President's Council on Bioethics Report

Assisted Suicide Proponents Fear Use of the Word 'Suicide'

AMA Resolution Against Life-Saving Care

Dutch Doctors Hasten the Death of Sick Children

To find more information on Euthanasia, go to the left menu and click End Of Life/Euthanasia, or click Current Headlines, then Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia.

PCB REPORT -- “The Limited Wisdom of Advance Directives”, The President's Council on Bioethics Report, Wash, D.C., was issued 9/05. "Chapter 2 deals with the problems associated with advance directives. Not surprisingly, the media has studiously ignored this."
http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/taking_care/chapter2.html

ASSISTED SUICIDE PROPONENTS FEAR THE USE OF THE WORD 'SUICIDE';  A Hired Political Pollster Recommends Disingenuous Language Change for Those Advocates of Assisted Suicide --

Assisted Suicide leaders held a press teleconference in order to promote new language choices to describe this issue. Based on the advice of their hired political pollster, and focus groups he conducted, Assisted Suicide advocates bristle at the usage of the word "suicide" to describe the intentional taking of one's life.

However, according to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, suicide is defined in the following way:

Main Entry: (1) sui*cide

Pronunciation: 'su-&-"sId

Function: noun

(1) a : the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind.

"Assisted Suicide advocates are trying to reframe the language used to describe state sanctioned suicide just as they have in the past when they changed their organization name Hemlock Society USA to the euphemism 'Compassion & Choices'.

"But their problem continues to be that words have meaning," noted Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights, Education and Defense Fund.

Author Wesley J. Smith wrote in response, "They (assisted suicide advocates) are always looking for just the right words and language to obfuscate that their agenda is about suicide and mercy killing... Rather than use accurate terms, media are urged to use gooey euphemisms instead..."
[9/28/2005 3:10:00 PM, SACRAMENTO, Calif., Sept. 28 /U.S. Newswire/; Tim Rosales, 916-473-8866 ext. 7, for Californians Against Assisted Suicide http://www.usnewswire.com/
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54195]

Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)
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Phone - 604 582 3844
Visit us at www.chninternational.com

Press Release: Californians for Compassionate Choices: ''Suicide'' is Inaccurate, Biased Term to Describe Terminally-Ill Patients' End-of-Life Choices-- Public Opinion & Medical Experts Urge Media to Adopt Neutral Terms --Public opinion research released today shows that use of the term "suicide" to describe the end-of-life choices of terminally-ill patients is inaccurate and biases audiences against patients and their families. "'Suicide,' or 'assisted-suicide,' or 'physician-assisted suicide' are loaded, pejorative terms that paint terminally-ill patients in the same negative light as terrorist bombers," Barbara Coombs-Lee, co-president of Compassion and Choices told a national news media teleconference. "'Suicide' is inaccurate because it indicates a self-destructive act that kills a person. Fatal diseases are killing terminally ill patients, and patients are choosing to avoid a prolonged dying process. Using the term 'suicide' can adversely-affect patients' life insurance and other survivors' benefits. Suicide is a sin in many religions, and physician-assisted suicide is a crime in all states. Using the term has negative impacts on terminally ill patients, their families and survivors. It's not accurate and it's not fair."
[Press Release Source: Californians for Compassionate Choices  http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050928/285759.html?.v=1; SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 2005]

THE AMA has adopted a resolution against legislation that would ensure disabled and incapacitated patients receive life-saving medical care.

DUTCH DOCTORS HASTEN THE DEATH OF SICK CHILDREN WITH THE USE OF EUTHANASIA -- A new analysis of Dutch doctors by researchers in the Netherlands finds that they are more frequently using euthanasia to kill sick children, sometimes taking the country's assisted suicide laws as far as they will allow. The European nation legalized euthanasia in 2002 and previous reports show Dutch doctors granting most patients' request to be killed. The new study involves the deaths of 64 children during a four month period and finds that doctors hastened the deaths of 42 of them. The government-sponsored study gave the doctors immunity from having their names revealed or being prosecuted for their actions and their responses were kept anonymous. According to the Irish Examiner newspaper, the report finds doctors engaged in actions varying from withholding life support from patients doctors believed would die anyway to administering drugs such as morphine with the intent of hurrying a patient's death. One case involved euthanasia in the strictest sense -- a doctor making the decision to directly take a patient's life because he believed the patient was beyond hope. Astrid Vrakking of Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam told the Examiner that, in other situations, the actions "take place at the boundaries of what is legally allowed." "Whether or not these boundaries are supportive or rightful is, of course, a matter of debate," Vrakking added. The report describes one case where physicians gave an 18 month old suffering from a progressive neuro-degenerative disease drugs & sedatives after the parents requested them. [Netherlands, LifeNews.com, 9Sep05]