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Member of Scottish Parliament Drops Disabled Clause from Assisted Suicide Bill

Oregon Hospices Not Participating in Assisted Suicide

Stop Harvesting Organs after ‘Cardiac Death,’ Say MDs

Dutch Euthanasia Advocates Proposing Swiss-Style Suicide Clinics for Everyone

Doctors' Religious Beliefs Affect End-of-Life Decisions: UK Survey

Pennsylvania Court: Guardians Can't Pull the Plug on Mentally Disabled People

Health Care Law: New Words, Same Meaning

The Future's Shadow

Commentary: My Life, My Death, My Choice

‘Never Give up Hope’: Former ‘Locked-In’ Patients

Oregon & Washington State Assisted Suicide Reports for 2009

Legalizing Euthanasia: There Will Be Casualties

'Dr. Death' Admits on CNN - Thomas Youk His Second, Not First Murder

Portland Doctor Plans House Where Terminally Ill Can Kill Themselves

German Court Legalizes Euthanasia

Murder Case GP Dr Howard Martin: I Helped Patients Die

Quebec Ethicist: ‘Tax Breaks for Organs’

Dignitas Boss: Healthy Should have Right to Die...

Member of Scottish Parliament Drops 'Disabled' Clause from Assisted Suicide Bill: Margo MacDonald has agreed to remove the disability clause from her assisted suicide bill
 
A proposal to allow disabled people in Scotland to kill themselves is set to be dropped following pressure from disability campaigners.
 
Bill Scott, Policy Officer at the campaign group Inclusion Scotland, welcomed the decision, saying: “That clause was dangerous, particularly
at a time of cutbacks, to say to people you can’t live independently but you can apply for state-assisted suicide as if it’s a way out.
 
“We would welcome the decision to drop this clause but we still oppose any change to the law.”
 
The End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Independent MSP Margo MacDonald, would still allow the terminally ill to seek
assistance in ending their lives if it became law.
 
But Mrs MacDonald has agreed to ditch the clause which said that a person would be eligible for an assisted suicide if they were “permanently physically incapacitated to such an extent as not to be able to live independently and finds life intolerable”.
 
Earlier this year Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, who is herself disabled, warned Westminster politicians that disabled people need help and support to live, not help to die.
 
She said: “We cannot allow others to speak for us – especially those who seek to offer us the choice of a premature death: it is not a choice, it is to abandon us.”
 
Mrs MacDonald is also considering increasing the age at which terminally ill people can seek assistance in ending their lives from 16 to 18.
 
She defended the Bill, saying: “I had hoped that people would have been reassured by the evidence that a change in the law in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium has not led to a slippery slope.
 
“However, I don’t want anyone to be upset and if we haven’t found the best possible words people have been frightened by what was proposed then I want to change the bill to make our intentions clearer.”
 
But earlier this week Dr Tony Calland, Chair of the British Medical Association’s Medical Ethics Committee, cautioned that any legalisation of assisted suicide would inevitably lead an increasing number of cases.
 
Children
 
Dr Calland illustrated his case by pointing to the Netherlands where legislation was originally introduced to deal with just the terminally ill,
and he warned that it has now grown to include people who are seriously ill and some children who are severely disabled.
 
The Bill, which is currently being scrutinised by a Holyrood committee, has been plagued by opposition.
 
In July a leading doctor warned that legalising assisted suicide would betray “Scottish values” for the benefit of a vocal few.
 
Dr Rosemary Barrett, Director of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, said: “The Bill is designed for people who believe their existence is ‘intolerable’. However, the truth is that Scotland offers excellent care for people suffering from extraordinary pain.
 
“Our palliative care services are capable of more than adequately managing physical pain. With such advanced medical services available, no person needs to experience ‘intolerable’ pain.”
 
And in April, 16 palliative care specialists attacked the Bill in an open letter to The Times newspaper.
 
In the letter the medics warned that the Bill “sends a message to all disabled people and terminally ill patients that somehow because they are dependent on others they are of less value to our society and so may feel that they ought to choose to bring forward the time of their death.” [22 Sep 2010, http://www.christian.org.uk/news/msp-drops-disabled-clause-from-assisted-suicide-bill/; 24 Sept 10, N. Valko RN]

Oregon Hospices Not Participating in Assisted Suicide
We hear often from assisted suicide advocates that most who die by doctor prescribed death in Oregon were in hospice–as if that makes it okay. 

I have indicated here and elsewhere, that this merely means assisted suicide facilitators have interfered with proper medical treatment for these patients: One essential service provided by hospice is suicide prevention.  Bragging that a patient who committed assisted suicide without providing prevention is like denying the patient pain control and then patting yourself on the back when they ask to die.

Now, a study shows that my analysis is right on the money: Most hospices do not participate actively in Oregon assisted suicide. From a Hastings Center Report study:

During 2009, in order to assess the extent to which Oregon hospice programs participate in physician-assisted death, we requested policy statements, program guidelines, and staff education materials that had been developed by sixty-four hospice programs affiliated with the Oregon Hospice Association to address patient inquiries about the Death with Dignity Act.

We received forty documents representing fifty-six programs. Our examination of these documents suggests that individual hospice programs generally assume a minor role in the decision-making process of patients who exercise their rights to physician-assisted death—a role largely confined to providing information about the law in a “neutral” manner.

Moreover, hospices claim they will not assist with providing the medications necessary to hasten a patient’s death. This limited role indicates that questions of legal compliance and moral complicity inhibit hospice collaboration with patients seeking physician-assisted death.

This is important.

Hospice philosophy is completely at odds with doctor prescribed suicide philosophy.  They cannot occupy the same space. 

I am very pleased that Oregon hospices are generally keeping assisted suicide there at arm’s length. It has no place in proper end of life care.

[15 Sept 2010, http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/09/15/oregon-hospices-not-participating-in-assisted-suicide/ Wesley J. Smith; N. Valko RN, 19 Sept 2010... Comment: Personally, I could never refer my hospice patients to an assisted suicide law, especially in a "neutral" manner. I would use the same suicide prevention measures I would use with anyone else. Years ago, I turned down an offer to be a director of a hospice when the owner wanted us to remain neutral on assisted suicide, even though it's never been legal here in Missouri.
   It's outrageous that euthanasia groups are exerting such pressure on Oregon hospices. Unfortunately however, too many hospices are still allowing terminal sedation, unwarranted withdrawal of food and water, acceptance of non-dying, disabled people like Terri Schiavo, etc. that also result in premature death.  Nancy V.]



Stop Harvesting Organs after ‘Cardiac Death,’ Say MDs
A group of doctors have called on the medical community to cease harvesting organs from patients whose hearts have stopped pulsating, saying that doctors are misleading families to believe that the patient has died when in fact their loved one is still alive.

The story was featured Wednesday on the cover of Canada's National Post.

“A longstanding tenet of ethical organ donation [is] that the nonliving donor must be irreversibly dead at the time of donation,” explain the eight paediatric intensive care specialists, writing in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.

The doctors say that the public’s “underlying assumption” when they agree to donate organs is that “they are giving permission to have their organs removed after they are dead.”

But the authors observe that “death” has been redefined in the last few decades to meet the demand for more organs.  They say organs were originally taken from “cadaveric donors who died in the conventional way, irreversibly losing all electrical and mechanical activity from the heart (circulation) and all brain function, despite medical efforts to save them.”

But “this method of organ procurement created a problem for organ transplantation.” “If the patient died in the conventional way then, at the time of irreversibility, so did most organs.”

The notion of “brain death” was created in 1981 in order to harvest more organs, they say.  Then in 1991 the Pittsburgh Protocol was developed to allow doctors to harvest the organs of adults after a person’s heart has stopped for a certain period.

The Protocol involves removing the person from life support for 30 to 60 minutes.  If the patient’s heart continues to beat after that time, they are returned to the ICU, but if it stops for a prescribed period (around 2 minutes, though ranging from 75 seconds to 10 minutes depending on the jurisdiction), the organs are harvested.

“No efforts are made to assess the patient’s brain function at the time of organ removal,” the authors explain.  “The claim is that circulation has irreversibly stopped after 2 mins of observation.”

But this ignores the many reports of the “Lazarus phenomenon,” where a patient’s heart starts again 5 to 10 minutes after CPR is performed.  Such instances suggest that “the heart function and circulation may not be irreversibly stopped in DCD [‘Donation after Cardiac Death’] patients at the time of organ procurement.”

The authors also point out that doctors’ desire to prolong lives through organ transplants can “foster physician and institutional bias” for the cardiac death criteria.

While opposing the notion of "cardiac death", the authors accept organ harvesting following "brain death".  Opponents of "brain death" point out that organs can only be harvested when the organ's functioning continues, meaning that the donor is still showing signs of life. 

They say that if the person is truly dead, the unpaired vital organs cannot be transplanted.  In particular, "brain death" has allowed heart transplants, but the heart is only useful if it is still beating in the donor.

Akin to the "Lazarus phenomenon" noted by the authors, there have been numerous instances of patients recovering following a declaration of "brain death".

The National Post interviewed Dr. Ari Joffe, the sole Canadian author of the controversial document, from Stollery Children’s Hospital in Calgary.  “I think that we’re being less than entirely honest about when the patient is truly dead,” he said. “We’re not trying to deny the parent the choice to donate … The point we’re making is ‘what if they’re almost dead and we’re not sure if they’re dead, and it’s not at the point of irreversibility yet?’”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Melbourne Doctor: Most Donors Still Alive when Organs are Removed
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102105.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
[15 Sept 2010, Patrick B. Craine, CALGARY, Alberta, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/sep/10091510.html ; ALL Pro-LIfe Today, 16 Sept2010]

Dutch Euthanasia Advocates Proposing Swiss-Style Suicide Clinics for Everyone

Euthanasia advocates in the Netherlands are proposing establishing new suicide clinics similar to the ones the pro-euthanasia group Dignitas runs in Switzerland that have generated so much controversy. The Dutch pressure group Right to Die NL (NVVE) is investigating the idea.

The RNW news service indicates the group wants to establish facilities where they can engage in euthanasia and assisting suicides for those who want to die.

They do not want to limit the killing "services" to merely those who are terminally ill, but plan to extend it to anyone who wishes to end their life regardless of their age or medical condition.

Others who could be targeted, RNW indicates, are those who have chronic psychiatric problems, with Alzheimer’s or dementia and people who feel they have “completed” their life -- people who need mental health support rather than death.

Euthanasia is available in most Dutch hospices but those people suffering from those certain mental health conditions don't meet the hospice requirements for death.

The Dutch news agency says the NVVE group wants its “life’s end” clinic to be seen as a normal medical facility in the same manner as a hospital or nursing home.

Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and attorney in the Unite States who combats euthanasia, responded to the news.

"There is no denying the evidence that euthanasia consciousness leads to a broader culture of death that eventually accepts all comers," he said, adding that the Netherlands "probably has the most liberal legalized euthanasia law in the world."

"Perhaps they are trying to catch up with Switzerland’s suicide clinics," he added. "Regardless, their logic is impeccable. Once killing is considered an acceptable answer to human suffering, nihilism is unleashed and the “what” that causes “suffering” ceases to matter."

The news comes several months after Dignitas drew strong condemnation from the Swiss people and government officials after it was discovered it dumped 300 urns of remains of victims into Lake Zurich. Police have launched an investigation after the urns were found at the bottom of the lake.

The large rusty orange colored urns were lying in a "big heap" officials said and the bore the mark of the cremation service Dignitas employs, the London Daily Mail newspaper reported.

Divers from a rescue service discovered the urns by chance while looking for a piece of their boat that fell into the lake and reported them to police.

Swiss law makes it illegal to dispose of a large number of urns without a commercial disposal license. The newspaper indicates offenders face fines up to 50,000 Swiss Francs (almost $46,000 US) and a prison sentence of up to three years.

"It is against the law to dump in this quantity. We have filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons for disturbance of the dead," Environment Agency spokesman Bollack said, according to the Daily Mail. "The retrieved urns are now with the police and are being kept in a place respecting their dignity." [August 10, 2010, Ertelt, Amsterdam, Netherlands, http://www.lifenews.com:80/bio3141.html ]

Doctors' Religious Beliefs Affect End-of-Life Decisions: UK Survey
The religious beliefs of doctors strongly influence the decisions they make when caring for terminally ill patients, according to research published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Dr. Clive Seale, a professor at the Centre for Health Sciences, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, conducted a postal survey of 3733 UK medical practitioners, 2923 of whom reported on the care of their last patient who died.

Dr. Seale found that "doctors who described themselves as non-religious were more likely than others to report having given continuous deep sedation until death, having taken decisions they expected or partly intended to end life."

Many of the doctors surveyed were specialists in geriatrics or palliative care, though doctors in other specialties were included in the study.

Significantly, the report stated that "doctors in ‘other hospital’ specialities" were "almost 10 times as likely to report this (decisions taken with some intent to end life) when compared with palliative medicine specialists, regardless of religious faith."

A BBC report released last year said that the use of continuous deep sedation, also known as "terminal sedation" is becoming more common in the UK and may be the way physicians are skirting the law prohibiting direct euthanasia.

BBC News health correspondent Adam Brimelow said that 16.5 percent of all deaths in the UK are associated with continuous deep sedation, a number twice that of Belgium and the Netherlands, both of which have legalized direct euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg, the director of Canada's Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has said that continuous deep sedation can be used ethically in cases of dying patients to alleviate intractable pain, such as neuropathic pain that does not respond to morphine. The ethics, however, depends upon the situation and the intention, he said.

"It's important to make the distinction between what we do with someone who is nearing death and someone who is in pain but not dying." In some cases, he said, patients who are not dying but may be suffering are put into deep sedation, and then dehydrated to death - a use that is always unethical.

"[Deep sedation] can be a backdoor route to euthanasia if it is used unethically," he said. "The issue is intention. The intention must be the alleviation of pain and suffering. Even a long-term sedation can be ethical as long as the person is not being dehydrated to death. A good palliative care physician won't use the technique very often."

An abstract of Dr. Seale's research is available here.


Related:  British Doctors Practising "Slow" Euthanasia through Deep Sedation: BBC Report
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09081803.html

Britain Already Has a "Government Policy of Silent Euthanasia": Anti-Euthanasia Activists
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09092501.html

Britain's Pathway to Euthanasia - NHS Protocols for Dehydrating Disabled Patients to Death
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08070303.html
[August 30, 2010, T. M. Baklinski, LONDON,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10083004.html ]

Pennsylvania Court: Guardians Can't Pull the Plug on Mentally Disabled People

In a ruling involving a mentally disabled man whose legal guardians sought the power to end his medical care, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has determined that state law requires life-preserving treatment for people who are not near death and have not refused treatment.

The Alliance Defense Fund and allied pro-life attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of 53-year-old David Hockenberry, who has had acute mental disabilities since birth, arguing that his legal guardians should not be allowed to deny him life-preserving treatment while he is not terminal or unconscious.

Hockenberry’s guardians unsuccessfully attempted to deny him temporary life-preserving medical treatment for pneumonia.

“Having a disability shouldn't be a death sentence when treatable medical complications arise,” said Independence Law Center Chief Counsel Randall L. Wenger, one of the allied attorneys.

"The court made the right decision to protect Mr. Hockenberry’s right to live. He is not dying or unconscious, and his life isn't worthless just because he has a disability that may lead others to view his life as less worthy to live," he added.

“A person’s value isn't based on his or her physical or mental abilities,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No one should be allowed to decide that a person’s life is not worth saving just because he or she has a disability or medical condition.”

In December 2007, Hockenberry developed aspiration pneumonia. Hockenberry’s guardians--appointed as his legal guardians in 2002 by a trial court--tried to decline his required ventilator treatment to assist his breathing, but the hospital proceeded despite their objection. After three weeks on the mechanical ventilator, he recovered from pneumonia and no longer required the treatment.

Hockenberry’s guardians filed a petition with a trial court in January 2008 that would allow them to end his care if a similar situation were to arise in the future. The Department of Public Welfare objected, stating that Hockenberry was neither terminally ill nor permanently unconscious and never appointed a third party with the power to refuse healthcare necessary to the preservation of his life.

Hockenberry’s guardians filed a series of appeals until their case reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.

In March, ADF and allied attorneys argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that people should not be considered better off dead just because of a disability. The high court concurred that the Health Care Agents and Representatives Act requires life-preserving care for such persons.

“We hold that where, as here, life-preserving treatment is at issue for an incompetent person who is not suffering from an end-stage condition or permanent unconsciousness, and that person has no health care agent, the Act mandates that the care must be provided,” the opinion states.

“The enactment...regulates the situation in which the incompetent person suffers from a life-threatening but treatable condition, obviously reflecting the Legislature’s assertion of a policy position of greater state involvement to preserve life in such circumstances.”

Related web sites:
Alliance Defense Fund - http://www.telladf.org
[August 30, 2010, Ertelt, Harrisburg, PA, www.LifeNews.com]

Health Care Law: New Words, Same Meaning

by Rita L. Marker

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed HR 3590, the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (P.L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119) which was drafted by the Senate. The following week, on March 30, 2010, he signed HR 4872, the "Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010" (P.L. 111-152, 124 Stat. 1029) as part of the budget reconciliation process, amending and modifying HR 3590. Together, they make up the new health care law that is often referred to as ObamaCare.

During the months leading up to passage of the health-care overhaul legislation, there was a lot of discussion—sometimes very heated discussion—about death panels, end-of-life consultations, and advance care planning.

But are those words in the new law?

The answer is "no." In fact, the phrase, "death panel," was never in any version of the law. It was used by many to describe what they believed would happen if the law passed. The reasons for that concern were provisions about end-of-life consultations and advance care planning that would be paid for under several early versions of health care reform. Heightening that concern was the fact that the assisted-suicide advocacy group Compassion & Choices (C&C)—previously known as the Hemlock Society—had openly acknowledged that it had played a major role in formulating and supporting the end-of-life and advance care planning portions of the early bills.

However, one can search the more than two thousand pages of the new law and not find the words "end-of-life options" or "advance care planning." So, it would be tempting to breathe a sigh of relief and assume that the problems envisioned by earlier bills no longer exist.

Not so fast.

Assisted-suicide advocacy group claims victory

Advance care planning and consultations about end-of-life decisions are in the law. They’re just called something else. That this is the case, was confirmed by C&C soon after ObamaCare was signed into law. Describing its passage, C&C’s web site noted:

[A]s a result of Compassion & Choices advocacy efforts, together with Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the new law includes a provision to require health insurers in the so-called Public Exchange to offer enrollees information on resources available for advanced care planning....

In addition, Compassion & Choices, together with others, successfully prevented the inclusion of a measure that would have undermined aid-in-dying laws in Washington. [Note: "Aid-in-dying" is C&C’s preferred term for assisted suicide.]

Compassion & Choices’ talented advocacy team is determined to continue strategizing a way forward.

So what provisions in ObamaCare have buoyed C&C’s spirits, leading the organization to claim that advanced care planning is actually contained in the law?

And how do those provisions compare with the earlier proposals that caused such consternation in the months leading up to its passage?

Offensive phrases in earlier drafts

Last summer’s firestorm of controversy erupted over one particular section of HR 3200, the measure then under consideration. The catalyst for the label "death panels" was Sec. 1233 which would have paid practitioners (doctors, nurse practitioners, and physicians’ assistants) who provided "advance care planning consultations" to Medicare patients. Among the elements that would have been included in those consultations were discussions of decision-making documents such as living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care, orders regarding life-sustaining treatments, and an explanation of the continuum of end-of-life services.

Many people viewed this as a subtle pressure on elderly patients to decide that they will make a decision to forgo treatment for an, as yet, undiagnosed condition. In addition, the fact that, if such "advance care planning consultations" were to be paid for, a compulsory discussion about the "continuum of end-of-life services" was to be included. Since consultations about that continuum would have encompassed all legal options, they would have included discussions about the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form, the voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED), terminal sedation, and assisted suicide in those states where it is considered a medical treatment. (See information below about current medical decision-making terms and tools.)

However, Sec. 1233 did not make the final cut, and the offending words found in that section are nowhere to be found in the new law.

ObamaCare, the NHS and "NICE"

Two sections, buried in the thousands of pages of the law, address the very same issues and provide for the same outcome as the earlier version of ObamaCare. Only the words have changed.

The first is Sec. 3201 which establishes a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI) within the already existing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Coincidentally, after ObamaCare passed, the president nominated Harvard professor Donald Berwick to head the CMS. Berwick is an avid supporter of Britain’s socialized health care system. In a 2008 address, he said, "I am a romantic about the National Health Service; I love it." He has praised that country’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence— known by its Orwellian acronym, "NICE"—which is a panel of government selected experts who determine how funds for medical care should be allocated. NICE has been responsible for numerous Draconian measures, including denial of many cancer-treating drugs and placement of a monetary cap on the amount of money that can be spent on the last six months of a patient’s life.

In 2004, NICE urged all hospitals, hospice programs and nursing homes to institute a controversial "end of life care strategy" called the Liverpool Care Pathway. Under Pathway protocols, which are now implemented nationwide, all food and fluids are removed from seriously ill patients who are then put under continuous sedation until they die. According to researchers at the Barts and London School of Medicine and Dentistry, 16.5 percent of Britain’s deaths in just one year (2007-2008) resulted from this method.

Yet, Berwick praises the British health care system. And, if his nomination is confirmed, he will be heading up the very department that, under Sec. 3201 of ObamaCare, will determine health care models that, among other things, "test innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures."

Under Berwick, the CMI will have the role of "assisting applicable individuals in making informed health care choices by paying providers of services and suppliers for using patient decision-support tools." Those tools are meant to "improve applicable individual and caregiver understanding of medical treatment options."

Thus, under Sec. 3201, providers of services (doctors, nurse practitioners, and physicians' assistants) and suppliers (insurance companies) will be paid for conducting consultations for Medicare patients about health care decisions, including end-of-life options. In effect, the offending words of the early bill drafts have been replaced with different words, but the meaning is still the same.

There's more. Unlike the earlier, seemingly more offensive language, the law will only pay for consultations if government approved "patient decision-support tools" are used.

"Entity" to formulate patient decision tools

Another section of ObamaCare (Sec. 3506) gives an indication about what these "patient decision-support tools" will look like. According to the new law, patient decision aids are intended to help patients and their health care providers decide what treatments are best for patients based on their treatment options. The law further stipulates that they "shall address health care decisions across the age span, including those affecting vulnerable populations."

As in early versions of the health care bill, health care decisions which address the end-of-life continuum would be the subject of the government-paid consultations that are now referred to as "assisting applicable individuals in making informed health care choices."

In addition, the government will "contract with an entity to establish standards and certify patient decision aids." That entity will "develop and identify consensus-based standards to evaluate patient decision aids" and will "develop a certification process [to determine] whether patient decision aids meet the standards."

Essentially, the law gives the outside "entity" control over what options are deemed appropriate for consideration by patients. And, after development of the patient decision aids, those which are certified by the "entity" will become the authorized tools that will be available through government resource centers.

There's a bit of a back story to the inclusion of "patient decision aids" and the provision that an "entity" under contract with the government will be empowered to design and certify those aids.

Beginning in mid-2009, various health care overhaul bills were proposed. Among these were several that were sponsored or co-sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) or Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), both of whom are publicly supportive of assisted suicide and Compassion & Choices. In the early bills, as in the law that passed, there were provisions for the development of patient decision aids. Those drafts, like the bill that passed, would have authorized the government to contract with an outside entity to develop such aids so that Medicare patients would have a better understanding of medical treatment options.

It's almost a sure bet that first in line to become the outside "entity" to develop patient decisions aids under ObamaCare will be none other than Compassion & Choices or one of its affinity groups, since C&C has been working feverishly to position itself as a "patients' rights" organization that has expertise in educating the medical profession about decision-making with particular emphasis on end-of-life care.

C&C's description of end-of-life care is, indeed, all encompassing. In fact, Kathryn Tucker, the organization's director of legal affairs, who will be addressing the Idaho Medical Association's annual conference this summer, wrote a column for the ACLU of Idaho's newsletter (Spring 2010) in which she issued an invitation to Idaho physicians to engage in assisted suicide "among other end of life options."

There can be no question about the contents of patient decision aids if C&C is tapped to be the "entity" to design and oversee them.
[http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/iua53.htm, Vol. 24, No. 2, Special Report, Health Care Law: New Words, Same Meaning by Rita L. Marker, International Task Force Update, 2010. Marker is an attorney and the executive director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide.]

The Future's Shadow
In one more anticipation of things to come, the present administration's Health & Human Services (HHS) begins a program to harvest organs from patients in emergency rooms.
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/18/the-futures-shadow

My Life, My Death, My Choice

The advocacy billboards appeared without warning in San Francisco and New Jersey:: "My Life. My Death. My Choice." Paid for by the Final Exit Network (FEN), the promotional signs received widespread media coverage as a new wrinkle in the ongoing national campaign to legalize assisted suicide.

But there is much more to this story than controversial messaging on billboard. FEN doesn't just advocate assisted suicide: Its "counselors" make deadly house calls. Indeed, FEN members have been indicted in Georgia—including Ted Goodwin, its former head— and in Arizona for alleged assisted suicide activities. So far, two FEN members have pleaded guilty (in the Arizona case involving the suicide of a mentally ill woman).

FEN-style moral outlawry is nothing new, of course.

In the 1990s, Jack Kevorkian plowed this particular field until convicted of second degree murder. (Proving that crime pays: Kevorkian has retired from his deadly avocation and receives $50,000 per speech, as he basks in the warm light of a sympathetic biopic starring AL Pacino.

Kevorkian's Australian counterpart, physician Philip Nitschke, still travels the world teaching people how-to-commit suicide as he attempts to touts a suicide concoction called "the peaceful pill," which he opined in a National Review Online interview, should be made available to anyone who wants to die, including "troubled teens."

As outrageous as the FEN, Kevorkian, and Nitschke are, they do not pose the primary threat.  

In the last ten years, a new class of advocates has emerged pursuing a “professional” approach to assisted suicide promotion. Epitomized by the euphemistically named Compassion and Choices and funded in the millions annually by the likes of George Soros, well off and well tailored elites promote a so-called “medical model” for legalized “aid in dying” in meetings with medical and legal associations, in articles published in professional journals, and ubiquitously to the media.  

To assuage fears of abuse, unlike the moral outlaws, assisted suicide professionals assure a wary public that doctor facilitated suicide will be restricted to the terminally ill for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering—a false premise designed to play into people’s worst fears about the dying process.

Yet, despite the clear differences in political tactics, both the moral outlaws and professional advocates pose a similar danger to the weak and vulnerable.

Indeed, once society accepts the fundamental ideological premise that killing is a legitimate method of eliminating human suffering, the death remedy continually expands to ever growing categories of despairing people.  

After all, if the time, manner, and place of “my death” is merely a matter of “my choice,” simple logic dictates that “the right to die” will expand beyond the terminally ill—and as we shall see, even beyond “choice.”

A brief review of the jurisdictions where euthanasia and assisted suicide are allowed illustrate the truth of the above assertion. Consider:

The Netherlands: The Netherlands has allowed euthanasia and assisted suicide by doctors since 1973, formally legalizing mercy killing by doctors in 2002. In that time, despite the supposed guidelines to protect against abuse, Dutch doctors have euthanized the terminally ill who ask for it, the chronically ill who ask for it, people with disabilities who ask for it, and the deeply depressed who ask for it—the latter explicitly approved by the Dutch Supreme Court in a case involving the assisted suicide by a psychiatrist of a mother who wanted to die out of grief for her two dead children.
Illustrating how profoundly accepting euthanasia consciousness alters human society, this year more than 100,000 Dutch citizens signed petitions requiring the Parliament to debate whether to permit the healthy elderly (age 70 or older) to receive euthanasia if they are "tired of life."

But it gets worse: According to several Dutch government and other studies, death doctors also commit some 800-900 non voluntary euthanasia killings—called "termination without request or consent" in Dutch euthanasia parlance—as well as the infanticide of babies born with disabling or terminal conditions.

Even though non voluntary euthanasia and infanticide remain murder under Dutch law, it is rarely prosecuted, and even when it is, doctors face no meaningful punishment.

Belgium: Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002, and fell off the same moral cliff as the Netherlands—only more quickly. Despite the legal requirement that all euthanasia deaths be asked for by the patient, Belgian doctors—and nurses—also commit non voluntary euthanasia. For example, a survey of Belgian nurses published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that of 248 euthanasia deaths, 120—nearly 50%--were administered without request, and moreover, that many deaths were facilitated by nurses.
Perhaps even more frighteningly, voluntary euthanasia has been coupled with organ procurement—potentially giving the despairing a reason to end their own lives as a way of serving others, while offering society a utilitarian stake in their deaths.

Switzerland: A very liberal Swiss assisted suicide law has led to a growing international industry in "suicide tourism" that has taken the lives of hundreds of sick and despairing people—including many people who were not terminally ill. Meanwhile, Ludwig Minelli—owner of the suicide clinic Dignitas, was reported by UK media to have become a millionaire from his suicide business, which caters to foreigners. Not coincidentally, the Swiss Supreme Court created a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill.

Oregon: When faced with these facts—and many other horror stories too numerous to recount here—assisted suicide advocates point to Oregon to show that medicalized killing can be practiced in a restricted manner.

But Oregon has also had its share of abuses.

In 2008, for example, Randy Stroup and Barbara Wagner—both on Oregon's rationed Medicaid program—were prescribed chemotherapy to extend their lives when their terminal cancer recurred. When they asked for Medicaid to pay their medical bills, it refused but sent a letter offering to pay for their assisted suicides.

Meanwhile, an article published in the Michigan Law Review by Dr. Kathleen Foley—one of America's most respected palliative care physicians—and psychiatrist Herbert Hendin—one of the Unites States' most notable experts on suicide prevention—revealed that Oregon's protective guidelines "are being circumvented" routinely by doctors because the state's bureaucrats too often act "as defenders of the law rather than protectors of the welfare of terminally ill patients."

All of this—and much, much more that could be written—demonstrates vividly that the assisted suicide movement is a clear and present danger to the lives of the weak, vulnerable, and despairing. Indeed, lurking beneath the loud assertions of "My life, my death, my choice," lurks an ideology that would lead us toward for profit suicide clinics—already proposed in Oregon —and a virtual death on demand social ethic.

That is the ugly truth that simplistic billboard sloganeering just can't hide.
 [August 5, 2010,  Wesley J. Smith, http://www.tothesource.org/8_4_2010/8_4_2010.htm ; N. Valko RN, 8 Aug 2010]

‘Never Give up Hope’: Former ‘Locked-In’ Patients

As campaigners use the “hard cases” of severely disabled people to push for legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia in Britain, Pink and McNeilly urged sufferers not to give up on life.

When Kerry Pink, an interior designer, was 35 in 1997 she fell ill with an undiagnosed neurological illness and suffered what is called “locked-in syndrome,” that is, she could not move or communicate. For 18 months, she said, “I lay paralysed in hospital, locked into a motionless body, conscious of the conversations around me but unable to respond”.

In a long testimony in Britain’s Daily Mail, Pink said there were times when she could hear and understand conversations being held around her and others when she would sink into a “deep coma,” but that through all this, her family and doctors did not know she was ever aware.  

“I know that however dark the twilight world I inhabited, I never lost my will to live. I was always determined to come back home.” After a year and a half in this condition, Pink spent three years in various hospitals undergoing treatments and can now walk briefly with the assistance of a cane.

During the period of her medical crisis, Pink said, doctors had asked her husband, “Do you want us to keep on  -  or shall we pull the plug?” But Greg Pink insisted that treatment continue.

In a related story, Marini McNeilly, a former teacher who was paralysed by a series of strokes, said in an interview with the Times, “Hope is the last thing you should lose.”

McNeilly, who can move only her eyes and head and has slight movement in her fingers, said she is “full of optimism,” and that “I feel I owe it to the people who cared”.

As campaigners use the “hard cases” of severely disabled people to push for legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia in Britain, Pink and McNeilly urged sufferers not to give up on life.

Pink said that it was after reading Rudd’s story “that I felt compelled to send him a message of hope”. Richard Rudd is the paralysed father of two who recently indicated, using eye-blinks, that he wants to live.

“It was an incredible moment that showed the strength of a man's will to survive. It's a life-force that I myself have experienced  -  and I want to show Richard that it is worth battling on,” Pink said.

At the same time as Rudd was giving his message of hope, another severely disabled man, Tony Nicklinson of Melksham, Wiltshire, is going to court to try to change the law on homicide to allow his wife to euthanise him by lethal injection. Nicklinson has told the court that he is “fed up” with his life and wants his wife to kill him, rather than face the future as a disabled person.

Speaking of Nicklinson, McNeilly said, “It’s a very personal thing. Where there is a challenge there is hope to meet it.”

Under current UK law, doctors can face charges for refusing to dehydrate a patient to death. Guidelines installed under Tony Blair’s Labour government, say that a patient’s “advanced decision,” including a request for cessation of artificially administered food and hydration, must be followed even if it means the patient will die.

The guidelines say, “If you are satisfied that an advance decision exists which is valid and applicable, then not to abide by it could lead to a legal claim for damages or a criminal prosecution for assault.”

Related coverage:

Over 30% of Euthanasia Cases in Belgian Region Did Not Give Consent: Study
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10051903.html

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10080611.html
[August 6, 2010, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=10080611, Hilary White; N Valko RN, 7 Aug 2010]

Oregon & Washington State Assisted Suicide Reports for 2009
On 3 March 2010, both Oregon and Washington State (March-Dec 09) released their assisted suicide reports for 2009. In Oregon, 57 of the 59 people who died by assisted suicide were facilitated by Compassion & Choices; 460 people have reportedly died by assisted suicide since the OR law began in 1998.
Reasons for requesting assisted suicide in Oregon:
Loss of Autonomy - 57 of 59
Loss of Dignity - 54 of 59
Decreased ability to enjoy life - 51 of 59
Inadequate Pain Control - 6 of 59
NONE of the 59 people who died by assisted suicide was sent for a psychiatric evaluation even though the law requires a psychiatric evaluation when concerns exist.

Reasons for requesting assisted suicide in Washington State:
Loss of Autonomy - 36 of 36
Decreased ability to enjoy life - 33 of 36
Loss of Dignity - 30 of 36
Inadequate Pain Control - 9 of 36
Being a burden - 8 of 36
Only 3 of 63 people who received a lethal dose package were sent for a psychiatric assessment.

Physicians for Compassionate Care voiced concerns in their report entitled "More Conspiracy and Control":
** Uncontrollable Pain is the main reason that assisted suicide is pushed to be legalized in every state. Yet only 6 of 59 in Oregon and 9 of 36 in WA State noted that pain was the problem for which they requested assisted suicide. Pain is not an actual reason in practice for assisted suicide. [In WA State, adequate pain control was the main concern for people who voted to legalize assisted suicide, and yet, in reality, just 25% of those in WA State seeking assisted suicide listed it as a concern.

** Note that none of those who died in Oregon was sent for a Psychiatric evaluation.

** There is no protection for depressed people in Oregon.

** A physician was present for 3 of 59 people at the time of ingesting the lethal overdose, and the physician was present only once at the time of death.
Without a credible witness at the time of death, how will we know what actually happened?

** Compassion & Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society) facilitated 57 of 59 deaths. This euthanasia lobby group is the author & steward of the assisted suicide law.

A 20 September 2008 editorial board comment in The Oregonian newspaper stated that "a coterie of insiders run the assisted suicide program, with a handful of doctors and others deciding what the public may know."

At least in WA State, the majority of the people who received a lethal dose were 65 years old or older, educated, and nearly half had private health insurance. These factors are consistent with their being individuals with money. Older people with money are prime targets for elder abuse. A recent MET LIFE study showed that elderly people with money experience higher rates of elder abuse that other people.

The feeling of being a burden is also a marker of possible elder abuse because often a person feels pressured. WA State's Act is coercive. An heir who will benefit from the death is allowed to help "sign the person up" for a lethal dose. There is no requirement of consent at the time of death and no witness at the time of death.
After the death, the coroner is even required to treat the death as "natural" and elders abused by the Act have no recourse. [Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International Newsletter, March 2010, www.epcc.ca]

Legalizing Euthanasia: There Will Be Casualties
A recent article written by Michael Cook for Mercator.net examined the current trends in the euthanasia lobby and concluded that the legalization of euthanasia will lead to people dying against their will or the death of people with chronic depression or mental illness.

The first case that Cook examined was the recent statistics from Australia concerning people who have died from the use of Nembutal, a drug used by Veterinarians for the euthanasia of animals.

Philip Nitschke, known as Australia’s “Dr. Death” has been promoting the use of Nembutal to commit suicide.

A recent Australian study found that at least 51 people in Australia died from Nembutal use with 14 of those being under the age of 40. Of the 38 cases that were fully investigated by the coroner, only 11 involved people with chronic physical pain or terminal illness.

This means that the people who are acquiring Nembutal through mail order, flights to Mexico, or stealing it from Veterinary hospitals are often chronically depressed or mentally ill and rarely are they suffering unbearable, uncontrolled pain.

Nitschke told the Australian media that the actual number of Nembutal deaths was probably closer to 125. In
response to the number of young or depressed people who died by Nembutal, Nitscke was reported to have said: “There will be some casualties”.

In the Netherlands a group of leaders from the euthanasia lobby is petitioning the Dutch government to allow people who are over the age of 70 to simply obtain a lethal dose to use at any time. The group is led by Eugene Sutorius, the former President of the Dutch Euthanasia society and the lawyer who extended euthanasia to people who are chronically depressed by successfully defending the Dutch Psychiatrist who euthanized a person who was chronically depressed.

The petition has received more than 40,000 signatures which is the number required by the Dutch parliament to allow the petition to be debated in parliament.

When you are told that the euthanasia lobby is only concerned about legalizing euthanasia for the terminally ill consider two facts. First, the Dutch & Swiss do not require a person to be terminally ill but rather "suffering"; and Bill C-384, the bill that would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada, is not limited to the terminally ill.

Then there is the case of Ray Gosling, the retired BBC broadcaster in the UK who confessed to smothering to
death, 20 years ago, his former male partner who had AIDS.

Finally, there is the interview with writer Martin Amis in the UK who stated that the answer to the aging
population is to set-up euthanasia booths on street corners in the large cities.

As much as Amis was trying to be provocative, his message has resonated with the people in society who think that life is expendable.

The euthanasia lobby is that scary.
[Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International Newsletter, March 2010, www.epcc.ca]

'Dr. Death' Admits on CNN - Thomas Youk His Second, Not First Murder
Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the infamous advocate of assisted suicide known as “Dr. Death” who helped kill 133 people, admitted to CNN television host Larry King that he murdered a woman before he killed Thomas Youk.

It was the latter killing that landed Kevorkian in prison for eight years. [http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062210.html ; ALL Pro-Life Today | 23 June 2010]

Portland Doctor Plans House Where Terminally Ill Can Kill Themselves
Comment: Note that Compassion and Choices (aka Hemlock) is once again unperturbed by outrageous problems with assisted suicide: "It's going to be highly unlikely that people are going to use his service. And we don't charge. He charges $5,000."
Nancy V.
A Northwest Portland psychiatrist who the state has reprimanded for wrongly prescribing drugs says he plans to open a facility in the city and charge fees to help patients end their lives under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act.

Stuart G. Weisberg  has mailed invitations to local doctors and politicians inviting them to a July 21 "presentation" at the deluxe El Gaucho restaurant in downtown to unveil his new business, End of Life Consultants LLC. 

Weisberg did not return calls Wednesday seeking more information on his venture, which apparently would be the first of its kind in the nation. Weisberg filed incorporation papers with the state June 2.

In the invitation to the July 21 dinner at El Gaucho, Weisberg said he has invited Jack Kervorkian, the Michigan pathologist who provided the drugs and the means for terminally ill people to kill themselves and served a prison sentence for his actions.

On the website for End of Life Consultants, Weisberg said he has obtained a Portland property that he calls "The Dignity House" where his patients under the Death With Dignity law can receive the medicine and die there. The website promises an address and photos next month.

Officials at nonprofit organizations that work with patients under Oregon's assisted-suicide law expressed surprise at the little information they could glean about Weisberg's proposal. The doctor has not spoken with anyone at the Death With Dignity National Center  or Compassion & Choices of Oregon.  Last year, doctors helped 59 people to die in Oregon under the law.

"Never heard of him," said George Eighmey,  executive director of Compassion & Choices of Oregon, which assists more than 90 percent of Oregonians who die under the law. Eighmey said the only place akin to what Weisberg proposes is Dignitas in Switzerland.

And Eighmey said he does not believe Weisberg's services would be necessary anyway.

"Ninety-eight percent of the people who receive the medicine under the Death With Dignity Act take the medicine at home," he said. "It's going to be highly unlikely that people are going to use his service. And we don't charge. He charges $5,000."

The website lists a host of fees, including a mandatory $600 for the stay at Dignity House and a mandatory $600 for "End of Life Camera," which will record the patient's last hours.

Optional fees include $400 for End of Life Catering, $400 for End of Life Security – a consultation with a "certified security agent" – $400 for linens and flowers from Weisberg's home garden and $400 for End of Life Music, which promises two 100-minute sets of piano music that "will be magical."

Weisberg, 37, is a solo practitioner with an office in Northwest Portland. In 2006, the Oregon Medical Board disciplined him for improperly prescribing psychoactive drugs to seven patients who were recovering drug addicts or dealing with chronic pain.

The board's order said Weisberg, who earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2000, was terminated from his four-year residency at OHSU several months before he was to finish. No explanation was given. [23/24 June 2010, Anne Saker, The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/portland_psychiatrist_plans_ho.html ]

German Court Legalizes Euthanasia

In a surprise move, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany has legalized direct euthanasia, ruling that an attempted direct euthanasia of a comatose woman was not unlawful since she had given consent.

“The expressed wishes of the patient ... justified not only the end of treatment via the withholding of further nourishment but also the active step of ending or preventing the treatment she no longer wanted,” the court said.

The ruling in the case of “Erika K” overturns a previous conviction for manslaughter of a lawyer who advised the daughter of a comatose woman in her 70s to cut her mother’s feeding tube with a pair of scissors, after nursing home staff had refused to remove it.

A lower court acquitted the daughter of killing her mother because she had “mistakenly” followed her lawyer's advice. The lawyer, Wolfgang Putz, was convicted and given a nine month suspended sentence. The government prosecutor was asking the court for a stronger sentence.

Putz’s lawyer had argued that the use of a gastric tube is “forced treatment” that the daughter had a right to terminate according to the known will of her mother.

Although Chancellor Angela Merkel has previously stated that she opposes any form of assisted suicide, the decision was welcomed by her government. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said, “In a difficult phase of life, wills by patients provide safety for patients, relatives, doctors and nurses.”

“The will freely formulated by a human being must be respected in all circumstances of life.”

In countries that have already legalized euthanasia, such “safeguards” as living wills are often cited by euthanasia campaigners as means of avoiding abuse of power by doctors and nurses. Nevertheless, reports from Belgium and the Netherlands are increasingly showing that patients are regularly being killed without any form of consent being given.

In May this year, a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that over 30 per cent of reported euthanasia cases in one region in Belgium were carried out without the consent of the patient.

In 2003, the Netherlands became the first country in the world after the downfall of the Nazi regime to legalize euthanasia. In the last two years, euthanasia cases there have seen a sudden rise, with an increase of 13 per cent in the last year following a sudden jump of 10 per cent in 2008. In 2005, one study estimated that cases of involuntary euthanasia, in which doctors do not follow the legal procedure to gain consent of the patient or family, account for about 550 deaths in the Netherlands each year.

Dr. Els Borst, the former Dutch health minister and deputy prime minister who guided the country’s euthanasia law through parliament, has lamented the increase in euthanasia cases and said that it has effectively destroyed the country’s palliative care system.

The issue of direct euthanasia of disabled patients is particularly sensitive in Germany, whose National Socialist regime carried out mass killings of patients in the years building up to the Second World War. In the so-called Aktion T-4 program, the government sanctioned the killing of thousands of orphans, mentally ill and disabled patients in the care of the state who were considered “life unworthy of life.”

In the case of many of the children, the deaths were by starvation.

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062509.html
[25 June 2010, Hilary White, Berlin, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=10062509]

Murder Case GP Dr Howard Martin: I Helped Patients Die
A GP cleared of murdering three patients has broken his long silence to admit that he did hasten their deaths as well as those of dozens of others in his care.
Comment: Unfortunately, it is becoming routine in the US that doctors (or others) who kill are aquitted or not charged at all. This leads to defacto euthanasia without changing laws against euthanasia/assisted suicide. A few years ago in Missouri, a prosector wanted to bring charges against a family that admitted "helping" their mother with a lethal overdose However, the outcry by supporters convinced him that he could not find a jury that would convict so he dropped the charges. I'm afraid that the public seduced by pro-assisted suicide arguments of "compassion" has no idea how dangerous this is.
Nancy V.
 
Murder case GP Dr Howard Martin: I helped patients die
A GP cleared of murdering three patients has broken his long silence to admit that he did hasten their deaths as well as those of dozens of others in his care.
 
Dr Howard Martin, once feared to be a “second Harold Shipman”, told The Daily Telegraph that he gave what proved to be fatal doses of painkillers to elderly and terminally ill patients.

But he said he only acted out of “Christian compassion” and was merely trying to limit their suffering rather than “playing God”.

He disclosed that, in two cases, he hastened the deaths of patients without their permission, while one of those to whom he administered a final injection was his son, Paul, 31, when he was dying from cancer in May 1988.

Dr Martin, 75, spoke out as the General Medical Council struck him off for professional misconduct, ruling that he had hastened the deaths of 18 patients in “egregious, despicable and dangerous” conduct.

He accepted that his confession put him at risk of “spending the rest of my life in prison” if it prompted police to reopen his case.

He did not talk about what he had done during his triple murder trial, subsequent inquests or the GMC hearing. But Dr Martin said he decided to speak out to call for reform of a system of care, which – he claims – takes the “soft” option of confining the terminally ill to hospitals and hospices rather than allowing them the “dignity” of dying at home with their loved ones.

“A vet would put a dog down, but under the current system a doctor is not allowed to take positive action to help a patient in a humane way,” he said.

“I don’t believe I’ve killed any patients. I believe I’ve made them comfortable in their hour of need. But I am deemed to be arrogant because I used my discretion.

“They want to extrapolate that to say I’m choosing to kill people. It’s not like that. The patients are about to die and I want to make sure they are comfortable. How can a so-called caring society not understand that? How can I be reckless with someone who is about to die?”

Dr Martin, a former Army doctor and police surgeon who qualified in 1958, was arrested in May 2004 in Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham, at one of his three surgeries. Relations of an elderly cancer patient raised concerns with police after his death and a post mortem examination showed high levels of diamorphine in his system.

The doctor was suspended by the medical watchdog and, after more bodies were exhumed, he was charged with murdering three former patients.

Shipman, Britain’s most prolific serial killer with an estimated 258 victims, once briefly worked as a locum at Dr Martin’s practice.

Dr Martin stood trial at Teesside Crown Court but was found not guilty of killing Frank Moss, 59, Stanley Weldon and Harry Gittins, both 74.

It then emerged that police first investigated him in 2000 after complaints from nurses at the charity Macmillan Cancer Support. He remained suspended after his acquittal while police and a coroner looked into the deaths of dozens of other patients in case sufficient evidence could be found for fresh charges.

It was announced in February 2007 that no further action would be taken against Dr Martin.

Inquests took place earlier this year into the deaths of the three men whom Dr Martin was accused of killing, but the coroner insisted he was “not on trial”. They ended with one verdict of misadventure and two open verdicts. The coroner claimed that the drugs given to two of the men were not “clinically justified”.

A disciplinary hearing, which started in May and ended on Friday, heard that Dr Martin was “arrogant and single-minded” as well as “reckless”, and concluded that the injections given to 18 patients “hastened their death, thereby removing their fundamental right to life”.

His actions were said to be “extremely serious and widespread”, while he had an “autocratic” attitude and “exploited his position”.

Prof Gomes da Costa, the chairman of the panel, said: “In view of the very serious nature of its findings, the panel has determined it is necessary in the public interest that Dr Martin’s registration should be suspended forthwith.”

Dr Martin refused on legal advice to speak at the murder trial or the inquests. He did not attend the GMC hearing in Manchester and was not represented.

But from his home on the North Wales coast, he acknowledged for the first time that he hastened the final moments of some of his patients.

He claimed that the established way of dealing with terminally ill patients often went against their best interests, and that it was cruel to keep people alive in hospitals or hospices when all they wanted to do was die. Dr Martin said that, during three decades as a GP, he made no secret of his views. “I just promised people that they could die free from pain and with dignity,” he said.

“Most times patients and relatives were of an accord and wanted the patient to be free from pain and have dignity. In that scenario, I would take control by keeping people asleep until they had passed over.

“I twice helped people die, not because they wanted to die but because they had such dreadful suffering. Everyone else wanted to [die] – they could make that choice.

Speaking about his dying son, he said: “What more could I do for him other than make sure he had dignity?”

Dr Martin, who believes that about half of all doctors give injections to those who are about to die, said he felt no guilt or remorse.

“On Judgment Day I will have to answer to God, and my answer will be this: that I did my best for my patients.”

Despite the secrecy of the GMC proceedings, The Daily Telegraph has identified all 18 of those whose deaths were investigated by lawyers and leading medical experts over a 10-year period.

In some cases, their relations lent Dr Martin their full support, with one describing him as “an angel of mercy”. In others, the bereaved said their loved ones were victims of a doctor who wilfully and “arrogantly” betrayed their trust.

Police sources suggested that Dr Martin was investigated over a total of “30 or 40” deaths.
[18 June 2010, Nigel Bunyan, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7839369/Murder-case-GP-Dr-Howard-Martin-I-helped-patients-die.html ; N Valko RN, 19June10]

Quebec Ethicist: ‘Tax Breaks for Organs’

A Quebec philosopher and ethicist has proposed that governments promote organ harvesting by offering tax credits to the individual’s family members.

But according to one expert on ‘brain death,’ people are right to have a healthy fear of organ harvesting and, rather than being offered “government bribes,” they should be given more education about the problems inherent to the practice.

Jurgen De Wispelaere, a visiting fellow with the Université de Montréal’s Centre for Ethics Research, presented his plan in a paper 2 weeks ago at the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Montreal’s Concordia University.

De Wispelaere says that approximately 50% of all potentially available organs are not used due to a lack of consent from families or the hesitancy of medical staff because of unclear consent.  

Consequently, there is a shortage of organs that must be addressed by public policy, he says, arguing that organ harvesting presents a “tremendous social benefit” by increasing the quality of life of people who are able to return to active life.  Maintaining that governments must go beyond mere encouragement, he proposes a two-pronged strategy to secure more organs.

First, he proposes creating a ‘second consenter,’ named by the person whose organs are sought, who would be able to vouch for the donor's wishes upon his or her death.

Second, he suggests creating organ transplant tax credit programs, whereby the second consenter would be entitled to a tax credit after the donor's death.  This approach, he says, would give the second consenter an incentive not to change his mind or back out of his commitment.  In De Wispelaere’s plan, the tax credit would be given whether the organs are used for transplant or not.

But Dr. Paul Byrne, a pediatrician and pioneer in neonatology, pointed out that surveys consistently indicate people do not want to donate because they are not sure if their death will be hastened in order to get at their organs.  “They are afraid that things will be done to them before they are really dead [or] to hasten their deaths,” he said.

He argued that this fear is well-founded, saying that in fact the person must still be alive at the time of harvesting in order for his or her vital organs to be suitable for transplant.  “There are no organs that are suitable for transplantation after true death,” he said.  “Every organ that’s transplanted is a healthy organ that comes from a living person.”

Dr. Byrne argues that the notion of ‘brain death,’ which is used in many hospitals as the point after which organs may be harvested, was created in the 1960s and is not based on science, but on “the desire of human beings to get beating hearts for transplantation.”

“Every time a heart is transplanted, it’s a beating heart that’s coming out of a living person, and in the process the person becomes dead,” he added.  “Every time an organ is transplanted, it either causes the death of the donor, or causes the donor to become weaker.”

Dr. Byrne pointed out that there have been numerous cases over the years where a person declared ‘brain dead’ has recovered and led a normal life.  In 2008, 21-year-old Zack Dunlap made headlines when he recovered after a four-wheeler accident.  He was only spared from having his organs harvested by a cousin; on a hunch, the cousin ran his pocket knife across Zack’s foot and dug his finger nail under Zack’s, in each case prompting Zack to recoil the limb.

In fact, Zack reported that he had heard the doctors declare him brain dead.  "I'm glad I couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do," he told NBC.  "There probably would have been a broken window they went out."

“Nobody should be declared dead unless there is an absence of life,” said Dr. Byrne.  “We should not declare someone dead until they are not responsive to anything, until they don’t have a heartbeat, they don’t have a blood pressure, they don’t have respiration or breathing.  That’s the very minimum.”

De Wispelaere’s plan is “propagating [organ harvesting] through bribery, when in fact what needs to be done is the people need to be educated,” he said.  Rather than pushing for tax incentives for donors, he says legislators should be “insisting that the donors be fully and completely informed - explicitly informed - about what organ donation is all about.”

LifeSiteNews attempted to contact Jurgen De Wispelaere, but did not hear back by press time.
Find more information exposing the notion of ‘brain death’ at the Life Guardian Foundation.

Related:
"Brain Death" is Life, Not Death: Neurologists, Philosophers, Neonatologists, Jurists, and Bioethicists Unanimous at Conference
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09022604.html

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

Woman's Waking After Brain Death Raises Many Questions About Organ Donation
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08052709.html

Woman Diagnosed as "Brain Dead" Walks and Talks after Awakening
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021508.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

The Inconvenient Truth About Organ Donations
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07091906.html

[14 June 2010, Patrick B. Craine, MONTREAL, Quebec, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=10061409 ; URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10061409.html ]

Dignitas Boss: Healthy Should have Right to Die
  Says it is a human right to decide on one's own death: Ludwig Minelli Ludwig Minelli, the head of Dignitas, is 77. A trained lawyer, he founded the assisted suicide organisation 12 years ago.

The organisation, whose slogan is '"live with dignity, die with dignity", has helped over 1,000 people to die.

Many of them are people who have travelled to Switzerland because assisted suicide is not permitted in their own countries.

Dignitas has the status of an association under Swiss law, with two active members, Mr Minelli and one other.

The identity of the other member has not been revealed.

These two active members control the policy and financing of Dignitas.

Question: You have been described as a man on a mission, a man on a crusade...

I wouldn't say a crusade but I am persuaded that we have to struggle in order to implement the last human right in our societies. And the last human right is the right to make a decision on one's own end, and the possibility to have this end without risk and without pain.

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I think this capacity to make an end of life decision should also apply to a healthy person, so the British discussion about terminally ill persons is completely obsolete

Ludwig Minelli Swiss suicide organisations under pressure
Many people would say though that if there are to be organisations which organise assisted suicide that there should be some rules around how they function.

Well there are rules but there are no state laws. We have our own rules and the first rule is that we never precipitate an assisted suicide. Every step must be initiated by the member and not by us. And the third rule is that we are always first looking whether we will be able to help someone to continue with life rather than to end life.

What about the structure of your organisation, the media has reported that it's not very transparent, particularly the accounting?

Well this is a private association, only the active members of the association have a right to know the facts, the public has no right at all, we are not working with public money, we are working with the money of our members, so there is no reason to answer questions from third parties.

But actually the Zurich public prosecutor wants you to make your accounting more public.

Well the Zurich public prosecutor is not reasonable, for years. No this man is not worth to discuss with, or to discuss his ideas. His main idea is to reduce our capacity to receive members from abroad in Switzerland who would like to have an assisted suicide here.

The proposals from the Swiss justice department are similar.

Yes, and the minister of justice was never interested in our positive work. She is influenced by this conservative Catholic man in her ministry.

Well let's look then at the proposals from the Swiss national committee on medical ethics. Because they also suggest that an organisation should have some rules.

You know all those proposals from the committee on ethics are influenced by Mr Brunner, the public prosecutor of the canton of Zurich. He has made his proposals, and they took his proposals in order to make his proposals, we have never been asked. So these are of no worth at all.

Nevertheless many people here in Switzerland would be more comfortable if your organisation was more transparent.

Well maybe but this is not our first issue, our first issue is to help our members, and as long as the authorities which are competent do not say that something is wrong with us, there is no need for more transparency.

But you have been through all the authorities (Zurich public prosecutor, Swiss Minister of Justice, Swiss Council on Medical Ethics) and you have dismissed them all as incompetent or biased.

They are, I'm very sorry.

Can I ask you about the Dignitas philosophy on people who would come to you who are mentally ill rather than physically ill? Why you think it's okay to help someone with a major mental illness like schizophrenia to commit suicide?

As a human rights lawyer I am persuaded that the right to make an end of life decision belongs to every person who has capacity of discernment, most persons with mental illness have full capacity of discernment, of course. And I think this capacity to make an end of life decision should also apply to a healthy person, so the British discussion about terminally ill persons is completely obsolete. And I want to implement this last human right.

What if someone came to you who was neither physically nor mentally ill but expressed the wish to die. Would you be able to help them?

Of course. For instance a very old person which has no illnesses at all, has some difficulties because in old age you will have some difficulties, has no longer family, has no longer friends. Why should we say no?
[2 July 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/10481309.stm, Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, Geneva]