuel stated doctors who are morally or religiously opposed, should do the procedure anyway or procure a doctor they know will accede to the patient’s demands. Either that, or get out of medicine.

• Ontario court decision forces doctors to refer patients to death.

Supporters of “medical conscience” argue that forcing doctors to participate in interventions they find morally abhorrent would be involuntary medical servitude. They want to strengthen existing laws that protect doctors, nurses, and pharmacists’ who refuse participation in legal interventions to which they are morally or religiously opposed.

• Wisconsin prescribe or refer: Proponents of assisted suicide show their true nature.

Now, medical conscience looks to become another battlefront in our bitter partisan divide. After the Trump administration announced rules that will place greater emphasis on enforcing federal laws protecting medical conscience, Democratic state attorneys general promised to seek a court order invalidating the new rule. From the New York Law Journal story:

But 19 state attorneys general, led by New York’s Eric Schneiderman, argue that it is the patients who will be discriminated against under the proposed rule. This is particularly true, they argue, in the cases of marginalized patients who already face discrimination in trying to obtain health care, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients and male patients seeking HIV/AIDS preventative medications, according to the comments filed in opposition to the rule. 

“If adopted, the proposed rule … will needlessly and carelessly upset the balance that has long been struck in federal and state law to protect the religious freedom of providers, the business needs of employers, and the health care needs of patients,” they state.

The stakes can only increase as moral controversies in health care intensify in coming years. As just two examples, some bioethicists are lobbying to enact laws that would give dementia patients the right to sign an advance directive requiring nursing homes to starve them to death once they reach a specified level of cognitive decline. There are also increasing calls to do away with the dead-donor rule in transplant medicine so that PVS patients can be organ-harvested while still alive.

If these acts become legal, should doctor and nurses who practice in these fields be forced to participate? If Emanuel’s opinion prevails, the answer could be yes. If medical professionals are protected by medical conscience legal protections, the answer would be no.

Medical conscience is not just important to personally affected professionals. All of us have a stake. Think about the potential talent drain we could face if we force health-care professionals to violate their moral beliefs. Experienced doctors and nurses might well take Emanuel’s advice and get out of medicine — while talented young people who could add so much to the field may avoid entering health-care professions altogether.

Comity is essential to societal cohesion in our moral polyglot age. Medical conscience allows patients to obtain morally contentious procedures, while permitting dissenting medical professionals to stay true to their own moral and religious beliefs. I hope the Democrats’ lawsuits are thrown out of court.

Washington state 2017 assisted suicide report warns of complications.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The 2017 Washington State assisted suicide report indicated that there were 

• 212 lethal prescriptions dispensed
• 164 reported assisted suicide deaths, 
• 19 known natural deaths, 
• 13 unknown deaths and 
• 16 where the death status was pending. 

The 13 unknown deaths could have been assisted suicide deaths. There were 242 reported assisted suicide deaths in Washington State in 2016.  Washington State 2016 assisted suicide report.

The lower number of assisted suicide deaths in 2017 was likely based on the availability and side-effects of the lethal drugs. 

The new assisted suicide drug cocktails that were developed to lower the cost, are known to cause negative side-effects. An article published in the Seattle Times stated:

The first Seconal alternative turned out to be too harsh, burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain. The second drug mix, used 67 times, has led to deaths that stretched out hours in some patients — and up to 31 hours in one case.

The 2017 assisted suicide report stated that at least one person died 35 hours after ingestion. So much for assisted suicide being quick and painless.

The main reasons people requested assisted suicide in Washington State was:

• 90% Loss of Autonomy,
• 87% Less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable,
• 73% Loss of Dignity,
• 56% Loss of bodily function.

Pain is not the main reason people ask for assisted suicide but the new assisted suicide drugs should make fear of a painful death a key reason to oppose assisted suicide.

We remember Terri Schiavo

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Terri with her mother.

Thirteen years ago, today, Terri Schiavo died of euthanasia by dehydration (slow euthanasia). Terri was not terminally ill, she only needed basic care, fluids, food and love to live. Her family wanted to provide her that care but her husband wanted her to die.

We remember Terri. Terri was directly and intentionally dehydrated to death. 

We will never forgot. 

Link to Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network.

• The cruelty of Terri Schiavo's death.
• Persistently unconscious patient (15 years) awakened.
• Texas bill is model legislation to prevent death by dehydration.
• Great news: Appeal dismissed in BC normal feeding case.
• Killing the vulnerable by dehydration.

Opposition to assisted suicide is strong in the US.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In 2017, there were 26 states that were challenged by assisted suicide campaigns and all 26 states rejected it. This year 25 states have had assisted suicide bills in their legislatures and as of now, only Hawaii has passed the bill. Yet the theme that the media is portraying is that the assisted suicide lobby is gaining momentum, yet in reality the opposite remains true.

But there is more to the story. Richard Doerflinger, with the Lozier Institute recently examined the assisted suicide data in the US. Doerflinger explains how assisted suicide bills have been overwhelmingly defeated but also 10 states have added or strengthened laws preventing assisted suicide since 1997. Doerflinger commented:

This map shows the 42 states that ban assisted suicide without exception -- ten of which passed new laws against it SINCE Oregon's law took effect in 1997. Three of these states passed new laws in the last year -- Alabama and Utah passed new bans, and Ohio added criminal penalties to its 2003 law allowing for civil penalties. Another 32 states have retained their older statutes or common law bans despite the assisted suicide movement's repeated attempts against those policies. Meanwhile, four states (and DC) have acted to follow Oregon's lead in the last 20 years. So which side is widely portrayed in the press as having big momentum?

Similar data was published by Lozier last year with research by Dr Jacqueline Abernathy.

In the past few months, assisted suicide has been defeated in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, while the South Dakota voter initiative failed to get the needed signatures and more importantly  Utah passed a bill criminalizing assisted suicide.

What has changed is the fact that the assisted suicide lobby is now working to expand assisted suicide laws. The Connecticut assisted suicide bill also legalized euthanasia. In Wisconsin and Massachusetts the assisted suicide bills require physicians to "do or refer", while the Delaware assisted suicide bill specifically approved people with disabilities.

Fabian Stahle, a researcher in Sweden, learned that the definition of "terminal disease" used by the Oregon Health Authority was wider than the regular definition of terminal disease and he confirmed that people who are chronically ill can be approved for assisted suicide in Oregon, even if they do not have a terminal disease when they refuse effective treatment.

The Oregon assisted suicide law, that all other assisted suicide bills are based upon, is designed to deceive.

I want to live. Ontario refuses home care to terminally ill man.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A few weeks ago, CTV news reported that Roger Foley, from London ON  launched a lawsuit stating that he was offered euthanasia (MAiD) but he was not being offered assisted life.

• Canadian man wants assisted life not assisted death.

Foley, who lives with cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative neurological condition, requires home care for independent living. Foley was turned down by the government for Self-Directed Personal Support.

• Petition: I support Roger Foley's plea assisted life not assisted death (Link).

Last week Lighthouse News interviewed me about the Foley case. Here is what I said:

Foley is not in any way asking (for) or wanting Medical Assistance in Dying. What he wants is assistance in living.

What happened is that he was living in his apartment, and ...had problems with inappropriate things happening to him that actually had him put back in the hospital. So because he’s in this situation, he’s unable to leave the hospital until as he says “I can be assured that I have proper care in the home.”

The program is called “Self-Directed Personal Support Services Ontario.” And it does exist, but the government turned him down for that.

So what does the Foley's case state:

he’s making the argument “What if I want to live, and I’m not receiving the services that make it possible to enable me to live? And yet, they’re offering me assisted death. So they are offering me the "choice" of assisted death, or languishing in a hospital without the type of care that I would rather have.”

I then commented on the similarities with the Candice Lewis experience:

What’s also interesting is to bring this back to what happened to Candice Lewis in Newfoundland. Just to remind you, in 2016, soon after euthanasia was legalized in Canada, Candace was in hospital in Newfoundland. She was very sick; she was only 25 years old, but she was born with multiple disabilities, and the doctor was pressuring her and her family for euthanasia; so much so that the mother went to the CBC News.  

We have interviews with her through our social media and she is better now. But the fact is that this is the same sort of idea. You’re pressured towards euthanasia, and you’re not interested in euthanasia; what you want is the treatment and the care to allow you to get better.

The Foley and Lewis cases don't surprise me. People are being pressured to euthanasia or denied the care that they need to live because Canada decided that it is acceptable to kill people at the most vulnerable time of their lives. There will always be some abuse of the law. 

People who are living with vulnerable conditions need protection not lethal injection.

Defeat of Connecticut assisted suicide bill linked to strong disability advocacy.

This article was published by the disability rights group, Not Dead Yet on March 26, 2018.

Cathy Ludlum: Second Thoughts Connecticut.

Great news: The Connecticut assisted suicide bill died in committee. This follows a similar victory in Massachusetts. Thanks to everyone who effectively communicated the very real dangers that a public policy legalizing assisted suicide poses to older, ill and disabled people!

On March 20, Second Thoughts Connecticut members held a press conference and testified against an assisted suicide bill, HB 5417 at a joint Public Health Committee hearing. Channel 8 covered their testimony: ‘Aid in dying’ bill back before lawmakers. They also interviewed Cathy Ludlum and Elaine Kolb. NDY also submitted written testimony.

Although the major print media ignored the outspoken opposition of the disability community, despite their consistent presence and activism against these bills as they were considered the last few years, one very powerful letter to the editor by Second Thoughts member Joan Cavanagh was carried by the New Haven Register:

Physician-assisted suicide harms the poor, elderly and disabled
Once again, a bill in Connecticut legalizing physician-assisted suicide was the subject of discussion at a public hearing on Tuesday, March 20. This year, it is HB 5417, with the Orwellian name, “An Act Concerning End-of-Life Care.” The well-funded “Compassion and Choices” and Secular Coalition of Connecticut promoters of this bill are trying to rally all “liberals” behind it under the false banner of “choice,” claiming that its only opponents are the extreme religious right and the institutional Catholic Church. As always, they deliberately refuse to acknowledge the disability rights community activists, Second Thoughts Connecticut, and the peace and justice activists who have opposed these bills for years.

Second Thoughts Connecticut has led the opposition. They don’t just “represent” people whose lives are at risk because their health care is “too expensive.” They are those people. Articulate, determined, and resourceful, they have mobilized year after year to protect their own lives and right to choose. They have also given me courage, aNnd so, from my personal experience in trying to get my elderly mother, a Medicaid patient with dementia, the care she needed to stay alive, I have written, spoken, and testified against this legislation since 2013. (The New Haven Register published my Forum piece about this (https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-Aid-in-dying-bill-neither-11375068.php), March 14, 2014.

We continue to clearly see these bills for what they are: another piece of the medical cost-cutting agenda that seeks to “ration” health care for the most vulnerable among us — the poor, elderly and disabled. As a life-long activist for peace and justice, it is beyond my understanding how anyone claiming human rights concerns could continue to advocate for this kind of legislation in the era of alt-right power, where the highest officials in our nation are slashing with impunity the most basic of our hard won, already inadequate, safety nets.

Joan Cavanagh
New Haven

• Second Thoughts Connecticut opposes Assisted Suicide Bill HB 5417.
• Nancy Elliott: Connecticut assisted suicide bill would legalize euthanasia.