ALERT | Defending Vulnerable People's Right to Live

Defending Vulnerable People's Right to Live

Monday September 6, 2010

Suicide Problem in Oregon: Ignoring the Elephant in the Living Room

News Items | Submitted on 04/06/2008

When a story about worrying suicide rates in Oregon crossed my computer, I bet myself that the expert being interviewed and the reporter would ignore the obvious: Oregon officially sanctions some suicides and calls them "choice" if the suicidal person has a terminal illness--even if he or she is not experiencing significant symptoms--and moreover, permits doctors to intentionally assist in the self destruction. Needless to say, I was right. From the story:

Suicide is one of our more enduring public health problems. Because it accounts for only 1.3 percent of deaths, it still is often looked on as a rare problem. But there were nearly 33,000 suicides in 2005. More people kill themselves than are killed by others.

read more

Advanced Directives

News Items | Submitted on 03/06/2008

Advance directives have fatal flaws. As Cicely Saunders said ‘The one thing we cannot do is speak to the dissatisfied dead’.

Organ Donor cards inform relatives and medical staff of our desire to bring life to others after our death. In contrast, Advance Directives state that under certain circumstances, we would prefer death to life.

There lies the fatal flaw. Written in health, what if, your plea “I don’t want to be kept alive on a life support machine” led to your not having life support for an illness from which you may recover?

Think about it – “That’s not what you meant”. Perhaps what you really wanted to say is, ‘If my death is inevitable and all efforts at intensive care are unsuccessful, I would not like you to continue life support.”

Assisted Suicide Adcocate Shows Ugly Truth of the Movement's Ideology

News Items | Submitted on 31/05/2008

From Wesley J. Smith

Now Germany is surprised at the crassness of assisted suicide advocates. A German official assisted the suicide of an elderly woman--and a la Kevorkian, filmed it and then showed it on television. From the story:

Families Encouraged to Let Unresponsive Loved Ones Die

News Items | Submitted on 26/05/2008

From Alex Schadenberg:

The recent Australian guidelines on withdrawing medical treatment from people in a "unresponsive" state will not only encourage families to withdraw medical treatment from their family members but also to deny them basic care provisions. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23755540-952,00.html

The guidelines will encourage families to withdraw basic care such as tube feeding from their "unresponsive" loved oneâ€™s. When tube feeding is withdrawn from a person who is cognitively disabled and appears unresponsive, but who is not otherwise dying or nearing death, then the cause of death will be death by dehydration, or in other-words death by euthanasia by omission.

Obsessed with Death

News Items | Submitted on 22/05/2008

By Bobby Schindler

I found this article very interesting, or should I say pathetic?

Philip Nitschke recently appeared as a witness in a euthanasia trial. Evidently, the prosecutor claimed that he was "hell-bent" on helping a man to commit assisted suicide despite the fact that he suffered from severe Alzheimer's. Of course Nitschke denied the accusation and also that he had a "reckless disregard for human life" or that he "abrogated" his responsibilities as a doctor.

However, listen to Nitschke's response when asked how he determines whether or not a person has the mental faculties to decide to commit suicide.

"It was 'an impression one forms after discussion'. If they can consistently, and repeatedly and coherently put a position that this is what they want ... "

So let get this right, a man with severe Alzheimer's has the mental capacity to "repeatedly" and "coherently" communicate that he wants to kill himself.

No reckless disregard for human life there.

Alleged suicide job shocks campaigners

News Items | Submitted on 21/05/2008

By Alex Schadenberg

A New Zealand news agency is suggesting that leaders on both sides of the euthanasia debate are surprised that an American woman using the name Susan Wilson was paid $12,000to fly to New Zealand and assist the death of a woman suffering from depression. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/1786504

As the long-time leader of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in Canada and now the International chair, I am neither surprised or shocked by this news.

In September 2006, I attended the World Federation of Right to Die Societies bi-annual conference in Toronto. During the proceedings of that conference, it was apparent that the end-goal for the euthanasia lobby was the acceptance of the "last-will-pill" or the peaceful pill.

Dr. Rob Jonquiere, the moderate leader of the Right to Die movement in the Netherlands explained that by taking the law in their own hands that activists were making it more difficult for politicians to accept the final goal - the acceptance of the "last-will-pill". When you analyze the concept of a last-will-pill you must agree that there is no way to protect people who are depressed or mentally incompetent from killing themselves with this pill.

We already know that the Supreme Court in the Netherlands approved euthanasia for people who are experiencing chronic depression or chronic mental suffering.

Dr. Philip Nitschke, who is the maverick Australian leader of Exit International promoted the peaceful pill that allegedly could be available to anyone at anytime.

Several years ago Wesley Smith reported comments by Nitschke in an article titled "Noxious Nitschke" stating that the "peaceful pill" could be available to troubled teens. http://www.nationalreview.com/smithw/smith200411150826.asp

The question for the euthanasia lobby is not that they oppose euthanasia or assisted suicide for people who suffer depression, the question is how will the public knowledge of their support for these acts affect their campaign to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide everywhere?

Finally, if there is nothing wrong with assisted suicide then why should assisting a suicide be done for free. Susan Wilson had to fly to New Zealand and accept the chance that she might be arrested for her actions.

Maybe the real shock is that someone would pay her $12,000 and the other members of the euthanasia lobby feel that they are being under paid.

March 31: An International Day for Terri Schiavo

News Items | Terry Schiavo | Submitted on 30/03/2008

Monday, March 31, 2008 will be the first International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and all of our vulnerable brothers and sisters, say the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and Priests for Life. That date is the third anniversary of Catholic housewife Terri's death after 13 days of agonising starvation and dehydration at the hands of her husband Michael Schiavo and Florida local judge George Greer for the "offence" of being severely brain-damaged.

On March 31, individuals are invited to learn about Terri and pray for people whose lives are threatened as hers was. Churches are asked to hold memorial services for Terri and to teach their congregations about everyone's inherent dignity and worth. Educational institutions are invited to dispel the pro-death lies about Terri and to educate society about the rights of people who are disabled.

Doctors 'let mother die'

News Items | Submitted on 26/02/2008

Doctors at Northampton General Hospital used a "licence to kill" when they stopped feeding a woman against her family's wishes, her son has claimed.
Hamila Begum was admitted to hospital after suffering a stroke and died two months later when staff switched her care to a regime of palliative measures which involved removing food and fluid lines, according to her son Pervez Akhter.

But the hospital denied any wrong-doing and said the complaint had been fully investigated. No evidence of malpractice had been found.

Speaking at a meeting of the Muslim Division of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in Semilong on Saturday, Mr Akhter said the move went against his family's religious beliefs and claimed doctors had ignored their pleas for help.

Physicians given the right to kill, lawyer says

News Items | Submitted on 31/01/2008

By Jen Skerritt

GIVING doctors the power to decide whether someone's life is worth living is criminal, the lawyer for the Winnipeg family at the centre of an end-of-life dispute said Wednesday.
Neil Kravetsky, who is representing relatives of 84-year-old Samuel Golubchuk, called the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba's new end-of-life guidelines terrible, saying they "smack of subjectivity" and give doctors a green light to commit crimes.

The guidelines say the minimum goal of life-sustaining treatment is for patients to recover to a level where they can be aware of themselves, their environment and their existence.

Medical Journal Exposes Bigotry of "Deliberate Termination of Life of Newborns with Spina Bifida"

News Items | Submitted on 29/01/2008

In the Netherlands, doctors sometimes euthanize babies born with spina bifida. There (and here), doctors sometimes refuse to treat them so that they will die. But now, a new journal article calls expose these lethal actions and non actions as the bigotry (my term) that they are. Writing in Childs Nervous System (2008; 24:13-28), T. H. Rob de Jong A Dutch pediatric neurosurgeon writes:

There is no evidence that newborns with MMC and hydrocephalus do either 'suffer' unbearably or hopelessly and certainly not without the prospect to relieve this suffering by standard care. 'Suffering' itself is a nonconclusive,and in newborns, inapplicable denominator that should not be used anymore in this debate. Although they will in their future life be confronted with handicaps,sometimes very severe, their future prospects and their actual experienced quality of life cannot be predicted with such certainty at birth that their lives can be regarded as hopeless or meaningless ('quality of life judgments' as such being unacceptable in this decision making). Possible discomfort in these newborns can easily be treated in a straightforward way by active treatment (closure of the defect and shunting the hydrocephalus) and, when necessary,by the use of a professional pain/symptom protocol.