Connecticut Trial Court Rejects Attempt to Overturn Ban on Assisted Suicide / Connecticut Judge Rules Assisted Suicide for “Humanitarian Reasons” a Crime

Warning to Britain As Almost Half of Belgium's Euthanasia Nurses Admit to Killing Without Consent

Rise in Suicides of Middle-Aged Is Continuing

After Canadian Success, EPC Hosted Assisted Suicide “Push Back” Seminar in Seattle on 5June10

How Will Hospice Care Change... with the new Health law?

Over 30% of Euthanasia Cases in Belgian Region Did Not Give Consent

Proper Palliative Sedation Not the Same as Assisted Suicide's "Terminal Sedation" by Wesley J. Smith with response by Ron Panzer

Commentary: ON BEING A BURDEN TO ONE’S FAMILY, ESPECIALLY ONE’S SPOUSE AND CHILDREN

Canada Parliament Strongly Defeats Bill to Legalize Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide

Gruesome Find: 300 Urns Dumped in Lake Zurich, Likely by Swiss Suicide Facility

New York Proposes 'Presumed Consent' Organ Harvesting Law

Organs Removed Without Consent

NH & FRENCH BILLS KILLED

SUPPORT FOR EUTHANASIA DROPS

GOOD PALLIATIVE CARE SHOULD BE REQUIRED FIRST

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE?

Living wills: Have They failed?

TRYING TO DISCOURAGE SUICIDE TOURISM

PUBLICLY FUNDED EUGENICS...

Connecticut Trial Court Rejects Attempt to Overturn Ban on Assisted Suicide

A Connecticut trial court judge rejected a lawsuit by euthanasia advocates seeking to overturn the Connecticut ban on assisted suicide. had the lawsuit been successful, it could have made the New England state the fourth after Oregon, Washington, and Montana to allow assisted suicides.

Gary Blick and Ronald Levine, two Fairfield County doctors, brought the lawsuit with the support of the pro-euthanasia group Compassion & Choices and state attorneys hoped Judge Julia Aurigemma would dismiss it.

Judge Aurigemma did just that -- and dismissed the petition, although the backers of the lawsuit are expected to file an appeal.

The euthanasia advocates argued the state’s manslaughter statute, which explicitly criminalizes aiding another person in suicide, should not apply to physicians who provide “aid in dying” by prescribing lethal drugs to patients.

Mailee Smith, an attorney with Americans United for Life, said the argument "represents a new tactic by suicide advocates: attempting to redefine assisted suicide by creating new legal terminology and tricking the courts and the American public into legalizing physician-assisted suicide under a different name."

"However, the trial court saw through their ploy," she said.

The trial court issued what Smith said were several important conclusions, such as concluding that “the commentary and legislative history of the statute make it quite clear that assisting a suicide, even for humanitarian purposes, is a crime.”

The legislature intended the statute to apply to physicians who assist suicide, and intended the term “suicide” to include “self-killing by those who are suffering from unbearable terminal illness," the court ruled.

The court noted that this conclusion is bolstered by the multiple failed attempts by euthanasia advocates to have the legislature overturn the ban.

Because the statute and its meaning are so clear, the court ruled that there is no “controversy” -- in other words, suicide advocates have no case, Smith explained.

Second, Smith said the court concluded that changing the assisted suicide ban to allow assisted suicides brings forth serious questions. They include whether assisted suicides threaten the most vulnerable in society, shifts the focus of physicians and insurers away from treating patients for physical and mental health concerns to making them advocates of death, and whether assisted suicide undermines the physician-patient relationship.

"The court also found that it is the legislature that is the most appropriate body to debate these important questions and that a preemptive declaration by the court would improperly deprive the legislature of its rightful opportunity and obligation to weigh these issues," Smith said.

Finally, the AUL attorney notes the court ruled that the euphemism "aid in dying" is not assisted suicide and not allowed by the statute.
[June 7, 2010, Hartford, CT, http://lifenews.com/bio3111.html]

Connecticut Judge Rules Assisted Suicide for “Humanitarian Reasons” a Crime
A Connecticut Superior Court judge has ruled against two doctors who argued that a state law against assisted suicide did not prohibit them from prescribing lethal drugs to consenting patients who were expected to die anyway.

The Hartford Courant reports that Judge Julia Aurigemma dismissed the case brought by Ronald Levine and Gary Blick, who asserted in their lawsuit against the state that “assisted suicide” is not the same thing as “aid in dying” – a claim Aurigemma flatly rejected.

"[The statute] is aimed at precisely the situation presented by the plaintiffs — aiding a terminally ill patient, in unbearable pain, to end his or her own life — and precisely the situation in which physicians are most likely to participate," wrote Aurigemma in her decision to dismiss the case.

The suit was backed by the pro-euthanasia group, Compassion and Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society). It attempted to fashion a fine distinction between assisted suicide – helping someone to commit suicide – and “aid in dying,” which the suit asserted is “the choice of a mentally competent terminally ill individual for a peaceful death” with a doctor’s prescription.

But state attorneys defending the law brought forward evidence from a commission on the statute which explicitly included the plaintiff’s contorted legal interpretation as falling under the definition of assisted suicide.

That evidence showed that the statute was intended to cover circumstances where assisting an individual’s suicide "is aimed at such situations as aiding, out of the feelings of sympathy, the suicide of one inflicted with a painful and incurable disease.”

Aurigemma agreed with the state’s arguments, declaring, "the commentary to and legislative history of the statute make it quite clear that assisting a suicide, even for humanitarian reasons, is a crime.”

Aurigemma dismissed the case on the grounds that the state had “sovereign immunity” – a legal doctrine that the state is immune from civil prosecution for laws it enacts – and that the proper recourse for changing the public policy on assisted suicide lay with the Connecticut legislature.

In a commentary on the decision, Mailee Smith, staff counsel with Americans United for Life, noted that Aurigemma would not buy into arguments that assisted suicide would be anything other than how “suicide” is understood by the law and the public.

“The trial court in Connecticut has set a powerful precedent that ‘aid in dying’ — as defined and advocated by suicide proponents — is, in fact, ‘suicide’ (as the law and the American public understand the term), and that the proper place to decide such issues is in the legislature,” she remarked.
 
Smith also pointed out that the superior court judge said the legislature would have to consider the ramifications of legalizing physician-assisted suicide. Smith said these questions would include how assisted suicide, “threatens the most vulnerable in society;” incentivizes physicians and insurers “away from vitally important tasks such as identifying and treating depression and providing end-of-life pain control and palliative care;” compromises “the physician-patient relationship and the integrity of the medical profession;” and even may open up the possibility of “involuntary euthanasia,” which has been documented in the Netherlands.

The legal battle over the state law may not be over, as Levine and Blick, are considering the option of appeal.

The case number is HHD-CV09-5033392-S.

Related: Dutch Euthanasia Numbers Rise
However, numbers of deaths likely much higher than "official" number.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10010708.html

Experts at International Euthanasia Symposium Stress Unity, Strategy, and the Triumph of Love over Suffering
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09060204.html

Oregon Offers to Pay to Kill, but Not to Treat Cancer Patient
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08060402.html
[8 June 2010, Peter J. Smith, HARTFORD, Connecticut, www.LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com:80/ldn/2010/jun/10060806.html; N Valko RN, 9 June 2010]



Warning to Britain As Almost Half of Belgium's Euthanasia Nurses Admit to Killing Without Consent

End of life: Euthanasia is legal in Belgium but must only be carried out by a doctor and with the patient's permission.

A high proportion of deaths classed as euthanasia in Belgium involved patients who did not ask for their lives to be ended, a study found.

More than 100 nurses admitted to researchers that they had taken part in 'terminations without request or consent'.

Although euthanasia is legal in Belgium, it is governed by strict rules which state it should be carried out only by a doctor and with the patient's permission.

The disturbing revelation  -  which shows that nurses regularly go well beyond their legal role  -  raises fears that were assisted suicides allowed in Britain, they could never be properly regulated.

Since its legalisation eight years ago, euthanasia now accounts for 2 per cent of deaths in Belgium  -  or around 2,000 a year.

The researchers found that a fifth of nurses admitted being involved in the assisted suicide of a patient.

But nearly half of these  -  120 of 248  -  also said there was no consent.

'The nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession,' said the report's authors in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

It is likely many nurses ' under-reported' their involvement for fear of admitting an illegal activity, the study said.

But it added that many were probably acting according to their patients' wishes, 'even if there was no explicit request'.

Last night, Dr Peter Saunders, director of the Care Not Killing campaign in Britain, said: 'We should take a warning from this that wherever you draw the line, people will go up to it and beyond it.'

'Once you have legalised voluntary euthanasia, involuntary euthanasia will inevitably follow,' he added.

But pro -euthanasia group Dignity in Dying said rules that see the patient taking their own life, rather than a doctor administering the drugs, could still work.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html#ixzz0qURG2FdG
[10 June 2010, Simon Caldwell, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html ]

Rise in Suicides of Middle-Aged Is Continuing

For the second year in a row, middle-aged adults have registered the highest suicide rate in the country, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Historically, the eldest segment of the population, those 80 and older, have had the highest rates of suicide in the United States. Starting in 2006, however, the suicide rate among men and women between the ages of 45 and 54 was the highest of any age group.

The most recent figures released, from 2007, reveal that the 45-to-54 age group had a suicide rate of 17.6 per every 100,000 people. The second highest was the 75-to-84 age range, with a rate of 16.4, followed by those between 35 and 44, with a 16.3.

The rate for 45- to 54-year-olds in 2006 was 17.2 per 100,000 people, and in 2005 it was 16.3.

“It’s such a startling rise,” said Dr. Paula Clayton, the medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Researchers are puzzled by the increase, but Dr. Clayton said the rise in suicide among Americans born in the 1950s and 1960s was probably a result of a combination of factors, including easier access to guns and prescription drugs and what may be a higher incidence of depression among baby boomers.

“Ninety percent of people who kill themselves have a mental disorder at the time of their death,” which can be aggravated by drug and alcohol abuse, Dr. Clayton said. Problems related to health, jobs, relationships and finances have also been shown to be important risk factors for suicide, the C.D.C. reported.

Men are more than three times as likely to commit suicide as women, and they tend to use guns. American Indians, Alaska Natives and non-Hispanic whites are also at greater risk. Veterans are also vulnerable.

About 50,000 people die each year from violence-related injuries; suicides account for more than half that number.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 6, 2010, on page A16 of the New York edition. [4June2010, PATRICIA COHEN, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06suicide.html?ref=health

After Canadian Success, EPC to Host Assisted Suicide “Push Back” Seminar in Seattle in early June

 Following the successful defeat of a bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada by a vote of 228 to 59 last month, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is turning its attention to the U.S.

Alex Schadenberg, director of the EPC, said the victory in Canada was “was achieved by maintaining a strict focus and working in coalition with many different groups who shared one goal, opposing the legalization of assisted suicide.”

Schadenberg said the purpose of the much-anticipated Assisted Suicide "Push Back" Seminar, to be held in Seattle on Saturday, June 5, 2010, will be to develop new coalitions that can work with a focused strategy in every jurisdiction in the United States and around the world.

The seminar is organized by the EPC and co-sponsored by True Compassionate Advocates, Physicians for Compassionate Care, Compassionate Health Care Network and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of British Columbia.

"We chose Seattle for the seminar location," Schadenberg explained, "because there are significant opportunities to turn back the cultural tide in Washington state. Seattle is also located near Montana, a state that is also in need of forming a strong and effective coalition.

“We also predict that California will once again face a new challenge by the euthanasia lobby and Oregon is constantly under social attack. Finally, we hoped that people in British Columbia will take advantage of the seminar."

Schadenberg said that the speakers scheduled for the event (which include Dr. Charles Bentz, of Physicians for Compassionate Care - Oregon, Eileen Geller, of True Compassionate Advocates - Washington State, and Greg Hinkle, Montana State Senator, among many other experts) will provide participants with the opportunity to work through the ideas that enabled EPC and its coalition partners to convince politicians from across the political and social spectrum to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.

"We are convinced that by working together we can effectively push-back the euthanasia lobby," Schadenberg concluded.

The seminar will be held at the Radisson Airport Hotel - Seattle-Tacoma. The Assisted Suicide Seminar room rate is $99.00 per night ($69 for students or persons with disabilities). Call the hotel at: 206-244-6666 or 1-800-395-7046 US/Canada Toll-free.

Further information and the seminar registration form is available on the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition website here.  [21May10, T. M. Baklinski, www.LifeSiteNews.comhttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10052102.html ]

Note: Read the comment below. I think that comment is more likely than the answer from the NYT. Left out of all the discussion is how assisted suicide will "work" in hospice. The Obamacare bills I read used the same disclaimer terminology about not condoning assisted suicide that Oregon's assisted suicide law uses.

While this is "only" a comment, it is a comment worth repeating, if simply to stimulate reflection.

How Will Hospice Care Change?
Q.
I am a medical social worker in the hospice arena. Would this bill include cuts to the hospice Medicare program? What would this bill mean to hospice programs in general? — Mary Z

A.
Hospice benefits won’t change under the new law, said Vicki Gottlich, a senior policy lawyer at the Center for Medicare Advocacy. The House provision that would have required plans to offer voluntary end-of-life counseling — which led to the infamous “death panel” claims that government bureaucrats would be empowered to give the thumbs up or thumbs down to care for the critically ill — was dropped. Nothing similar was included in the Senate bill, which ultimately became law, Ms. Gottlich said.

Comment:
Douglaston, NY
May 12th, 2010
The buildings will still be there, the admission standards for hospice care will still be there, but there are lots of changes this law will make to hospices, and they're not good.

Hospice care is often provided by non-profits, and church or religious affiliated agencies.

Should they not undertake the paperwork required by the secretary, the states, the countless bureaucracies this law creates, hospices will see their reimbursement cut 2% for each report they fail to produce. So, is our trillion dollars being well spent on paperwork instead of patients- apparently the democrats thought so.

Other cuts will hospices face won't be known till 2013, when (according to the text in the law) "not earlier than October 20 1, 2013, the Secretary shall, by regulation, implement revisions to the methodology for determining the payment rates for routine home care and other 23 services included in hospice care"

Who can take care of you in the hospice? Well, don't ask your own personal doctor, the law empowers mid-level practitioners such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants to run hospices.

Reimbursement is mandated to be "budget neutral" so if the hospice uses a physician, who generally gets more money (after all, they went to school for 4-8 years and many graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt) that will require the hospice to cut somewhere else. When 'the secretary' decides how much to pay professionals for a hospice visit, it'll be based at a nurse pay scale, not a doctors.

So, we can expect lots of changes, as the secretary has all kinds of discretion to set up demonstration programs, define what services are and are not covered, and decide who'll be allowed to start and run new hospice programs.

The secretary has 3 years, so let's ask this question again later. For now, facilities are worried they may not meet the requirements that'll come in 2013, and they're concerned the doctors and other professionals providing care may be replaced by entitlement-school graduates with much less experience and training.
[11May2010, By MICHELLE ANDREWS,
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/how-will-hospice-care-change/ ; 12May10, N. Valko RN]

Over 30% of Euthanasia Cases in Belgian Region Did Not Give Consent: Study: Most were undergoing medical treatment with the hope of a cure for their illness.

 In one region of Belgium, over 30 percent of reported euthanasia cases were carried out without the consent of the patient, a study has found.

At the same time, the overall number of official reported deaths by euthanasia are dramatically increasing in the country since the practice was legalized in 2002, with 40 per cent more cases reported for 2009 than the previous year.

A team of Belgian and Dutch end-of-life researchers circulated a questionnaire to physicians who signed death certificates of patients who died in the Belgian region of Flanders between June and November 2007.

The study showed that of the 208 reported Flemish deaths involving the use of “life-ending drugs,” 142 were killed with “an explicit patient request,” and 66 “were without an explicit request.”

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal this week, showed that in the majority of cases of euthanasia without a patient’s consent, the euthanasia “option” was not discussed with them before they were killed, and that most were undergoing medical treatment with the hope of a cure for their illness.

The researchers noted that euthanasia and assisted suicide “mostly involved patients less than 80 years of age, those with cancer and those dying at home.” Euthanasia without a “specific request” from the patient was “mostly” carried out on patients over 80 years, “those with a disease other than cancer and those in hospital.”

In most cases of patients killed without “an explicit request” (77.9%), “the decision was not discussed with the patient.”

Many cases in which patients were killed without requesting euthanasia, the researchers said, “involved patients whose diseases had unpredictable end-of-life trajectories,” with death not being an inevitable result.

The Belgian government’s statistics show that the number of euthanasia cases is rising dramatically, with 700 cases in 2009 compared to 500 in 2008.

It is likely, moreover, that the actual numbers of people being euthanized with or without their consent is likely much higher than the official statistics. Belgian media reports that physicians are “hesitating” to report euthanasia for fear of “judicial problems,” with an estimated 1 in 4 actually making formal reports of euthanasia.

In countries, such as the U.S., Canada and the UK, where the possibility of legalizing assisted suicide or euthanasia continues to be debated in legislatures, advocates of the practice routinely cite the “safeguards” that are ostensibly built into the law to protect vulnerable patients.

In Belgium, while the law allows euthanasia for people without terminal illnesses and who are suffering from “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain,” it also technically requires a patient’s written consent, the opinion of a third physician in cases where an illness is not terminal and a one-month waiting period for patients suffering from depression.

However, a study of cases of euthanasia in patients’ homes that was conducted by researchers from the End-of-Life Care Research Group, and Belgian Department of Public Health and found that, “Procedural requirements such as consultation of a second physician were sometimes ignored.”

“Euthanasia cases were least often reported when the physician did not regard the decision as euthanasia, when only opioids were used to perform euthanasia, or when no second physician was consulted.”

Anti-euthanasia campaigners have long warned that legal “safeguards” in practice do little to guard the safety of vulnerable patients. It has been widely reported, and admitted by euthanasia campaigners, that euthanasia was legalized in the Netherlands after years of physicians killing patients without a law and simply not reporting the cause of death.

Bioethics writer and lawyer Wesley J. Smith, writing on his blog at First Things magazine, said that it is likely that in countries that have legalized euthanasia by this backdoor means physicians are killing patients on their own cognizance without regard to legal restraints.

In reference to the recent study, Smith wrote, "We could say Flemish doctors murdered their patients since explicit request is required under the supposedly 'protective' euthanasia “guidelines.”

Smith also points to the next logical step in the euthanasia business, the linking of euthanasia and organ “harvesting.”

He cites a letter to the editor of the journal “Transplantation,” dated 2008, that recorded a case of a legal euthanasia, and subsequent “harvesting” of organs, of a patient with “locked-in” syndrome, in which she was fully conscious but completely paralyzed, and who requested that she be killed. But before she died, she also decided to donate her organs.

The letter, from the physicians presiding over the case, said, “This case of two separate requests, first euthanasia and second, organ donation after death, demonstrates that organ harvesting after euthanasia may be considered and accepted from ethical, legal and practical viewpoints in countries where euthanasia is legally accepted.

“The ethical and legal possibility of combination of the two separate processes, physician-assisted suicide and after-death organ donation was then considered and agreed by the institutional ethical committee president.”

Smith writes, “If this doesn’t set off alarm bells about how the sick and disabled are increasingly being looked upon not only as burdens (to themselves, families, and society), but potential objects for exploitation, what will?”

The killing of patients, even with consent, he wrote, validates “the ideas that dead is better than disabled and that living patients can, essentially, be viewed as a natural resource to be killed and mined.”

[May 19, 2010, By Hilary White, Rome, www.LifeSiteNews.com, URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10051903.html ; N Valko RN, 20May10]




Proper Palliative Sedation Not Same as Assisted Suicide's "Terminal Sedation" by Wesley J. Smith with response by Ron Panzer

Comment from Ron Panzer:
Ron Panzer, President of Hospice Patients Alliance was asked to respond to Smith's article (below) by prolife advocate and journalist, Matt Abbott.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott

Wesley Smith is on the right track, but clearly not a nurse who has worked in hospice and dealt with patients at the end-of-life.  He confuses the terms "terminal sedation," "palliative sedation" and what is supposed to occur and what is being done in the name of either.

And "terminal sedation" or "palliative sedation" was NEVER mainly used as a pain control method.  It was mostly used in the case of agitated
patients, and to a lesser extent, for patients whose pain could not be
managed well otherwise.

What was always known before as "terminal sedation," was properly
applied for certain clinical conditions: the sedating of a patient whose
extreme agitation (called "terminal agitation at the end-of-life"),
delusional or psychotic state, or extreme pain could not be managed any
other way, making him a danger to himself or others, or allowing his
continued suffering. 

This "terminal sedation" properly protects the patient from himself and helps to achieve relief from those distressing symptoms.  There is nothing in the original use of "terminal sedation" that required the patient to be denied artificial fluid and nutrition through a feeding tube, IV or other route.

The new use of "terminal sedation" intentionally to end lives is the "Third Way" used in many hospices, some hospitals and elsewhere. 

This misuse of terminal sedation involves the sedating of patients who are not terminally agitated, delusional or psychotic and have no clinical need to be sedated. 

They are sedated into a coma where they obviously are not conscious enough to safely eat or drink.  They are intentionally denied nutrition and liquids orally because to do so would cause aspiration of the materials into the lungs. 

Since this type of "terminal sedation" keeps the patient comatose permanently, they die of dehydration.  The fluid volume of the blood decreases to the point where the circulatory system fails, cannot pump because there isn't enough to
maintain blood pressure.

Hospice workers who misuse "terminal sedation" to intentionally end
patients' lives often sedate the patient into a coma through an overdose
of morphine or other opioid, or simply give more sedatives than are
needed. 

They then tell the family that the patient is "obviously dying"
and cannot be fed or given fluids or "it could go into his lungs!"  The
families report to me that the patients often were eating, drinking,
talking, even walking immediately before being sedated and all of a
sudden became comatose, often right after hospice became involved, or a
particular nurse was involved.

Calling the proper use of terminal sedation "palliative sedation" and
labeling the improper intentional killing of patients through sedation
"terminal sedation" is an inaccurate use and understanding of the
terminology. 

"Terminal sedation" always was a form of "palliative" care
and thus could always have been called "palliative sedation" if one
chose to do so.  Wesley Smith makes a difference where none existed
before, but misses the point.

The point is that according to the clinical standards for palliative
care, terminal sedation was, and is, only used where other methods fail
to provide relief.  And, it did NOT necessarily have to be applied at
the very end point where death was imminent.  It was used where other
methods failed to provide relief, plain and simple.

The statement of the NHPCO is generally correct, but fails to point out
that many hospices and/or their staff MISUSE terminal sedation to
necessitate the withholding of fluids and nutrition, thereby causing
death.  Hospice staff tell the family (after they have induced a coma):
  "the patient is in a coma; if he ate or drank it would go into his
lungs; you don't want him to drown, do you?"

And so it goes, families are coerced into watching their loved one
killed, slowly, through medically-induced comas, consequent
medically-induced inability to eat or drink, and consequent death
through dehydration.

I've heard about this scenario innumerable times.  The story is always the same.  This is the most widely used method of killing in America.


If people contemplate and really see the sanctity of life, their
"quality of life" arguments fall away and they will understand that we
are here to care for each other, not to kill each other.

Caring, and not convenience, is the sign of a civilized and just society!

Preserving the original hospice mission...

Ron Panzer
for Hospice Patients Alliance
http://www.hospicepatients.org
~~~~~
 
Proper Palliative Sedation Not Same as Assisted Suicide's "Terminal Sedation"
by Wesley J. Smith
May 13, 2010, http://www.lifenews.com/bio3100.html

The assisted suicide movement is ever about blurring vital distinctions and deconstructing crucial definitions. One target has been the proper pain control technique known as palliative sedation, a rarely required procedure in which patients near death are sedated to control pain or other symptoms such as severe agitation or air hunger that cannot be alleviated in any other manner.

Confusion about this–some of it intentionally sown by assisted suicide advocates–induced the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization to issue a statement clarifying the proper methods and purposes of sedation as a palliative technique. From the statement:

Availability

For the small number of imminently dying patients whose suffering is intolerable and refractory, NHPCO supports making the option of palliative sedation, delivered by highly trained healthcare professionals acting as an interdisciplinary team, available to patients.

Proportionality

Since the goal is symptom relief (and not unconsciousness per se), sedation should be titrated to reduce consciousness to the minimum level necessary to render symptoms tolerable. For most patients this will mean less than total unconsciousness, allowing the patient to rest comfortably, but to be aroused…

Relationship to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Properly administered, palliative sedation of patients who are imminently dying is not the proximate cause of patient death, nor is death a means to achieve symptom relief in palliative sedation. As such, palliative sedation is categorically distinct from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Contrast this with the intentional misdefinition of palliative sedation two pro assisted suicide legislators tried to foist on California (AB 2747), under the influence of Compassion and Choices, which would have mutated palliative sedation into terminal sedation via induced coma and dehydration:

442 (d) “Palliative sedation” means the use of sedative medications to relieve extreme suffering by making the patient unaware and unconscious, while artificial food and hydration are withheld, during the progression of the disease leading to the death of the patient.

That didn’t pass. But the crucial difference between palliative sedation–as described by the NHPCO–and terminal sedation–favored by the death with dignity crowd–is the difference between medically caring properly for patients and turning killing into both a means and an end.

[Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/bio3100.html ; LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. Excerpted from his A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement (Encounter, 2010)... N Valko RN, 18May10]

ON BEING A BURDEN TO ONE’S FAMILY, ESPECIALLY ONE’S SPOUSE AND CHILDREN

Guest commentary by William E. May, Ph.D.
Frequently, elderly people like me (I will soon be 82 years old), some suffering from an assortment of health problems, are heard to say that they don’t want to be a burden on their families, especially their spouses and children. And there is surely some truth in this. But rightly understood—and I hope to make it so here—I want to be a burden to my loved ones.

Gilbert Meilaender’s thoughtful reflections and their relevance to care of dying

I began thinking seriously about this a short time ago when I received a copy of the 20th anniversary issue of the journal First Things (March 2010), in which selections from its first 20 years were reprinted.

Among these was Gilbert Meilaender’s brief piece in the October 1991 issue called “I Want to Burden My Loved Ones.” In his thoughtful and thought-provoking article, Meilaender points out that in this life we do not come together as autonomous individuals freely contracting with each other. Rather we find ourselves living with other persons, beginning with our families, and are asked to share the burdens of life while caring for each other. He emphasizes that “morality consists in large part in learning to deal with the unexpected and unplanned interruptions in our life.”

In short, we can ask ourselves, “How do I bear the contradictions of each day?” –traffic jams when we are in a hurry to get to work; slipping on the ice and breaking some bones; losing our job because of downsizing. Do we accept these or rebel against them and against God, who loves us yet allows these to remind us that we are not in control of our lives; He is.

Toward the end of his essay, Meilaender said: “Perhaps it is a good thing, lest we be tempted to injustice, that the dying burden the living.” Thinking about this, Meilaender suggested that it is far better to name a proxy with the power of attorney to make decisions regarding our medical treatments, should we become incompetent and incapable of making them for ourselves when gravely ill. He said that at the time he was writing he would name his wife as his proxy, for he was confident that she would always ask, “What can we do to benefit the life he still has?” realizing that answering this question will put a burden on her. But because she loves him, she will welcome this burden. Meilaender is surely on target. I will later return to this issue.

Personal reflections

Reading Meilaender’s essay led me to think about the final days of my own father and mother. God had given me wonderful, loving parents, who surely bore with love and patience the “burdens” I placed on them as their child in growing up and even later when faced with serious economic problems when I was out of work for eight months. They lived in my native St. Louis and I in Washington, D.C. when they were suffering the ailments of old age and dying.

I could not care for them, nor could my younger sister who lived in Kansas City, Missouri, where she taught French. But my older sister, who had been so good to me all my life and had a large family of seven children and many grandchildren, lived still in our native St. Louis, and she was indeed burdened to care, first, for my father who at age 82 and still quite active slipped on some ice in the winter, hitting his head and after that lying in a semi-conscious state for almost a year before dying.

My mother did what she could and fortunately my father’s retirement program paid for a nurse to come daily to help move him in bed; but my sister had to do many, many things for both my father and mother.

After my father died, my mother lived for another 10 years and needed a lot of help, particularly after she contracted cancer of the pancreas, but my sister gladly gave her all, to do what she could to meet her needs despite her own busy life. And she did so cheerfully, gladly; it was a burden she wanted to bear because it gave her the opportunity to give her mother (and earlier my father) love in return for the love they had given her. I am sorry that I could not share this burden.

God, I know, has blessed me with a loving wife. Over the past year in particular, when I had serious health problems, she bore cheerfully the burden of helping me dress, pushing me for good distances in a wheel chair ..., etc. God has also blessed me with fantastic, loving children, four boys, three girls, who even now, in particular the three who live closest to me and my wife, bear a lot of burdens in caring for us and helping us get to stores, banks, etc. because I can no longer drive and my wife has not driven for years. But they do so gladly, and the children who live at a distance sacrifice to make special trips to visit us and help us as much as they can.

My wife is my appointed proxy and I am hers; and, should we both be incompetent our oldest son Michael is. We know that we love each other and that Michael loves us deeply. In answering the question, “What can we do to benefit the life I, or my wife, or both of us, have left to live?” it will be our burden (mine, my wife’s, or Michael’s) to make decisions that in our judgment will add life to the days of the loved one for whom we care, however many remain for him or her. And we know that whoever carries this burden will choose to do what he or she knows is morally good... on the way life-preserving measures are to be used.

The virtue of solidarity

A great virtue is that of solidarity. In carrying the burden of persons who are in need of care, especially one’s loved ones and those most vulnerable in our society, we are given the chance to practice this virtue... Moreover, although our burdens may frequently be very hard to carry we need to remember that our Lord told us that to follow him we could do so only by taking up our cross daily, and we should likewise remember that He is our Simon of Cyrene, ready to help us bear our cross lovingly.

Final reflections

I do not mean to say that caring for the elderly and others is not a burden.
It can be, sometimes significantly so.  
I am saying that bearing this burden is so central to being human that if we run from the burden, we not only disrespect the elderly and vulnerable, we dehumanize ourselves.

Our community has been backing away in disgust from persons who are dependent since the selfish sixties. Families with lots of children are no longer considered examples of generosity, but rather of irresponsibility. Children with severe disabilities are not special angels sent to us by God, but drains on the economy; better that they not be born. And the elderly are burdens.

But if we succeed in pushing away everyone who is dependent, then we’re left with ourselves, our egocentric, sin-rationalizing, defensive, irritable and vain selves.  

If we never learn to give till it hurts, till the painful reality that we’re not the center of the universe sinks in, we will fail at marriage, at parenthood, at citizenship, even at simple neighborliness. Our community will become a marketplace of the physically strong, but morally weak.

The great Protestant ethicist Stanley Hauer wrote an essay a few years ago arguing that we need the elderly and disabled more than they need us. Without them to love, to sacrifice for, to give to till it hurts, we will become a community of devils.

[ALL Pro-Life Today, 23 April 2010, reprinted with permission from the Culture of Life Foundation. CLF is a social policy research institute that exists to reveal and present the truths about the human person at all stages of life and in all conditions.
Dr. William E. May is senior research fellow of CLF and emeritus Michael J. McGivney professor of moral theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. He taught at the John Paul II Institute from 1991 through 2008, after teaching for 20 years at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of more than a dozen books and is married to Patricia Keck May.]

Canada Parliament Strongly Defeats Bill to Legalize Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide

The Canadian parliament on Wednesday defeated a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. MPs form all parties voted against the measure, Bill C-384, the private members bill sponsored by Francine Lalonde that was opposed by pro-life and disability rights organizations.

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, one of the prominent organizations fighting the bill, told LifeNews.com he was elated by the vote.

"We would like to thank every member of parliament who voted against Bill C-384. We would also like to thank all of our supporters who made this victory possible. Months of work have resulted in an incredible victory. But the battle is not over," he said.

While assisted suicide organizations regroup for another bill, Schadenberg said opponents of euthanasia must work to help the disabled, terminally ill and elderly, and provide than better resources than suicide.

"We are working to turn the debate on this issue to a debate on how Canadians can live with dignity," he said.

"It is our goal to work with members of parliament and other Canadian leaders to identify ways to improve palliative/hospice care throughout Canada, change attitudes and improve services for people with disabilities, institute an effective national suicide prevention strategy, and promote programs that identify and eliminate the scourge of elder abuse," he said.

He concluded: "We must continue to build a nation that upholds the dignity of all its citizens. We must continue to create a paradigm that protects all Canadians, including its most vulnerable. We reject the concept that killing can be the answer to problems that are properly solved by a caring society."

American bioethicst Wesley J. Smith said the bill had many problems that resulted in its defeat.

He said, under its provisions, "the patient does not have to be physically ill–mental pain will do" and "even if the patient could have suffering reduced through proper treatment or care, he or she is still eligible to be aided in suicide by choosing death over treatment."

"I believe that this bill could be interpreted to authorize doctors to administer the death causing agent," he said.

"Repeat after me: Assisted suicide is not about terminal illness. Assisted suicide is not about terminal illness. Assisted suicide is not about terminal illness," Smith concluded.

A recent poll conducted by the polling firm Environics for a Canadian pro-life group shows 70% of Canadians worried that if legalization occurs, sick, disabled, or elderly persons would be euthanized without their consent. In addition, 56% were concerned that elderly persons would be pressured to accept euthanasia due to rising health care costs.

Related:
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca
[21 April 2010, Ertelt, Ottawa, Canada www.LifeNews.com; http://www.lifenews.com/bio3087.html]

Gruesome Find: 300 Urns Dumped in Lake Zurich, Likely by Swiss Suicide Facility
Local authorities in Zurich are asking questions about the assisted suicide facility Dignitas, after 300 urns containing human ashes were found in Lake Zurich this week.

The urns bear the logo of the Nordheim crematorium, which is used by Dignitas. Former Dignitas employee Soraya Wernli, told media that dumping urns into Lake Zurich was a standard procedure of the facility.

It is illegal in Switzerland to dispose of a large number of urns containing human remains without a commercial license, a criminal offense that carries a sentence of up to three years in prison. [http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10042803.html,
Life Site News; PharmFacts E-News Update -- 30 Apr 2010 ]

Comment:  So - this is death with dignity -burial like human waste.  While the treatment of their victims is shocking, that Dignitas has done this does not surprise me.  After all, they are in the business of killing human beings - they are just like criminals who kill for whatever reason and dispose of their victims like garbage in secret.  How is it possible for Dignitas to have any respect for human remains. And where are the relatives of the dead?  Cheryl, CHN

Swiss assisted suicide clinic Dignitas has been accused of dumping dozens of urns filled with human remains in a nearby lake.
Divers said they lost count of the number of containers full of ashes they had retrieved from the bed of nearby Lake Geneva.

Each apparently bore the name of the controversial clinic on its side.

Roman Ruetz, who made the discovery, said: “We stopped counting at 50 urns. They’re all lying on a heap.”

Dignitas founder Ludwig A Minelli, who has refused to comment on the allegations, could be jailed if the matter goes to court.

Judges can imprison organisers of unauthorised lake burials for three years, and dish out a fine of around £32,000.

The clinic has been accused of unlawfully depositing human remains before.

Swiss authorities began a probe in October 2008 after two Dignitas members were seen tipping the ashes of 20 people into Lake Zurich.

At the same time, the clinic was warned by waste disposal officials after hundreds of small human bone fragments washed up on the shore of the beauty spot.
Cheryl Eckstein
Founder President Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)
CHN is a not for profit organization, formed 1990.  CHN - 11563 Bailey Cres., Surrey, B.C.  V3V 2V4 Canada  Phone - 604 582 3844  Visit us at / www.chninternational.com/default.html
[April 28, 2010, David Williams, Sky News Online, UK, http://newsdeskinternational.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/swiss-suicide-clinic-dumps-ashes-in-lake/ ]

New York Proposes 'Presumed Consent' Organ Harvesting Law

 Citing the shortage in organs available for transplant, a state assemblyman in New York has proposed that all citizens of the state become automatically enrolled as candidates for organ harvesting.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has introduced a new bill in Albany that aims to enroll all New Yorkers as organ donors unless they take action to opt out.

If passed, Brodsky's bill would become the first such law the U.S. However, a similar bill was also introduced in Illinois earlier this year.

"We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the list today waiting for organs. We import half the organs we transplant. It is an unacceptable failed system," Brodsky said, according to CBS News 2. Brodsky pointed to other nations who have passed similar laws that now are in force "without a lot of controversy."

Despite the altruistic goal of such legislation, the current practice of organ harvesting has increasingly alarmed the pro-life community, as evidence continues to surface that the prerequisite "brain death" is often defined to ease the process of collecting fresher organs, rather than according to whether a person has actually died. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine confirmed these fears in a 2008 article that backed up the notion that "brain dead" patients are often, in fact, still alive.

Cases such as that of 21-year-old Zack Dunlap, whose organs were nearly harvested before he suddenly responded to a family member's last-ditch attempt to communicate with him, have forced pro-life doctors to question how many other donors were in fact alive and responsive to pain at the time their organs were removed.

According to LSN medical advisor Dr. John Shea, such donors are often given drugs to paralyze muscles before the process, to prevent them from moving, making it impossible to know whether they are aware or not. In a 2008 New York Times article on the use of anesthetic in neonatal operations, anesthesiologist Mark Rosen noted in passing that stress hormones are known to increase in "brain dead" patients during the organ harvesting process.

The question of "brain death" has even received attention by the Catholic Church: In a Vatican conference on "brain death" last year, doctors informed officials of evidence that the death of an organ donor occurs, not at the point of "brain death," but due to the removal of his or her vital organs. Pope Benedict XVI warned the conference that "the main criterion" for organ removal must be "respect for the life of the donor so that the removal of organs is allowed only in the presence of his actual death."

Related: Melbourne Doctor: Most Donors Still Alive when Organs are Removed
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102105.html

Illinois Considers 'Presumed Consent' Organ Harvesting Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030408.html

New England Journal of Medicine: 'Brain Death' is not Death
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081406.html

Doctors Who Almost Dissected Living Patient Confess Ignorance about Actual Moment of Death
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08061308.html

Doctor Says about "Brain Dead" Man Saved from Organ Harvesting - "Brain Death is Never Really Death"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08032709.html

Denver Coroner Rules "Homicide" in Organ-Donor Case
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/oct/04101208.html

Russian Surgeons Removing Organs Saying Patients Almost Dead Anyway
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/sep/03090906.html
[April 29, 2010, Kathleen Gilbert, www.LifeSiteNews.com.
See this article at http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10042906.html for several imbedded links]

Organs Removed Without Consent

Organs may have been removed from deceased people without their consent after a data-handling error by the NHS.

The blunder meant 800,000 people on the UK donor register may have had their wishes about the use of organs for transplant wrongly recorded.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that 45 of them have now died - and 20 families let organs of relatives be taken based on incorrectly stored information.

NHS Blood and Transplant said it was urgently investigating.

Many donors give consent for some organs to be used for transplant but not others, such as eyes.

But the details of many donors' preferences were accidentally deleted in 1999.

“ It is horrific that such sensitive details were handled in such a careless way ”
Patient Concern
It first came to light in 2009 when NHS Blood and Transplant wrote to donors, reiterating what they had agreed to donate.

But many wrote back saying the information was incorrect.

Joyce Robins of pressure group Patient Concern told the Sunday Telegraph: "This government has got an absolutely dreadful record when it comes to data, but it is horrific that such sensitive details were handled in such a careless way."

'Small proportion'

NHS Blood and Transplant has since corrected 400,000 flawed records - but hundreds of thousands of people must now be contacted to confirm which organs may be taken.

Until consent is given from those affected, no organs will be removed.

It is against the law to take organs from the dead without their prior consent, or that of their family after death.

A spokeswoman for NHS Blood and Transplant said: "We are aware of issues with the records with a small proportion of the people who signed up to the NHS organ donor register.

"We are taking it very seriously and are urgently investigating the situation.

"Our priority is in ensuring that the families of those who may have been affected are contacted."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb described the data error as "a shocking failure of proper controls".

"The Liberals Democrats believe in reforms to provide for assumed consent so as to increase organs available for transplant.

"But for so long as the opt-in consent system is in place it is critical that everybody has confidence in the current system," he said.


Have you been contacted by the NHS to confirm your organ donor preferences? Have you ever given consent for a relative's organs to be donated? What is your reaction to the NHS blunder?

[BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8613791.stm
Published: 2010/04/10; http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8613791.stm?ad=1 ]

NH & FRENCH BILLS KILLED. The New Hampshire House of Representatives has killed an expansive bill to legalize assisted suicide. The bill, HB 304, was defeated by a full House vote of 242-113 on 13jan10. The bill was a hold-over from last year.

The committee recommended that the House reject the bill in 2010 because of serious abuse concerns. While the measure was patterned on Oregon's assisted-suicide law, it was far more expansive in scope than its prototype.

Last November (2009) the French Parliament rejected a euthanasia bill by a vote of 326 - 202. The bill would have legalized "medical assistance to die with dignity". [Agence France-Presse, 24Nov09; International Task Force Update, 2010, vol. 24, no. 1, internationaltaskforce.org]

SUPPORT FOR EUTHANASIA DROPS. According to a Feb 2010 Angus Reid public opinion poll, American support for legalizing euthanasia has dropped 3 percentage points since August 2009 (from 45% to 42%), while opposition to legalization of euthanasia has increased by 4 points (from 32% to 36%). [Angus Reid Press Release, 10Feb10; International Task Force Update, 2010, vol. 24, no. 1, internationaltaskforce.org]

GOOD PALLIATIVE CARE SHOULD BE REQUIRED FIRST. A new book on the history of euthanasia practice in the Netherlands reveals that former Dutch Health Minister Els Borst, who successfully pushed for the passage of the euthanasia law in 2001, now thinks it was a mistake to legalize the practice before good palliative care protocols and programs were developed in the country.

Dr. Anne-Marie Teh, a Dutch anthropologist, lawyer, and author of the book, said palliative care should always come before euthanasia is even considered. [NRC Handelsblad, 30Nov09; International Task Force Update, 2010, vol. 24, no. 1, internationaltaskforce.org]

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE? There is such a thing as the "slippery slope" and it's alive and well in the Netherlands. Once the country legalized doctor-induced euthanasia for physically suffering adults, courts and medical professionals began expanding the practice to include children, disabled newborns, and those with mental suffering like depression.

Now, there is a citizens' initiative being circulated calling for euthanasia deaths for all Dutch people over the age of 70 who are simply tired of living. In just one week, the petition garnered more than the required 40,000 signatures needed to force a debate in the Dutch Parliament. One initiative backer, Dutch lawyer Eugene Sutorious, said there would be virtually no abuse risk for the over 70 set: "No one stands to win or gain personally from it". When asked about the existence of a slippery slope in the Netherlands, Sutorious replied, "I have seen nothing of the kind happen."  [NRC Handelsblad, 2/8/10; Dutch News 2/14/10]

Recently released figures indicate that the number of reported 2009 euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths increased by 200 cases over the previous year, bringing the total to 2500. According to the Dutch Right to Die Association, six of those cases involved the induced deaths of "people in the early stage of dementia". [NVVE, Relevant Magazine, 1Feb10; International Task Force Update, 2010, vol. 24, no. 1, internationaltaskforce.org]

Comment: Yes, they [Living Wills] have [failed], and most of them are downright dangerous. However, note the example of short-term ventilator assistance for pneumonia. This is probably new information for most people. This is why I tell my patients who are wondering about "living wills" about a protective durable power of attorney and that they might consider not signing off on any specific treatments or care.

Much of what people know about such things as feeding tubes and ventilators is not accurate and it's virtually impossible to predict a future situation.  

Would you sign an operation permit before you have any problems?

Wouldn't you would want to know all relevant information beforehand in order to make a good decision?

Then why sign an advance directive to refuse all sorts of basically undefined treatments or care that might save or improve your life, especially when you are still healthy?
Nancy V.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/healthfitness/story/DC4E097F098F6FAE8625771300728C4F?OpenDocument
 
Living wills: Have they failed?
By Judith Graham
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
04/29/2010

The great health reform debate over alleged death panels has fizzled. Lawmakers guaranteed that by stripping provisions supporting end-of-life planning from legislation enacted last month.

What remains is the status quo. It's left to individuals to decide if they want to think about their medical destiny at life's end, talk to their families and make their wishes known — as it has always been.

Some doctors initiate these discussions before people are at death's door, but most don't. Despite intensive educational efforts, only 30 percent of adults have prepared an advance directive: a living will or a durable power of health care attorney appointing a surrogate decision-maker. To many experts, this indicates that current approaches to advance care planning aren't working and that a fresh approach is needed.

In particular, experts criticize living wills that lay out the kind of medical care people might want in the future under various circumstances.  

The documents are overly vague, often not available when needed most, and frequently difficult for medical providers to interpret, they say.

"Living wills have failed to achieve their promise," says Dr. Muriel Gillick, a specialist in geriatrics and palliative care at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Massachusetts.

What's needed instead are better conversations between doctors and patients, and patients and their families, she said. For their part, doctors should clarify patients' current medical status, how it's likely to change, what medical interventions may be necessary, and what benefits and side effects can be expected.

Patients, also, need to take a different approach. While many ask their doctors "is my condition curable?" or "how long do I have?" few think to ask "what level of disability lies ahead and what do I need to do to prepare for that," said Dr. Maria Silveira, an assistant professor of general medicine at the University of Michigan.

These conversations necessarily involve ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity, which often characterize medical care at the end of life, according to Dr. Terri Fried, a professor of geriatric medicine at Yale School of Medicine. "So much of what we confront are gray areas, which living wills don't address," she said.

Take someone with moderately advanced dementia who develops pneumonia after food goes down his windpipe. What if his living will says "I never want to be on a respirator" but a brief period on the breathing machine might be helpful while the pneumonia is being treated? Fried asks. If the intervention wins another year or two of life, is it worth it? What if repeated bouts of pneumonia are likely, given the man's deteriorating condition?

"We need to move away from a legal model of filling out forms to a social model of having conversations about values, preferences and goals of care at the end of life," said John Carney, a vice president at the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City.

Other experts agree, but say it doesn't have to be an either-or proposition.

In her Michigan practice, Silveira initiates discussions with patients when they have a sudden deterioration in health: for instance, when someone with emphysema becomes dependent full time on oxygen or is being hospitalized more frequently.

If a person has a living will, that can become part of the conversation, Silveira said. "Anything that helps me understand how a patient thinks about these issues is helpful," she said. Silveira recently published research in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that seniors with living wills usually get medical care consistent with their stated preferences.

Instead of saying advance care planning doesn't work, medical experts should be teaching doctors how to have these conversations with patients, says Dr. Linda Emanuel, professor of geriatric medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

"The debate should be over the best way to honor the wishes of the individual, whatever those might be," Emanuel said. "In that light, this isn't a polarizing issue at all. It's something we can all believe in."

TRYING TO DISCOURAGE SUICIDE TOURISM. With Support from the Zurich Parliament, a referendum to discourage "suicide tourism" in Switzerland will be held on 28Nov10. The measure is aimed at curtailing the suicide trade of Dignitas, the clinic near Zurich that has assisted the suicides of over 1000 people, mostly foreigners.

If passed, the referendum would limit legal suicide assistance to those who have lived in Zurich for one year. It would also set a steep fine of up to 50,000 Swiss francs ($46,000 US) against Dignitas if it violates the year residency requirement. It is expected that Ludwig Minelli, executive director of Dignitas, would pass the fine on to his customers -- a huge expense that most could not afford. [World Radio Switzerland, 11Jan10; London Telegraph, 23Jan10; International Task Force Update, 2010, vol. 24, no. 1, internationaltaskforce.org]

Publicly Funded Eugenics

Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak is spearheading pro-life opposition within his party to House passage of the Senate's health-care bill, which provides for publicly funded abortions.

While leaving the members of his "Stu-PAC" unnamed, Stupak tallied them at 12 until this past weekend, when he said he had lost one or two due to "having both of their arms twisted," as he told National Review Online, and "getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions."

Still, the Stu-PAC Ten might be enough to stop socialized health care in the House. In November its version, with Stupak's pro-life amendment included, passed with only a margin of five, 220-215. Without it, as the Senate's version excludes? Tough.

In motion is a dizzying array of both legitimate and nefarious factors that might sway some votes. But the Democratic pro-life caucus is key, one way or the other.

Pro-abort Democratic leadership stopped trying to strike a compromise with Stu-PAC late last week, finally realizing, as House GOP Minority Leader John Boehner put it, abortion is "one of those issues that, literally, can't split the baby." (Well, pro-aborts wouldn't mind, but pro-lifers do.)

But along the way, pro-abort Democratic leadership apparently engaged Stupak in some interesting conversations. Over the weekend, Stupak relayed one he had with Rep. Henry Waxman, as quoted by Fox News:

    "I gave him the language. He came back a little while later and said, 'But we want to pay for abortions.' I said, 'Mr. Chairman, that's – we disagree. We don't do it now, we're not going to start.'

    "'But we think we should,'" Stupak said Waxman told him.

Waxman is disputing that conversation took place, but I don't doubt it happened for a minute. Waxman is not just a pro-abort but a virulent pro-abort.

Why do Democrats want so much to publicly fund abortions? According to National Review Online, again quoting Stupak:

    "Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered." The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, "are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic Party."

What are Democratic leaders saying? "'If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more'. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up."

Actually, spending money has never been a Democratic hang-up. But they are indeed hung up on a central Democrat tenet, elevating the status of the poor and minorities.

Although an altruistic element within the Democratic Party may really want that, power mongers never meant to garner anything other than power from winning the affection of the poor and minorities. But only so many.

Enter abortion. It is already well-established abortion was initially advanced in the United States as a eugenic ploy to kill off undesirables, largely the poor and minorities. The push began when slavery ended, and blacks were no longer useful and even feared as eventually out-populating whites.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg admitted the focus of legalizing abortion was eugenics in a New York Times Magazine interview last July:

    Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.

Which brings us back to health care.

The Democratic Party wants publicly funded abortion available to the poor and minorities – so as to abort the poor and minorities. On the latter point, Sen. Dick Durbin was amazingly blunt during a Senate committee meeting last July when arguing in favor of publicly funded abortions in the District of Columbia. The transcript:

    Durbin: In terms of safe, legal and rare, to the senator from Kansas, I will tell you two things. First, it is a fact that a disproportionately large number of African-Americans seek abortion in America, not just in the District of Columbia, but all across the nation.

    Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback: 41 percent?

    Durbin: No, but it's also a fact that a disproportionately large number of African-Americans live in the District of Columbia.

Durbin was saying that where there are large numbers of blacks there should also be publicly funded abortion.

Publicly funded abortion in health care is actually publicly funded eugenics.


[March 17, 2010, Jill Stanek, WorldNetDaily, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=128405 ; Jill Stanek fought to stop "live-birth abortion" after witnessing one as a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill. In 2002, President Bush asked Jill to attend his signing of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. In January 2003, World Magazine named Jill one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years. To learn more, visit Jill's blog, Pro-life Pulse. ]