[Comment: Unfortunately, some groups and individuals against physician-assisted suicide still cite hospice as the simple solution to physician-assisted suicide while some of us who have experience in hospice have warned for years about the progression of corrupting changes in hospice philosophy and practice promoted by well-funded groups like Compassion and Choices and individuals like George Soros.
For example, note the first line of the article’s abstract: “More than 20 years ago, even before voters in Oregon had enacted the first aid in dying (AID) statute in the United States, Timothy Quill and colleagues proposed clinical criteria AID.”
How many people are aware that Dr. Quill first became famous in 1991 when he wrote a medical journal article “”Death and Dignity — A Case of Individualized Decision Making” before becoming a plaintiff in the 1997 US Supreme Court case Vacco v. Quill on the constitutionality of physician-assisted suicide. He became president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine from 2012-2013 and now the Academy has a position on physician-assisted suicide described as “studied neutrality”.
Currently, we see our fears becoming reality. With the crucial help of the mainstream media, the public, the legal system and even medical organizations are being seduced into accepting that the so-called “right to die” must now include the “right” to be killed with medical assistance. It is not a coincidence that over 90% of assisted suicides victims in Oregon and Washington were enrolled in hospice.
With California legalizing assisted suicide, I fear that it is only a matter of time before we see the US Supreme Court given the opportunity to follow the Canadian supreme court in a complete and professionally coercive legalization of PAS.
We who are doctors and nurses must speak out forcefully before ethical healthcare providers are drummed out of our professions and our patients are left to the [false] “tender mercies” of healthcare professionals who are as comfortable with killing as they are with curing. N. Valko RN, 7 Nov 2015]
Journal of Palliative Medicine: ‘Clinical Criteria for Physician Aid in Dying’ (aka physician-assisted suicide)
Abstract
More than 20 years ago, even before voters in Oregon had enacted the first Aid In Dying (AID) statute in the United States, Timothy Quill and colleagues proposed clinical criteria AID. Their proposal was carefully considered and temperate, but there were little data on the practice of AID at the time. (With AID, a physician writes a prescription for life-ending medication for a terminally ill, mentally capacitated adult.)
With the passage of time, a substantial body of data on AID has developed from the states of Oregon and Washington. For more than 17 years, physicians in Oregon have been authorized to provide a prescription for AID. Accordingly, we have updated the clinical criteria of Quill, et al., based on the many years of experience with AID. With more jurisdictions authorizing AID, it is critical that physicians can turn to reliable clinical criteria. As with any medical practice, AID must be provided in a safe and effective manner. Physicians need to know (1) how to respond to a patient’s inquiry about AID, (2) how to assess patient decision making capacity, and (3) how to address a range of other issues that may arise.
To ensure that physicians have the guidance they need, Compassion & Choices convened the Physician Aid-in-Dying Clinical Criteria Committee, in July 2012, to create clinical criteria for physicians who are willing to provide AID to patients who request it. The committee includes experts in medicine, law, bioethics, hospice, nursing, social work, and pharmacy.
Using an iterative consensus process, the Committee drafted the criteria over a one-year period.
Go to link for rest of article — http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jpm.2015.0092
David Orentlicher, MD, JD,1 Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD,2 and Ben A. Rich, JD, PhD3; Physician Aid-in-Dying Clinical Criteria Committee
1Center for Law and Health, Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana.
2Health Law Institute, School of Law, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
3School of Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, California.
Accepted September 14, 2015.
[ http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jpm.2015.0092 ]