Posted on 07/22/2016 2:51:26 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Vermont doctors and health care professionals are pushing back against an interpretation of state law that they say requires them to help kill patients who wish to die.
Members of two medical groups, the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare and Christian Medical & Dental Associations, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against officials in two state medical agencies responsible for the interpretation.
The lawsuit says these agencies have interpreted a 2013 physician-assisted suicide law, Act 39, in a way that would require health care professionals to counsel terminally ill patients about the option to commit suicide.
Additionally, under such an interpretation of the law, if medical professionals are not willing to help patients end their lives, then they must refer them to physicians who will, the lawsuit says.
Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Steven H. Aden, who represents the medical professionals, said this reading of the law violates the First Amendment and certain aspects of Obamacare.
He said the government “shouldn’t be telling health care professionals that they must violate their medical ethics in order to practice medicine.”
“These doctors and other health care workers deeply believe that suffering patients need understanding and sound medical treatment, not encouragement to kill themselves,” Mr. Aden said in a statement. “The state has no authority to order them to act contrary to that sincere and time-honored conviction.”
A Frequently Asked Questions page on the Vermont Department of Health’s website says Act 39, in conjunction with the Patient’s Bill of Rights, requires doctors to inform patients about their right to kill themselves.
“Do doctors have to tell patients about this option?” it reads. “Under Act 39 and the Patient’s Bill of Rights, a patient has the right to be informed of all options for care and treatment in order to make a fully-informed choice.”
The Patient’s Bill of Rights requires doctors to notify patients of “all options” with regard to palliative care.
Mr. Aden said the agencies have adopted an extreme interpretation of what “palliative care” entails, saying his plaintiffs “generally support” providing care to suffering patients.
“I mean, that’s pain relief, management of end-of-life care — good things,” he said. “But they read that in conjunction with the Act 39 to require ‘all options’ for assisted suicide be counseled for.”
George Eighmey, president of the assisted-suicide advocacy group Death with Dignity, which helped draft Act 39, called the lawsuit “baseless” and “frivolous.”
He said Act 39 does not mandate counsel or referral for physician-assisted suicide, and the lawsuit’s real complaint lies with the Patient’s Bill of Rights. He suggested Act 39 was lumped into the complaint for political purposes.
“The Patient Bill of Rights specifically says that a patient has the option and that physicians must inform them of all of their end-of-life options,” Mr. Eighmey said. “Now, if they choose to make that a referral under the Patient Bill of Rights, that’s a different story. And if they want to go after the Patient Bill of Rights, that’s their right to do that. But they’re not — they’re going after the Death with Dignity law, which does not mandate the referral.”
Linda Waite-Simpson, Vermont director for Compassion & Care and a former Democratic member of the state House of Representatives, concurred that Act 39 does not require physicians to refer patients to doctors who will perform physician-assisted suicide.
“But physicians should not impose their personal ethics and values on their patients and deny their legal right in Vermont to receive information about their end-of-life care options so they can make an informed decision about their treatment options,” Ms. Waite-Simpson said in a statement.
Several officials from the Vermont Board of Medical Practice and the Office of Professional Regulation are named in the lawsuit. David Herlihy, director of the former, said he had not seen the lawsuit and accordingly declined to comment. The latter agency could not be reached for comment before press time.
Three other states — California, Oregon and Washington — legislatively permit physician-assisted suicide. None of those laws has been interpreted to require physicians or medical professionals to counsel or refer patients to doctors willing to help them commit suicide.
However, the Vermont lawsuit comes amid a “disturbing trend” of religious medical professionals being forced to violate the tenants of their faith, Mr. Aden said, pointing to lawsuits against Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform abortions.
“It is part of a disturbing trend, disregarding and even attacking individuals for conscientious beliefs,” he said. “In this case, the conscientious objection to killing a patient is under the Hippocratic Oath and goes back thousands of years.”
Conscientious doctors want to promote good palliative care, including effective treatment for depression and pain.
That costs more than just having the patient off himself.
And there's the rub, my friends.
How can the lawyers in the State Legislature “require” a doctor to do anything?
Is the Legislature a doctor now?
We are Progressives, you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
It's always about these new rights: the right to kill your baby, the right to destroy your bodily sexuality, the right to die.
I prefer the old-fashioned ones, which strike me as being more robust: the right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Lawyers. Sometimes it seems all they have to do is breathe, to lie. This is a suit against enforcement of a challenged interpretation.
“filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against officials in two state medical agencies responsible for the interpretation.”
These neo-Nazi pigs have names and addresses. Send them a postcard.
Not yet anyway.
It’s flatly against the Hippocratic Oath.
Both of my Scoutmasters had to go off by themselves to die, instead of suffering. There has to be a better way, oaths or not. Both were god-fearing gentlemen. Society abandoned them. I know there is another side to that issue, but I can only pass on what I’ve seen in my life.
“However, the Vermont lawsuit comes amid a “disturbing trend” of religious medical professionals being forced to violate the tenants of their faith, Mr. Aden said, pointing to lawsuits against Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform abortions.”
I remember a few years back there was a push to require medical school students to participate in an abortion; it was tabled for the time being, but the insinuation was clear: Pro-life people were going to be shut out of the medical field.
Pain can be controlled. That's why God made opiates. Depression can be ameliorated. If the tricyclics don't work, bring in the tambourines. And if we don't ABANDON our suffering friends and kin, we can help them break through fear into meaning, acceptance, and peace.
That is what I have seen in my life.
There was a time when medicine was pitifully primitive and there were very few *cures*, but still the simple human obligation to *care*. If it were ethically OK, or humanly acceptable, to choose death in difficult cases, then THERE WOULD BE NO CURE FOR ANYTHING, EVER: because killing a guy is always available, often quick and always cost-effective.
There would be no cure, AND no care. That's good for nobody but the undertaker and the devil in hell.
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