Posted on 12/05/2014 9:27:27 AM PST by wagglebee
Brittany Maynard was clearly working with the pro-assisted suicide group Compassion and Choices when she took a lethal drug to end her life and released a video in conjunction with the euthanasia group about her decision.
Now a new revelation has come out about the extent to which Maynard worked with and had contact with assisted suicide activists in the time leading up to her killing herself. A new report indicates she emailed a woman who illegally provided lethal drugs to her own father that he used to take his life.
A People magazine report indicates Maynard, the day she committed suicide, sent an email to activist Barbara Mancini, who is best known for enabling her father to kill himself.
Mancini’s father Joe Yourshaw was in hospice care when he asked his daughter for a bottle of morphine. She provided the morphine to him and Yourshaw took an overdose of morphine with the intent to commit suicide. A hospice nurse called 911, and Yourshaw was revived at the hospital. He died four days later after attempts were made to save his life.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office was asked to prosecute the case but it was eventually thrown out because of lack of evidence about how Yourshaw ultimately died. At the time, Michael Ciccocioppo, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, told ABC News that Yourshaw should be prosecuted it it could be proved that she broke the state’s ban on assisted suicides.
“If a person beyond a reasonable doubt committed assisted suicide, justice needs to be served and the law needs to be adjudicated,” he said then.
Compassion and Choices, whose roots can be traced back to the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society, represented Mancini in the case and the pro-assisted suicide group pressured state Attorney General Kane to drop the case.
Enter Brittany Maynard.
As People magazine indicates, Maynard and Mancini, who is now an activist seeking to legalize assisted suicide in other states, corresponded on the day she died. Maynard told Mancini in her email that she thought it was wrong that Mancini was ever charged with breaking the assisted suicide ban in Pennsylvania and giving her father the deadly drugs he used that ultimate took his life.
“I felt a connection with her on a deep level because of what my experience was, so I wrote her a short message,” Mancini said about initially emailing Maynard. “I never expected her to respond to me because her life was a whirlwind and she was dealing with a terminal illness.”
But on Nov. 1 – the day Maynard ended her own life – Mancini got an email back.
“It meant so much for me to receive your kind letter the other day, especially as I’m preparing for my own passing,” Maynard wrote, according to a copy of the email given to PEOPLE.
“Yes, I am familiar with the history of your case and have always been appalled that it was ever litigated,” she wrote.
“I am so sorry you had to endure that,” she wrote. “It was clear to me, in my heart, that you were doing your very best to care for your terminally ailing father.
“That is a difficult job,” she wrote. “As a terminally ill person myself, I understand what the level of sacrifice means for a loving and supportive family on an emotional, physical and financial level.”
As People indicates, Mancini is now traveling the country seeking to overturn laws banning assisted suicide that protect the disabled, elderly and terminally ill patients.
The euthanasia lobby claims pain as a reason for legalizing assisted suicide, but studies show pain is not a leading factor in suicides. In Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, studies show that pain is one of the last reasons people give for committing suicide. Depression – a treatable condition – “is the only factor that significantly predicts the request for death.”
For pro-life people, the best way to help those who may consider assisted suicide is to provide mental health support for the depression and pain relief for the physical pain.
“One thing is for sure,” Ciccocioppo said. “People in pain have a right to relieve their pain, and we don’t have a problem with that. But the same Supreme Court decision … also upheld assisted suicide laws and the rights of the states to say it’s not legal. We stand by that to the end.”
Can't we expand the rationalization to "euthanize the suffering" to ending the blandly moronic hell of Democrats? Think of a Tim Robbins, Dennis Rodman, Babs Striesand, dimly aware of reality, told that they are "special" so often that they actually understand the word to mean something other than being allowed out without a crash helmet and boxing gloves?
It's our social duty to put them to sleep and end life unworthy of life.
On the other side, Lauren Hill is living every day to its fullest.
Totally agree...By no means am I judging anybody who considers it or does it. That’s their decision....this isn’t abortion we’re talking about.
Lauren Hill has signed up for hospice care.Which likely means mostly being quickly drugged into a painless stupor and dying sooner .I say this having seen several people receive “hospice care”.I believe the dying should receive all the care possible with being kept clean and comfortable,and importantly being comforted and upheld in the faith of God.Pain should be alleviated to the extent possible but drugs should NOT be administered in amounts that cause the body to shut down.I lost a good friend many years ago when large amounts of morphine eased his pain by causing respiration to cease.
These people have the same mindset as a former neighbor on seeing my dog accidentally run over; he IMMEDIATELY wanted to kill the dog because it was in pain.Instead I carried the injuried animal to a comfortable place in the hay,fed him plain old aspirin for the pain(NEVER give dog Tylenol)and saw to it he had food and water.Bo recovered although he had a stiff leg the rest of his years.
I truly see hospice care AS I HAVE SEEN IT PRACTICED,as being more concerned with preventing people from dealing with suffering.Suffering makes us uncomfortable.We don’t like to see suffering. Some pretend it doesn’t exist. SOME WILL KILL YOU SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOUR SUFFERING.
When those black-robed evil old men who vainly consider themselves “Supreme Justices” gave their approval to the murder of America’s babies I remarked “they will kill the old and the sick next”.
Many times in hospice the patient is starved to death at some point. In some cases, the patient has requested that no extraordinary means be used to keep them alive, so this is interpreted as meaning as no food, and sometimes, no liquids.
I wonder what she’s doing now? I wonder if her suicide was all she expected it to be?
Ah, but once society sees disability and loss of “dignity” as the reason to kill folks, you are way down the slippery slope to killing the disabled, the retarded, and the elderly, not to mention disabled babies or children.
That will save Obamacare lots of money.
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
And don't tell me stuff like “Modern medicine allows disabled or elderly people to live too long”. Plato said the same thing in 400 BCE, and this was the main reason for Hitler's doctors willing to help people to die if they were imperfect.
As for suffering: Cultures like ancient Stoicism and Japanese samurai culture that see suicide as better than loss of dignity sound nice, but remember: Those ideas were only followed by a tiny minority, and ordinary folks in these societies had few rights, and the big shots could kill them if they were troublesome.
If there is a God, then everything that happens happens for a reason. This is not just a Christian idea: I have worked with both Amerindians and Africans who were not Christian and believed the same thing.
And the lessons of suffering in dignity, and the idea that family should care for their weaker family members, is a lesson American society needs. Pope Francis calls the west the “throwaway” society for a good reason.
So how do you know what God has a problem with? Do you have a special line to Him? You sound like a nutcase.
“So how do you know what God has a problem with?”
Can you think of a single major religion which officially approves of suicide? Even the official teachings of Islam does not actually approve of suicide. Also, what makes you think that the God who gives life wants us to take our own lives.
“Do you have a special line to Him?”
Would it matter if I did or not? Are you honestly saying that universal truths depend of a human person and not God?
“You sound like a nutcase.”
So almost every person whoever lived in the Western world and in much of the rest of the world from about 1600 years ago until a few decades ago was a nutcase? It was universally held in the West that suicide was wrong. You do that realize don’t you? So, it is you who is out of step with what has been taught for centuries and centuries not me. And I don’t care one bit if I am out of step with the decadent world of 2014. I would rather believe in a moral standard that is lasting than go whichever way the wind blows.
“Yes, suicide was a criminal offense, mainly because life and death was the prerogative of your master, the King.”
Completely false. Suicide was MORALLY wrong and that was REFLECTED in the civil and criminal laws. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the “prerogative of your master, the King” if you mean an earthly king.
“However, that led to some strange things. One man tried to commit suicide by cutting his own throat. He failed and was condemned to death!”:
Yeah, I’m the one around here who tells that story. That is because in England it was illegal to commit suicide - stemming from the Christian culture of the land. They had to pull him down after the first hanging and let the stitches heal before they tried again.
“Even stranger, they failed to kill him by hanging because he was breathing through the cut in his windpipe — so they bandaged his neck so as to complete the job.”
I know. I’m the first person who ever told that story here at FR.
“Now, why should the government decide his manner of death rather than that person himself?”
Because the individual has no right to self murder. The state, however, has the right to execute for crimes.
Not Moon River. The River Styx.
“Now, why should the government decide his manner of death rather than that person himself?” Because the individual has no right to self murder. The state, however, has the right to execute for crimes.
-- That is strange little world you live in, vlad.
“Nonsense. It was wrong because it took away one of the Lord of the Manor’s vassals who was needed to work the fields.”
That would mean - if that is your thesis - that there was no universal condemnation of suicide among Christians in the Western world before the 8th or 9th century at the very earliest (because that’s when feudalism really started). I have a PhD in Medieval History. This is what I do. And you’re completely wrong and your claim is ridiculous. Jews considered suicide to be an evil act. So did Christians. It was, if you remember, the final act of Judas Iscariot. It was connected to the activities of heretics like the Donatists. Thus, what you said is patently false. Suicide was already a criminal act according to Roman Law BEFORE the age of feudalism.
“— That is strange little world you live in, vlad.”
No, it’s simply the world as it was for orthodox Christians for 2,000 years.
Thanks for the ping!
Who is Lauren HIll?
Thank you for your response - I’ll look her up.
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