Free Republic

In 1994, Dr. Charles Cleeland authored a study that found that 42% of cancer patients with pain were receiving inadequate therapy for their pain. This led to the Health and Human Services (HHS) guidelines for more aggressive pain management and the ubiquitous question about your level of pain “on a scale of 1 to 10” every time you visit the doctor for any reason. The interest in pain management was actually a response to the push for legalized assisted suicide. Advocates of assisted suicide claimed that uncontrolled pain justified aiding cancer patients to end their lives. At the time, there...

According to the newly released report, Dying with Dignity, co-signed by nine Quebec politicians, people are now ready to regard death through a new lens. We can free ourselves from a traditional "paternalistic" relationship with our physicians in order to embrace a more informed attitude in facing suffering and end-of-life issues. Our values, the report says, have greatly evolved in the past 20 years; therefore, it is only normal that in our farewell to life, we should take a close look at a new option offered by the state. The report's writers caution that although in the past Quebecers' values...

Respect for autonomy is one of the most convincing arguments for euthanasia. It was the theme of a strong defence of legalising it in Australia in the Journal of Law and Medicine by Margaret Otlowski and Lorana Bartels in 2010. They concluded that “ in a secular society with an ageing population” legalisation is inevitable. However, in the latest issue of the JLM a criminologist at the University of Tasmania has made a vigorous response. Jeremy Prichard doubts that many people in the community will be able to give full and voluntary consent to ending their lives. He contends that...

The Secret Suicides of Oregon Health & SpiritualityApril 2nd, 2012 Michael Cook Oregon’s public health division has released statistics on deaths under its physician-assisted suicide (PAS) legislation. It shows a steady increase in the number of lethal prescriptions and in the number of deaths. In 1998, the first year after PAS was legalised, there were 24 prescriptions and 16 deaths. In 2011, there were 114 prescriptions and 71 deaths. A total of 935 people have had lethal prescriptions and 596 have died.The Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation, a staunch foe of the legislation, analysed the 2011 figures. Here are some of its...

On March 27th , the government of Switzerland released a report on the practice of assisting suicide with a dramatic conclusion: five out of every 1,000 resident deaths now involve assisting suicide. Swiss authorities recorded a steady rise of assisted suicides over the decade that records were kept.While assisting suicide is legal in only a tiny handful of jurisdictions both in the U.S. and abroad, the Swiss practice operates extra-legally. Assisting suicide in Switzerland is technically illegal, but the law on the matter punishes only those with selfish motives–which has turned out to be nearly impossible to prove in Swiss...

It says a lot about the opinion-forming classes that pretty much the only right they get excited about these days is the "right to die". They treat the right to free speech as a negotiable commodity which may be snatched away from un-PC people. They have given the nod to the watering down of other essential rights, such as the right to trial by jury and the right to silence. But the "right to die"? They cleave to that like crazy. It is the one right which, if you will forgive the pun, they would die for. Today, MPs are...

Dr. Peter Goodwin killed himself this week. He took advantage of Oregon’s 15-year-old assisted-suicide law, which allows residents of the Beaver State to score a legal dose of drugs by obtaining a prescription from an enabling physician. Goodwin happened to be one of the first physicians to voice support for Oregon’s euphemistically titled “Death With Dignity Act,” which took effect in late 1997. “I don’t think we would have aid in dying in Oregon without Dr. Goodwin,” said Barbara Coombs Lee, who worked closely with the former family physician to get the law the passed. Indeed, the late Dr. Goodwin’s...

Disability rights activists from across Massachusetts will speak today before the Massachusetts legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee in opposition to a ballot question that would legalize assisted suicide. The activists are members of the recently formed group, Second Thoughts: People with Disabilities Opposing the Legalization of Assisted Suicide. The hearing will be at 1 p.m. in room A-2 at the state house. “Second Thoughts is a group of disability rights activists and organizations who believe that assisted suicide is a dangerous mix with a broken, profit driven health care system,” said John Kelly, the group’s director.“Economic and family pressures can make...

When I was a teenager I was extremely lucky, landing in the middle of a cultural and social revolution. Driving into assembly on the back of a motorbike, having a fling with an unsuspecting English teacher and being desperate to get myself laid at 15 gave me immediate membership to the only club worth joining - the club that was 'the 60s'. Apart from occasional doses of teenage angst, I was what you might call very, ‘alive and kicking’; anything I could kick against, I did. And therein lays the problem - the one about being alive. Consider the figures...

ATLANTA – Georgia's top court on Monday struck down a state law designed to discourage assisted suicides after a legal battle brought by four members of a suicide group who said the law also violated free speech rights. The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous ruling concludes the 1994 state law "restricts speech in violation of the free speech clauses" of the U.S. and Georgia constitutions. The court's opinion held that Georgia only criminalized assisted suicides that include a public offering to assist. It said the law didn't expressly prohibit assisted suicides, meaning some were legal in Georgia. The opinion, penned by...

An experienced doctor who works with terminal patients has asked whether assisted suicide is just a cost-saving exercise. Dr Elizabeth A Burroughs, in a letter to a national newspaper, said: “Quality palliative care costs money; assisted suicide is a cheaper option. But how long would it be before pressure was being placed on the terminally ill to ‘do the decent thing’?” Dr Burroughs also commented: “In 30 years as a GP, I was asked by at most a handful of terminally ill patients to hasten their deaths." Care “In 17 years working in hospices I cannot recall ever having received...

Egbert, a slightly built, genial and energetic retired anesthesiologist with a snowy goatee, turns to his computer, his back to me, content to answer an e-mail while I sort through the pile. Once I finish untangling, I hold in my hands a curious plastic sack, about 21 inches long and 18 inches wide. A bunched white elastic strip, reminiscent of a garter, circles the mouth at the open end. A thick plastic tube runs into the sack, stretching 37 inches before branching into a T-shape with 12-inch arms extending from each side of the joint. Egbert calls it an “exit...

Michael Nazir-Ali is Director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy & Dialogue, and was formerly the Bishop of Rochester. Time and again, Parliament has refused to relax the law on assisted suicide.  Having failed there, attempts were made to get around the law by persuading the Director of Public Prosecution to revise guidelines about who might be prosecuted for helping a relative or a friend to end their life.  A relentless campaign has been kept up in the media inspite of the thinness of the medical, legal and moral arguments which are regularly brought up in support...

This time, the proponents of assisted suicide think they've got it right. Trapped in the nebulous area of trying to establish criteria for when assisted suicide should be allowed, without danger of being accused of sliding down that proverbial slippery slope, British advocates have come up with a proposal.They seem to think that this time, it's foolproof. It isn't.The U.K.'s Commission on Assisted Dying released a report of 400 pages this past week, authored by lawyers, doctors and an ex-police commissioner, which would allow for assisted suicide in people 18 or older, who are mentally competent and have a maximum...

TORONTO, Ontario, January 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Starting Friday, Canada’s largest national pro-life organization will send a powerful warning to households across the country about what could happen if the courts acquiesce to recent pleas for the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Campaign Life Coalition has launched a month-long national media campaign with 60-second TV ads running on the Sun News Network from Jan. 6-29.  It is expected to reach over 3.2 million viewers. Mary Ellen Douglas, CLC’s national organizer, said the campaign comes at a crucial time as there has been a renewed push to legalize euthanasia in...

Euthanasia is once again in the spotlight. The Carter case, now before the courts in B.C., seeks to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. It’s a constitutional challenge which seeks to legalize these practices as medical treatment and to be regulated within provincial health-care regulations.On April 21, 2010, Canada’s parliament soundly defeated Bill C-384, which sought to amend the Criminal Code, allowing the right to die with dignity. It was a bad piece of legislation which, had it passed, would have directly threatened the lives of persons with disabilities.We won this battle. However, Canada’s right-to-die lobby aren’t giving up...

AFTER A FALL at his Florida retirement home, Lester Angell was robbed of any mobility not already lost to metastatic prostate cancer. An impending hospital admission promised to steal what little autonomy the 81-year-old had left. As the last act of an independent but terminally ill man, Angell took control of the time and circumstances of his death by reaching into his nightstand and pulling out a pistol. “No one should have to die alone that way,” says his daughter, Dr. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School. Fourteen years after she wrote about his...

In his encyclical entitled Evangelicum Vitae, Pope John Paul II states, “choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable. Even certain sectors of the medical profession, which by its calling is directed to the defense and care of human life, are increasingly willing to carry out these acts against the person.” As physicians, we took an oath to strive, to the best of our abilities, to help patients and to make every reasonable effort to do no harm. Physician-assisted suicide is incompatible with that goal, and is the means to an...

Imagine a Canada where doctors could prescribe death to depressed teenagers, shadowing the online predator who coached 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji to drown herself in the frozen Rideau Canal three years ago. A Royal Society of Canada expert panel would see such a nightmare become reality, urging in a landmark report that government should legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for all “competent” adults who want to end their lives, regardless of whether they actually have a terminal illness.But before Canadians consider making assisted death a “choice,” shouldn’t we first address the untreated physical, emotional and existential suffering that’s making it an...

It’s been a sickly couple of weeks for life. This past Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court case kicked off in which five people are seeking the right to choose to be killed by a physician. The very next day, the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) released a report that urges the federal government to legalize assisted suicide in Canada. A summary of the End of Life Decision Making report states: “The evidence from years of experience and research where euthanasia and/or assisted suicide are permitted does not support claims that decriminalization will result in vulnerable persons being subjected to abuse...

No amount of reassuring chat can disguise his advice that we should keep deadly drugs in our sock drawerDr Philip Nitschke, aka “Dr Death”, has been in town. According to a report in the Independent on Tuesday the Australian euthanasia campaigner has been telling audiences in London, York and Scotland that “his aim [is] to save lives”. His argument runs that “once people have a means of killing themselves, many who might attempt a botched suicide would instead prolong their lives, knowing they had a way out without having to call on a loved one to help, exposing them to...

With the release of an important new report, and the launch of another Charter challenge, the debate about euthanasia is flaring up again. It will be passionate. You will hear emotional claims from both sides. Many people will listen to nothing else. But for those who want to be rational, those who want to learn as much as they can and draw a conclusion based on evidence, there is one essential fact to bear in mind.The Dutch are more honest than we are. Remember that.If you’ve read anything about euthanasia, pro or con, chances are you have seen references to...

Well, that didn’t take long.  The Olympian has editorialized in favor of the assisted suicide law to allow “euthanasia” beyond assisted suicide for the terminally ill. From a column by a member of the Olympian Board of Contributors: To improve the chances of passage, the Death with Dignity Act was written to  apply only to the choices of the terminally ill who are competent at the time of  their death. This raises the question whether, if the act continues to work as intended,  we should extend the choice of voluntary euthanasia to: • Persons who are not terminally ill but suffering...

Protesters opposed to changes in Canada’s suicide law gathered in front of the Vancouver Law Courts Monday morning, warning that legalizing assisted suicide would open the floodgates for elder abuse.A court challenge launched in B.C. Supreme Court has the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Gloria Taylor, a 63-year-old woman suffering from ALS, challenging Canada’s laws that forbid doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.Opponents, however, argue that physician-assisted suicides will see the medical system steer patients toward suicide and allow greedy children intent on inheriting their parents wealth will force them into choosing death.“In the messy real world that I work...

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston is urging Catholic voters in Massachusetts to reject a statewide  initiative would promote assisted suicide in the Bay State.the assisted suicide measure in September and backers now must obtain the signatures of 68,911 state residents by mid-November in order to move ahead to the next step. If they receive enough signatures, members of the state legislature can decide whether or not to pass any of them as legislation. Those state measure that do not receive legislative approval must obtain another 11,485 signatures in order to qualify for the 2012 election.The so-called Massachusetts Death with Dignity Act...

Professor Raymond Tallis is a distinguished emeritus professor of geriatric medicine, philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic. He is also a patron of the pressure group Dignity in Dying, previously known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. He is additionally chairman of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying (HPAD) which aims to change the law, medical culture and medical practice ‘so that needless suffering at the end of life becomes a thing of the past’.In today’s Times (£), Professor Tallis argues passionately in support of ‘assisted dying’, which he claims is all about ‘...permitting physicians to assist the death of mentally competent,...

Legalized assisted suicide costs us the presence of good people, who had they been given emotional support to help them not commit suicide in their time of health extremis, would be so glad to be alive.  I have written frequently of my last hospice patient, Bob, who had been suicidal for 2 1/2 years after his Lou Gehrig’s disease diagnosis.  He told me he would have gone to Kevorkian if his family had cooperated.  But they wouldn’t and so  he didn’t–and to his delighted surprise, he ended his life so very glad to be alive to the last breath.  He...

In Euthanasialand–the fantasy world depicted by assisted suicide advocates–every family is loving and caring of their ill and elderly members.  In Euthanasia, no one is ever pressured to die early, either directly or indirectly, such as by being made to feel like a burden or unloved.  In Euthanasialand, every assisted suicide or lethal injection is absolutely free from coercion, abuse, and/or neglect.Euthanasialand doesn’t exist, of course.  In the real world, elder abuse is a very real and growing problem.  Indeed, a new MacArther Genius Grant Award recipient warned in Congressional testimony earlier this year, that elder abuse is a present...

As the proponents of assisted suicide strive to legalize it in Massachusetts, we should take another look at their arguments and the deceptions therein. The battle over assisted suicide and euthanasia is not over; advocates of assisted suicide are not resting. While earnest and engaged Americans are focused on the economy, an upcoming presidential primary, and impending Supreme Court battles over the health insurance mandate and same-sex marriage, the culture of death continues to advance largely unnoticed along a front that some had supposed was dormant.Now, from the Bay State, comes news that advocates for assisted suicide have succeeded in...

Dutch euthanasia doctors must wait up to eight months to find out if they will undergo criminal investigation. An “enormous” surge in the number of cases has flooded an already strained reporting system. The Dutch Medical Association calls the situation “serious” and says there is “unrest” among doctors.Under the 2002 law, doctors are obliged to report voluntary euthanasia (where a doctor ends a patient’s life at his or her explicit request) and assisted suicide (where the doctor helps a patient take a deadly drug) to one of 5 regional assessment committees made up of a doctor, a lawyer and an...

The criminal law in Australia holds that the intentional taking of human life is a major criminal offence. This accords with the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Australia is a signatory, which declares that the right to the integrity of every person's life is equal, inherent, inviolable, inalienable and should be protected by law.Since the intentional taking of human life is the specific aim of every euthanasia law, such a law would be unique in the following critically important ways: it would intend to subvert the existing law,it would fail to respect the principle that all...

While the country and the 50 states are largely focused on the economy, jobs, and budgets, assisted suicide advocates, namely Compassion and Choices, have been hard at work seeking to legalize or expand physician-assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is currently legal in two states– Oregon and Washington–and may have some legal protection in the state of Montana, because of a court decision.   While doctor-prescribed death is legal in only these two Northwest states, assisted suicide advocates have announced they plan on getting a foothold in the Northeast: in Vermont and Massachusetts. Should they succeed, momentum could leave many other New England states...

The British government has ignored and failed to prosecute people in dozens of assisted suicide cases after it changed its rules on prosecution following the British House of Lords siding with Debbie Purdy in her high-profile case. The House of Lords said Purdy can avoid the national law, which has rarely been enforced, making it so anyone assisting in a suicide could receive as much as 14 years in prison for doing so. British law covers a person who “aids, abets, counsels or procures” the suicide of another person — which would theoretically include anyone who takes someone to another...

Jane Gross, a retired reporter for The New York Times, has written a book about helping her mother die. And while euthanasia and assisted suicide are deeply disturbing but hardly new concepts, something about her story is especially upsetting. Perhaps in part it’s because she chose to write a book about it in the first place. Maybe it’s because my own elderly parents are suddenly facing serious mental and physical problems that I find Gross’ story so repugnant. The book, A Bittersweet Season, was recently excerpted in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper. The subheading of the article read, “They were never...

Editor's note: Coming this fall on CNN, Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes an in-depth look at assisted suicide and families ripped apart by the issue. Portland, Oregon (CNN) -- James Powell could barely speak on the day he died; cancer had confined him to bed and heavy painkillers left him only semi-lucid. Yet the mood was almost celebratory as 25 people -- family, friends and volunteers -- gathered in a large living room to tell stories and say goodbye on the day Powell chose to end his suffering."After he took the medication, he fell asleep really quickly. His body just relaxed....

QUINCY — It didn’t take Roy Almeida more than a minute to shape an opinion about whether people with a terminal illness should have a legal right to kill themselves with lethal medications. “I think that anyone who finds they’re terminal, and there’s no turning back, and they decide they want to go, they should have that right,� said the 72-year-old Quincy resident as he sat over morning coffee at Barry’s Deli in Wollaston. The question dropped on Almeida’s breakfast table could be dropped in front of Massachusetts voters next year if a ballot initiative filed early this month with...

VANCOUVER, August 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A lawsuit filed in British Columbia by the Farewell Foundation for the Right to Die challenging Canadian laws against assisted suicide was rejected by Supreme Court Judge Lynn Smith on August 17. The case was one of two being heard in B.C. Supreme Court. Farewell Foundation’s suit was based on a refusal by the British Columbia Registrar of Companies to register the group because the aims of the organization - to establish a non-profit corporation, along the lines of Swiss-based assisted suicide groups, for the purpose of assisting the suicides of its members -...

SUICIDE has been legal in Canada since 1972, so it's OK to kill yourself. There is no consequence, except to you. You're not arrested if you succeed or even if you bungle the job -- your life is in your own hands. But while there is no consequence for you, there are considerable consequences for the family and friends you leave behind and those aftershocks can be emotionally and circumstantially devastating. That is why suicide is hardly ever considered a noble or self-sacrificing act. It is more usually described as the ultimate expression of selfishness, cowardice, carelessness, in the true...

OTTAWA, August 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite a recent British Columbia Supreme Court ruling to fast track the lawsuit of a Lou Gehrig’s disease sufferer challenging Canada’s law against euthanasia and assisted suicide, Canada’s Justice Minister says the Conservative government will not reopen the issue in Parliament. “Parliament passed judgment on that,” the Hon. Rob Nicholson told media. “The question of euthanasia was rejected within Parliament, just within the last year.” “We are in court on a regular basis arguing on the constitutionality of existing laws of this country, and we have indicated we have no plans to reintroduce this...

VANCOUVER, Canada, August 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A British Columbia Supreme Court Justice agreed Wednesday to fast track the lawsuit of a Lou Gehrig’s disease sufferer seeking doctor-assisted suicide. The lawsuit is one of two cases currently challenging Canada’s law against euthanasia and assisted suicide, over a year after a legislative bid to overturn the law suffered overwhelming defeat. Gloria Taylor was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative condition in 2009. A B.C. Civil Liberties Association affidavit, which detailed Taylor’s medical conditions, states that Ms. Taylor was told in January of 2010 that she was likely to die within one year, reports...

VANCOUVER - A New Westminster, B.C., assisted-suicide foundation is headed to the B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday to renew a fight for what it calls “the right to die.” The Farewell Foundation For The Right to Die, representing 113 members, hopes to pressure the Canadian government to adopt Switzerland’s model for assisted suicides, which does not require a presiding doctor but insists on the patient’s full consent and proof of “unbearable pain or unsustainable treatment.” Foundation director Russel Ogden filed a civil claim against the attorney general of Canada in early February, arguing a person has the constitutional right to kill...

Jack Kevorkian might be gone, but his spirit lives on -- well, maybe living isn't the best way to put it... For the first time ever, this Friday night, a website will run a live broadcast of a terminally ill man ending his life in a case of assisted suicide. Nikolai Ivanisovich, 62, is terminally ill with brain cancer. He will die before cameras and a worldwide audience at a clinic in Switzerland, with the use of lethal injection administered by a physician. The filming of his death will be broadcast on BattleCam.com, a 24/7 Reality TV website where live...

On Saturday the Daily Mail ran a poll with the question, “Should ‘minimally conscious’ patients be allowed to die? As of this writing (on Saturday), 29% said No, 71% said yes. I have to wonder though, if the people who clicked Yes had given much thought to the form of the question. Something I learned as a lobbyist paying close attention to various pieces of legislation is to always look very closely indeed at the pages of the bill that give the definitions of terms. What does it mean to be “allowed to die”? And what, exactly, are we talking...

I told you so. I have said for almost as many years as I have engaged in anti assisted suicide advocacy that eventually killing (ending life) would come to be seen as a splendid way to save money in health care. I used to have HMOs in mind in making that argument. But now, it seems that single payer systems may be the greater danger.Vermont has passed a single payer health plan–but hasn’t figured out how to pay for it, as I mentioned here previously. An editorial has come up with two “pragmatic� ways to cut costs. Yup, one is...

The UK is falling off a vertical moral cliff on the assisted suicide issue. It remains a crime. But the Public Prosecutor of England and Wales has stated that if, after a complete investigation, it is determined that family or others who assist suicides did it for an altruistic reason, there will be no prosecution. Indeed, the death could even by accomplished by the assister, and nothing will be done.What is the message of that directive? That the assisted suicides of people with disabilities and serious illnesses don’t matter as much as those of others–so long as the motive is...

BALTIMORE, Maryland, July 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. Lawrence Egbert, the medical director for the Final Exit Network (FEN) euthanasia advocacy organization, has been dubbed the new “Dr. Death,” after he admitted to the media that he and his organization have helped direct the deaths of nearly 300 people across the U.S. Euthanasia activist Jack Kevorkian, who died in June of natural causes, was the first to earn the title “Dr. Death,” after he claimed to have assisted in the suicides of about 130 people between 1990 and 1998. He subsequently served eight years in prison for second-degree murder after...

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ policy on physician-assisted suicide, approved at their national meeting in Bellevue last month , is the latest move by Roman Catholic leaders to intervene in Americans’ personal health care decisions.The eight-page policy, which the bishops passed 191-1 at their annual spring meeting, is full of inaccurate and misleading statements about the Death with Dignity laws in Washington and Oregon and the policy positions of the laws’ supporters. It ignores 14 years of experience in Oregon and two years in Washington. The head of Compassion & Choices, the main group supporting those laws, criticized the...

People born with disabilities who ‘lose the will to live’ would be eligible to end their lives under controversial new legislation proposed for the Scottish Parliament. This is the second attempt by Margo MacDonald MSP to legalise assisted suicide. Her first bill was roundly rejected by the Scottish Parliament. But the Independent MSP now intends to table a new bill which critics have branded “utterly irresponsible”. DangersMrs MacDonald has also suggested that people suffering from chronic conditions, but who do not have a terminal illness, should be able to get medical help to end their lives. And she suggested that...

Despite controversy at home and abroad over its law on assisted suicide, the Swiss government has decided not to modify it. Instead, it plans to promote palliative care and suicide prevention. Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga says that abuses of the system can be tackled under the existing legislation. “Revising the current legislation could give an official stamp of approval to organisations offering their services for assisted suicide,” she said. Over the past ten years the Swiss justice ministry has studied several options for dealing with assisted suicide clinics which help Swiss citizens and foreigners to die. In its latest, it...

LONDON, June 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --Around the world too many patients have "bad deaths" because they do not get the care they need, said the President of the International Society for Advance Care Planning and End of Life Care on the first day of the Society's annual conference. "Too often doctors and nurses fail to listen to the real problems from the patients' perspective and find solutions to help patients live as well as possible," said Associate Professor, Dr Bill Silvester, an Australian intensive care specialist. "Care of the dying must be a priority everywhere." The conference being held at...