New!  Swedish Doctors Say 'NO' To Assisted Suicides

Pediatric Neurosurgeons Criticize Dutch Practice of Euthanasia on Babies With Spina Bifida

Evolving Tactics of Pro-Euthanasia Movement Highlighted at Symposium

Mexico City Passes "Anticipated Death" Law

Suicide in Old Age

Japan: Medical Association Approves Euthanasia

British Nurses Will Decide Who Gets Resuscitated

Comatose Man Awakens

NEW! New Institute Will Study How Abortion, Euthanasia Target Disabled People

NEW! Oregon Assisted Suicide Report: Deaths Increase, No Psychological Referrals...

NEW INSTITUTE WILL STUDY HOW ABORTION & EUTHANASIA TARGET DISABLED PEOPLE. Regent University has launched a new institute that will study how abortion and euthanasia are targeting the disabled community.

The new organization will examine how the practices have created a multitude of human rights abuses ranging from sex-selection abortions to discrimination.

Billing itself as a "multicultural response to medical and cultural trends impacting people with disabilities, the Institute for the Study of Disability and Bioethics will examine these sensitive topics.

Mark P. Mostert, who will oversee the new center, calls the targeting of the disabled a global “silent war." "Medical and other scientific advances have improved the lives of people with disabilities in many ways. Rapid advances in genetic and other research mean that we now know more about what causes many disabilities than ever before," Mostert says on the group's web site.

"However, progress has a more difficult side. Science can now detect genetic anomalies in the womb, and culturally there is greater acceptance than ever before for abortion or euthanasia for those who, in others’ judgment, will not, or cannot live a high-quality life," Mostert adds.

Those forms of discrimination manifest themselves across the world and the Institute says approximately 100 million girls are missing from the world due to sex-selective abortions.

Studies show screening tests for Down Syndrome are inaccurate up to 40% of the time, yet abortion rates are as high as 95% for mothers carrying children diagnosed with Down's, it adds. [4Oct07, LifeNews.com, Virginia Beach, VA]  

OR ASSISTED SUICIDE REPORT: DEATHS INCREASE, NO PSYCHOLOGICAL REFERRALS. Oregon officials have released their tenth statewide report on the status of assisted suicide there and it found the number of people who died is on the rise.

The report also showed the number of people getting drugs to use in taking their own lives is increasing as well. More people received lethal drugs from doctors to kill themselves than any previous year under the state's first-in-the-nation law legalizing assisted suicide. The report showed 85 people received the drugs (an increase of 20 from the year prior) while 49 people had their physicians help them kill themselves (up slightly from 2007). Three of the people who killed themselves in 2007 received the prescription for the lethal cocktail in 2006.

Since the Oregon assisted suicide law took effect, 341 patients have killed themselves.

One leading euthanasia opponent, Rita Marker, of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, said she's concerned doctors don't do more to help patients address the mental health issues that likely prompt them to consider suicide.

"During 2007, not one patient who died under Oregon's assisted suicide law was referred for psychiatric or psychological evaluation before receiving the prescription for lethal drugs," she said. [19Mar08, LifeNews.com, Salem OR; #4273]
 

SWEDISH DOCTORS SAY NO TO ASSISTED SUICIDES. Swedish doctors are much more sceptical to Euthanasia than many of their colleagues around the world, according to a new study.

84% of Swedish doctors say they would never consider helping a patient die, even if the patient asked for it and it was legal. 54% of Dutch doctors say that they have helped someone die. Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands.

16 000 doctors from 7 countries took part in the survey and Swedish doctors together with their Italian counterparts were the most sceptical.

[Sveriges Radio 2008; http://www.huliq.com/51916/swedish-doctors-say-no-assisted-suicides; Cheryl Eckstein, Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)
www.chninternational.com/default.html; CHN is member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (WFDWRHL) past president Dr. Karel Gunning - March 15, 1926 - June 29, 2007]

PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGEONS CRITICIZE DUTCH PRACTICE OF EUTHANASIA ON BABIES WITH SPINA BIFIDA. Dutch paediatric neurosurgeon Rob de Jong, in collaboration with peers from several other countries, has expressed his concern at the practice in the Netherlands of carrying out euthanasia on some babies born with spina bifida in an article in the medical journal Child's Nervous System.According to a report by Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the lives of a small number of babies are terminated each year by doctors who, together with the parents, believe the infant is experiencing unbearable suffering and will continue to suffer in this way in the future.
In his article "Deliberate Termination of Life of Newborns with Spina Bifida, a Critical Reappraisal", Dr. de Jong argues that it is difficult to prove that the suffering of a baby or infant is or will remain unbearable, and cites a number of cases of physicians who, in retrospect, have been forced to acknowledge that their initial diagnosis was incorrect.

Dr. de Jong says he bases his case on medical evidence, not on ethical arguments that have normally been at the centre of nearly all discussions about euthanasia.

The Dutch Paediatric Association's guidelines for the active termination of life, that is, the performance of euthanasia on babies and infants, known as the Groningen Protocol, states that: the diagnosis and prognosis must be certain; hopeless and unbearable suffering must be present; the diagnosis, prognosis and unbearable suffering must be confirmed by at least one independent doctor; both parents must give informed consent; the procedure must be performed in accordance with the accepted medical standard.

Dr. de Jong contends that such a medical diagnosis/prognosis cannot be given with the requisite, certainty given the many variables and uncertainties involved.

The Dutch Paediatric Association spokesman Dr. Eduard Verhagen has dismissed the criticism expressed by Dr de Jong and his foreign colleagues, saying "they use too many technical arguments" and that all factors were looked at in depth when drawing up the protocol, so he sees no reason why the entire discussion should be repeated.

Related: Dutch Euthanasia Doctor Admits to Killing 4 Newborns With Lethal Injections
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/apr/05042706.html
[16Jan08, T. M. Baklinski, Netherlands, LifeSiteNews.com]

NEW, EVOLVING TACTICS OF PRO-EUTHANASIA MOVEMENT HIGHLIGHTED AT SYMPOSIUM: Warning given to avoid use of pro-death language such as terms "euthanasia", "assisted suicide"

This past weekend's International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide hosted by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada (EPCC) hosted in Toronto, brought together over three hundred participants from around the world. By far the largest symposium of its kind ever, the event drew to Toronto key experts in the area of law, medicine, political activism and the rights of people with disabilities.

Key players in the movement spoke to the role of broad coalitions of people who successfully halted attempts at pro-euthanasia legislation in England and Wales, California and Vermont. Speakers from the state of Oregon and the Netherlands spoke to the increasingly corrosive effects of legalized euthanasia and physician assisted suicide in those jurisdictions upon the integrity of the medical profession and the failure of safeguards to protect vulnerable people.

Disability rights leaders expressed their growing fears about the corrosive effects of a favourable attitude towards euthanasia upon their basic civil rights, as well as their particularly effective role in fending off such legislation.

Alison Davis, who runs the "No Less Human," a group for people with disabilities from the UK, gave a compelling account of her struggles to overcome her disabling condition. She emphasized that she likely would not have been speaking at the conference had the laws in the United Kingdom allowed for euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide back when she suffering from severe depression that she has since learned to overcome.

Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, Henk Reitsma from the Netherlands, and Mrs Barbara Farlow, a resident of Mississauga, Ontario, shared their real life experiences of having to deal with the deaths of relatives that were hastened as a consequence of medical practices determined by current dangerous attitudes towards the elderly, disabled and terminally ill.

Several speakers covered the philosophical underpinnings that have helped to create the increasing incidence of attitudes and policies that undermining respect for human life. Prominent ethicist Dr. Margaret Somerville of McGill University covered those issues in her evening lecture and tried to offer some positive, alternative positions that could be used to support a life affirming stance within a secular and democratic society.

Consistent themes emerged from the presentations. On the one hand, the numerous failures of pro-euthanasia and physician assisted suicide legislative proposals throughout the United States and in England and Wales revealed that much opposition to the practice still exists in many parts of the world. The legislation was successfully defeated by broad coalitions of people who represented a spectrum of political opinions, both secular and religious in outlook.

However, the almost passive acceptance of such practices in places such as the Netherlands and Belgium seems to indicate that once a society accepts the legitimacy of euthanasia under a few limited conditions, the underlining change of attitude towards life eventually leads to the practice to becoming increasingly widespread, eventually threatening people who want nothing to do with it.

The pro-euthanasia, physician assisted suicide lobby has also been steadily evolving, having learned from its failures in the past and has shed itself of the cruder elements that often undermined public support. In the words of Rita Marker of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, they have learned that "all social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering," and have thus changed their terminology accordingly.

Dr. Paul Byrne, in his talk on brain death, cautioned, as did other speakers, that the term "euthanasia" should never be used. The word is a Greek term meaning "good death" and the killings done via euthanasia are anything but a good death. Use of the term was said to give undeserved credibility and sanction to its contrary deadly results. A suggested appropriate alternative phrase was "imposed death", which more accurately describes what takes place. Instead of "euthanasia prevention", Dr. Byrne suggested the phrase "right to continue living" be used. As well, he suggested "physician assisted suicide" be should replaced with "physician imposed death".

The death lobby has also focused its efforts more in the direction of political elites, effecting stealth changes in law, the medical profession and hospital practices that often take place with little public awareness or debate. Articles supporting euthanasia and assisted suicide in prominent medical journals and the ongoing worrisome changes in hospital practices all suggest that the battle is far from over and will likely get worse before things begin to improve. [4Dec07, Frank Monozlai and Steve Jalsevac, Toronto, LifeSiteNews.com]



MEXICO CITY PASSES "ANTICIPATED DEATH" LAW: Could be a First Step to Euthanasia in Mexico. The legislature of Mexico City, the largest city in Mexico and in the western hemisphere, yesterday passed an "Anticipated Death" law that will allow patients diagnosed as terminally ill to refuse life-prolonging measures.

Although the law expressly prohibits active euthanasia, it is unclear if it will prohibit passive euthanasia in the form of withholding nutrition or hydration from patients, although pro-life groups in the country are not objecting to the bill.

The danger of such an application is increased by the fact that the law provides for "living wills" and allows relatives of unconscious patients to decide to withhold treatments. Such arrangements have resulted in serious abuses in the United States and Europe, including the starvation deaths of helpless patients such as Terri Schiavo.

However, the representatives of the more pro-life National Action Party (PAN) voted in favor of the bill, along with representatives of the socialist Democratic Revolution Party and the center-left Institutional Revolutionary Party, making passage unanimous.

"This initiative covers 'ortotanasia', which basically means 'between curing and caring'...we are not talking about terminating the life of anyone, but about the quality they want to have at the end of their lives," said PAN deputy Paula Soto.

Hugo Valdemar, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico, told the Mexico City newspaper El Universal that the diocese was not opposing the law, but was concerned that it takes a first step towards euthanasia.

Mexico's Secretary of Health, Jose Angel Cordova, told the press that the law would not necessarily be applied in federal hospitals, which make up the bulk of medical services in the country, because the law is not federal. He also clarified that if the government did decide to do so, it would not withhold food or fluids from patients.

"It's important that the same person who decides when there is an irreversible problem, also decides that extraordinary measures will no longer be taken. Clearly they will continue with hydration, nutrition, and respiratory support," said Cordova. The law also does not apply to private hospitals. Earlier in 2007, Mexico City legalized abortion. [5Dec07, Mexico City, LifeSiteNews.com]



A COMMON CASUALTY OF OLD AGE: The Will to Live. Suicide is more common among older Americans than any other age group. The statistics are daunting. While people 65 and older account for 12 percent of the population, they represent 16 percent to 25 percent of the suicides. Four out of five suicides in older adults are men. And among white men over 85, the suicide rate — 50 per 100,000 men — is six times that of the general population.
 
Yet, says Dr. Gary J. Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, “If you consider only major depression as the antecedent of elder suicide, you’ll miss 20 to 40 percent of cases in which there is no sign of mental illness.”
 
Dr. Kennedy, who is also affiliated with Albert Einstein College of Medicine, recently directed a symposium in New York on preventing suicide in older adults, designed to alert both mental health and primary care practitioners to the often subtle signs that an older person may try to end it all.
 
The Warning Signs
 
In interviews, he and other symposium presenters noted that detecting suicidal impulses in older people often depended on the ability of family members and friends to recognize warning signs and act on them. According to Gregory K. Brown, a suicide specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, in studies of what preceded elder suicides, “suicide ideation” — the wish to die or thoughts of killing themselves — appears not to have been taken seriously. In 75 percent of cases, the suicide victims “had told family members or acquaintances of their intention to kill themselves,” Dr. Brown said.
 
Dr. Kennedy put it this way: “This is not simply a doctor’s problem. We need to think of elder suicide more as a social problem and look out for individuals at risk.”
 
Primary care practitioners are also crucial to suicide prevention among the elderly because older people, and especially older men, are unlikely to seek out and accept mental health services but are often seen by family doctors and nurses within days or weeks of a suicide. Among suicide victims 55 and older, 58 percent visited a general physician in the month before the suicide. In fact, 20 percent see a general physician on the same day and 40 percent within one week of the suicide.
 
While major depression is the main precipitant of suicide at all ages, social isolation is an important risk factor for suicide among the elderly. And older men, more so than older women, often become socially isolated.
 
Widowers are especially at risk because older men in the current generation tend to depend on their wives to maintain social contacts. When wives die, their husbands’ social interactions often cease.
 
“Older males who live alone are an endangered species,” Dr. Kennedy said — particularly “in states like Wyoming, Montana and Nevada, where the social distance is great and firearms are a part of the culture.”
 
Many men are poorly prepared for retirement, and don’t know how to fill in the hours and maintain a sense of usefulness when they stop working. “They often sit around watching TV,” said Martha L. Bruce, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in White Plains said.
 
And Dr. Kennedy said, “After retirement a lot of older men start drinking heavily, a sign of increased aggression turned inward.” He called heavy drinking or binge drinking a risk factor for suicide among the elderly.
 
A particularly vulnerable time may be after the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease like cancer. Older men who were recently discharged from the hospital are also at high risk, Dr. Kennedy said. They need to be periodically screened for depressed mood, loss of interest in life and thoughts of killing themselves.
 
Serious personal neglect is another warning sign; people can commit a kind of passive suicide by failing to eat, letting themselves become dangerously sedentary or not taking needed medication.
 
Dealing With Depression
 
Contrary to what many people think, depression is not a normal part of growing older. Nor is it harder to treat in older people. But it is often harder to recognize and harder to get patients to accept and continue with treatment.
 
“Most people think sadness is a hallmark of depression,” Dr. Bruce said. “But more often in older people it’s anhedonia — they’re not enjoying life. They’re irritable and cranky.”
 
She added: “Many older people despair over the quality of their lives at the end of life. If they have a functional disability or serious medical illness, it may make it harder to notice depression in older people.”
 
Family members, friends and medical personnel must take it seriously when an older person says “life is not worth living,” “I don’t see any point in living,” “I’d be better off dead” or “My family would be better off if I died,” the experts emphasized. “Listen carefully, empathize and help the person get evaluated for treatment or into treatment,” Dr. Brown urged. He warned that “depressed older adults tend to have fewer symptoms” than younger adults who are depressed.
 
The ideal approach, of course, is to prevent depression in the first place. Dr. Brown recommended that older adults structure their days by maintaining a regular cycle and planning activities that “give them pleasure, purpose and a reason for living.”
 
He suggested “social activities of any type — joining a book club or bowling league, going to a senior center or gym, taking courses at a local college, hanging out at the coffee shop.”
 
Dr. Bruce suggests taking up a new interest like painting or needlework or volunteering at a place of worship, school or museum.
 
Dr. Brown notes that any activity the person is capable of doing can help to ward off depression and suicidal ideation. And he urges older people to talk to others about their problems. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/health/27brod.html?ref=health&pagewanted=print
November 27, 2007, Personal Health, by Jane Brody; Valko, 27Nov07]

JAPAN: MEDICAL ASSOCIATION APPROVES EUTHANASIA. The Japanese Association of Acute Medicine issued a statement this week approving the practice of euthanasia for terminally-ill patients under certain circumstances. A person can be euthanized if they ask for it in writing, if a review is done by a panel of doctors when the will of the patient is unknown, or if the family is unable to make a decision.
 
According to the Kyodo news agency, this is the first case of medical association approving a document of this type.  However, there is a precedent in the Japanese court system. Although current Japanese law is silent about euthanasia, some judges consider it when it is requested by a patient who is terminally ill and can no longer respond to treatment.
 
The statement indicates that doctors could practice euthanasia as long as the patient is supported by their family and has expressed his wishes in writing.  If his wishes are not known and the family is unable to decide, a medical team will make the decision.
 
In March of 2006, reports surfaced of a hospital in Imizu, Japan that was disconnecting the respirators of patients between the ages of 50 and 90. According to hospital officials, in all cases the family consented, but consent of the patient was not always obtained.  In 1998, a doctor from Yokohama euthanized a comatose man with a lethal injection and was sentenced in 2005 to three years in prison. 
[Cheryl Eckstein, Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN); Tokyo, 18Oct07; www.chninternational.com/default.html; http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=10712; CHN is member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (WFDWRHL) Dr. Karl Gunning, Pres; N Valko, RN, 22Oct07]

 BRITISH NURSES WILL DECIDE WHO GETS RESUSCITATED. Nurses will be able to decide that a dying patient should not be resuscitated under controversial new guidelines. Until now, only GPs and consultants could say whether there was any point in continuing efforts to save a life.

But guidance issued last night by the British Medical Association will allow 'suitably experienced nurses' to make this crucial decision.

Patients' groups criticised the move, calling it 'another nail in the coffin' of safety for the elderly and vulnerable which would condemn many to an 'early death sentence'.
The rules, published by the BMA in conjunction with the Royal College of Nursing and the Resuscitation Council, aim to help medical staff decide whether to resuscitate patients if their heart or breathing stops.

It says medical staff should use their judgment over whether there is any point in using the most common resuscitation method - chest compression, or 'cardiopulmonary resuscitation'.

But for the first time, this includes 'suitably experienced nurses'.

In the past, nurses faced with such a situation would have carried on until a GP or a consultant made the decision to give up hope.

The new guidelines, which cover hospitals, hospices and ambulances, were introduced because some experts feel that sustained rescuscitation efforts can be undignified and often worthless.
The RCN said only consultant nurses or senior nurses who have a supervisory role would be able to make these decisions.

General secretary Dr Peter Carter said: 'This joint guidance recognises the important part that nurses play in decisions related to resuscitation.
Dr Vivienne Nathanson of the BMA added: 'In TV medical dramas, CPR is often the wonder intervention that saves patients' lives and reunites them with their loved ones. 'Unfortunately, in real life the survival rate after a patient has a cardiac arrest and receives CPR is relatively low.'

Nurses will only be able to make such decisions if their local hospital trust agrees they can.
The Department of Health leaves it up to professional bodies such as the BMA issue guidance and individual trusts decide how to implement them.

SOS-NHS Patients in Danger, a group formed by relatives who believe a loved one died because of deliberate starvation, dehydration or with-holding of medication, have criticised the guidelines.

Spokesman Julia Quenzler said: 'By giving a senior nurse this power, is it yet another means of distancing doctors from their patients' deaths?'

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients' Association, called for greater clarity over which nurses should be allowed to make life-or-death decisions. 'We would hope that these senior nurses will be properly qualified and in a position to make these decisions,' she added.

[Comment: It's becoming painfully obvious that the big nursing organizations-both in the US and abroad- will not forcefully uphold ethical standards that protect both the nurses and the general public. Here in the US, we have the National Assn. of Prolife Nurses (www.nursesforlife.org) I would encourage all nurses to join organizations like this. By the way, several years ago, there was a case of several Austrian nurses accused of euthanasia. The authorities said that, at first, the nurses killed the patients that they felt sorry for but later killed the patients that caused the most trouble. A cautionary tale, indeed. N. ValKo RN]
[27October2007, Daniel Martin; N Valko RN, 28Oct07; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/thehealthnews.html?in_article_id=490022&in_page_id=1797&ct=5]


 COMATOSE MAN AWAKENS: His feeding tube had been removed. Doctors said he had only a small chance of recovery. His wife pulled his feeding tube after a week. But Friday, Jesse Ramirez walked out of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. It has been an amazing five months for the US postal employee and father of three who was literally at death's door when he was critically injured in a horrific accident. Jesse and his wife Rebecca were in their SUV when Jesse lost control and crashed into a store. Rebecca suffered minor injuries, but Jesse was airlifted to a hospital with a fractured skull and face, punctured lungs and broken ribs. One week after the accident, and following a couple of surgeries, Rebecca Ramirez pulled Jesse out of the hospital and moved him to a Mesa hospice. Rebecca then made the decision to pull his feeding tube and Jesse went six days without food or water.
12 News then received an e-mail from Jesse's cousin, Kalee Dickey from New Mexico, who told us Jesse's family needed our help. Dickey said that the family completely disagreed with Rebecca's decision to remove Jesse's feeding tube. They thought it was way too early to make that life or death decision, they believed Jesse was still fighting and could still pull through.
Jesse's parents, Jesse Sr. and Theresa Ramirez cried during our television interviews, telling us they were told they did not have power of attorney- Rebecca did. Jesse's co-workers at the post office also did TV interviews, telling us Jesse deserved a chance to live. They questioned his wife's actions. But one day the story aired, the family said Mesa hospice officials put Jesse's tube back in and the courts were now involved. A judge later ruled that the tube must stay in, until they work through the legal issues of the case. While those things transpired, family members reported that Jesse was now opening his eyes, and making hand gestures. Clearly no longer in a vegetative state, he was communicating with family. In court, it became official when a court appointed guardian announced that Jesse was indeed alert and awake. He was then transferred to a rehab center to begin the long road to recovery.
Rebecca Ramriez appeared at the first court appearance, but she has refused all requests for interviews. We don't know why she decided to pull his feeding tube so soon. According to the original police report, she told investigators the couple had been fighting before the accident and and she tried to jump out of the SUV because she "feared for her life."
How much Jesse remembers now is unclear. [19Oct07, Rich Dubek, 12 News http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/jesseramirezwalks10192007-CR.html
Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN) www.chninternational.com/default.html
CHN is member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (WFDWRHL) Dr. Karl Gunning, Pres]