France Adopts 'End Of Life' Law

House Committee Holds Hearing on Terri Schiavo, Protecting Disabled People

Power of Attorney for Health Care Forms

FRANCE ADOPTS 'END OF LIFE' LAW  -- The French senate has approved a law granting terminally ill patients the “right” to end life; it allows doctors to stop giving medical assistance when it "has no effect other than maintaining life artificially". It had already been approved by the lower house of parliament. Supporters of the legislation say it stops short of permitting euthanasia, because it does not allow the doctor actively to end a patient's life.

The new law opens the way for families to request the withdrawal of life support for unconscious patients. And it allows the administration of pain-killers to patients who have chosen to end their treatment, even if these drugs might hasten death.

Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: "As long as I am health minister, I will reject euthanasia." Euthanasia came to the forefront of French national attention in 2003 with the case of Marie Humbert who had worked for her crippled son's right to die. Following this, opinion polls suggested 80% support for a change in the laws regulating euthanasia in France. [13 April 2005, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4440027.stm; LifeSiteNews.com, 14Apr05]

HOUSE COMMITTEE HOLDS HEARING ON TERRI SCHIAVO, PROTECTING DISABLED -- the hearing surrounded the death of Schiavo, the disabled woman who was starved during a painful 13-day process.

The hearing was supposed to include Terri and her estranged husband Michael, but judges ignored Congressional subpoenas asking them to appear and allowed her death.

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) who is also a physician by profession, testified for the House Committee on Government Reform. He told them that feeding tubes should not be removed from incapacitated people whose medical costs are paid in part by the federal gov’t unless the patient has previously given explicit instructions to withdraw food/water.

Weldon is writing legislation to require Medicare & Medicaid to have a national standard that requires providing all patients with food and water unless patients gave alternate instructions. "You're going to see more and more people who are less and less disabled being denied care if we do not at least establish some kind of floor…or fundamental standard," Weldon said.

Weldon said the federal government system should be "biased toward life" [Ft. Wayne Journal report]. Chair Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) agreed with Weldon and said the federal gov’t "should protect patients rather than pave the way to hasten their death." Souder said legislation is needed to presume a patient would want lifesaving medical treatment when no treatment decisions have been made in advance. Without such legislation, courts or doctors can decide patients should die, as happened with Schiavo.

Souder: "This creates a vacuum where someone else may determine that a patient's life is one not worth living; and this is most definitely a slippery slope". A Dept of Health & Human Services official who works with Medicare/Medicaid said the agency doesn't make patient treatments decisions; patients, families & doctors do. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) told members she was concerned that private insurance companies will not follow the same guidelines as the federal government, if Weldon's proposal becomes law.

Bob Sedlmeyer, the father of a 19 year old Indiana woman whose birth defects left her incapacitated, told the committee that legislation like Weldon's is necessary. Sedlmeyer noted that, as support for euthanasia grows, "her right to die may become her duty to die." He said it was frightening "that the value of [Terri's] life, as measured by the scales of our justice system, did not merit even food and water." Last month, Weldon was a lead House sponsor of the bill asking courts to stop Terri's starvation death and to allow her parents to take their lawsuit to federal courts.

Earlier this month, a Senate health committee held hearings on the plight of Terri Schiavo and end of life care. The meeting was marked by partisan division as lawmakers sparred over the best way to address patient treatment issues. [19Apr05, Ft. Wayne Journal; LifeNews.com 20Apr05; 21Apr05 http://www.lifenews.com/bio928.html]

QC RIGHT TO LIFE OFFERING POWER OF ATTORNEY FORMS  Quad City Right To Life has developed a durable power of attorney for health care to protect a patient's right to receive medical care, nutrition and hydration.

QCRTL director Bowman said the form is being offered in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case. "One week ago, Terri Schiavo lost her life. Her death was not about end-of-life care, it was about putting an end to a life." The group's form will specify that a patient must receive medical care and that nutrition/ hydration cannot be withheld "unless death is inevitable & imminent".

"Unfortunately, all living wills and most widely-available durable powers of attorney, the two kinds of advance directives, are slanted towards death, directing that food and water be removed from a patient simply because he or she has suffered brain damage and is not likely to recover," Bowman said.

Quad City Right To Life, 1530 State St., Suite 4, in Bettendorf; (563) 324-0035. The Int’l Anti-Euthanasia Task Force also has Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care forms - http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/ 740-282-3810.

[[Janeé Jackson, BETTENDORF ,; N Valko RN, 7Apr05]