The reported apparent deliberate death of 23 year old Dan James in
Switzerland is a desperate tragedy for him and his family.  His deep reactive depression following the rugby training accident in March 2007 that left him tetraplegic is wholly understandable but it should not have led to his premature death.

The real tragedy is that his conviction that he did not wish to live a
"second-class existence" could not be shaken.  A young man with gifts ofintelligence and determination would still have had much to offer and oursociety has failed in not being able to help him fulfil his potential. One has only to think of the (admittedly exceptional) achievements of such as Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeve, to realise that those with severephysical disability are still valued as people, and that the dignity is in supporting them, not in abandoning their lives.

Those who advocate and encourage euthanasia bear a heavy responsibility.

Dr David J Hill.

by Anita Kuhn

In a remarkably candid article about organ donation in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a doctor and a bioethicist make the unnerving observation that, in cases involving vital organs, many “donors” may not actually be dead at the time their organs are taken from them. While this statement corroborates the view of many pro-life groups, scientists, and physicians, it is likely to be news to the general public.

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By: Wesley J. Smith

In another study under-reported by the MSM because it cuts against assisted suicide, UK researchers found that about a quarter of assisted suicide requests in Oregon were depressed, and yet received lethal prescriptions.

From the story

Now a new study shows one-in-four patients who requested lethal drugs under the Oregon law were depressed. Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports on a study conducted by researchers at Oregon Health and Science University. The study--published in the British Medical Journal --followed 58 patients in Oregon who requested aid in dying. Most were terminally ill with cancer or Lou Gehrig's disease.

Of the 58, twenty-six percent were independently diagnosed with depression. Psychiatrist Linda Ganzini is the study's lead author. She says doctors need to do a better job of screening for depression before they write a lethal prescription.

Oh please, Dr. Ganzini: As I have repeatedly pointed out, the guidelines are not actually there to protect the vulnerable, but merely to give the appearance of control. And if one doctor says no, the patient just goes doctor shopping until one is found who will prescribe--usually referred by Compassion and Choices. So, there is no protection of depressed patients in Oregon, and none is really intended.

Beyond that, the guidelines in Oregon and Washington do not require actual treatment of the depressed before a prescription is issued. Indeed, the attitude of Dutch euthanasia supporters demonstrate that even if depression is detected, it really doesn't matter in making the killing decision. From a story in the New Scientist:

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By: Wesley J. Smith

A study has found that people with serious cognitive impairments who are conscious--people who are routinely dehydrated to death in most states--feel pain. From the story:

Severely brain-damaged patients in a "minimally conscious state" may still feel pain and require painkilling treatment, according to European researchers.

A minimally conscious state (MCS) is different than a persistent vegetative state (PVS), which involves wakefulness without awareness of self or surroundings. MCS patients do show some evidence of awareness of self and their surroundings. However, caregivers have difficulty assessing MCS patients' levels of conscious pain based on their behavior, according to background information in the study by Dr. Steven Laureys, of the Coma Science Group at the University of Liege, Belgium, and colleagues.

They compared brain activity following electrical stimulation of the median nerve in five MCS patients (ages 18 to 74), 15 PVS patients (ages 18 to 75), and 15 healthy people (ages 19 to 64). The researchers focused on brain areas responsible for pain sensation (the cortical pain matrix), including the thalamus, the primary somatosensory cortex, and the insular, frontoparietal and anterior cingulate cortices. The MCS patients showed the same level of activity in these areas as healthy people and significantly more activity than PVS patients. The MCS patients also showed better "connectivity" between different brain regions responsible for pain than PVS patients.

So will dehydration proponents now conclude that the lives of these patients should be sustained? Of course not! They will say that the ability to feel pain means more than ever that they should be put out of their misery.Or, as often happens,

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Commenting on Baroness Warnock's latest proposal, a spokesman for ALERT said today (Friday 19th September):

"Baroness Warnock will make life worse for people with dementia.  She is encouraging them to see themselves as useless eaters, and to seek death in order to benefit society.

"Should her policy be put into action, there would be a moral hazard for NHS workers.  They would have an incentive to let people with dementia feel miserable and helpless, rather than helping them, because that would encourage suicide requests and so free up beds."

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From: Telegraph

Keir Starmer, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, is to clarify whether people should be prosecuted for aiding a suicide following a landmark ruling by the Law Lords last week. It had been assumed that this guidance would affect only cases in which friends or relatives helped people to die abroad, such as at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich.

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ALERT Comment

The Liverpool Care Pathway must be amended.  If it is not there will be an open scandal.

The Department of Health ought not to be seen as imposing a Final Solution to the problem of old age and infirmity.

NHS offers more help to die with dignity at home

By Steve Doughty, Daily Mail
16th July 2008

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From New Directions, July 2008.

Elspeth Chowdharay-Best on the next stage in the battle for life involving new hospital procedures for ensuring a speedy death

When utilitarian values take over from Judeo-Christian tradition, the weakest go to the wall. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill demonstrates the official contempt for human beings too young to defend themselves.

Another danger to helpless people in hospitals, nursing homes and care homes is the government’s new End of Life Care Programme. It is linked to the ‘Liverpool Care Pathway’, which bears some resemblance to the method of euthanasia which is becoming popular in the Netherlands: deep sedation without hydration, so that the patient dies for lack of water. Controversy in the British Medical Journal centres round the Pathway’s usefulness to patients. It is undoubtedly useful to the Department of Health’s budget.

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By Wesley J. Smith

I have heard rumors of stories like this from my contacts in the UK, but have not posted on it because that is what they were: Rumors. But now, the BBC has reported that a care facility might have tried to starve an elderly woman to save money. From the story:

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By Hilary White

July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A British "end of life" care protocol approved for use by the National Health Service (NHS), has created a systematic, and legal, method of euthanising elderly and disabled patients, even while "mercy killing" remains officially illegal, says a prominent expert in elder care. The "Liverpool Care Pathway" will be used to eliminate patients deemed to be "blocking beds" in the increasingly financially strapped public health system.

For years, Dr. Adrian Treloar, a psycho-geriatrician and senior lecturer at the Greenwich Hospital and Guys', King's and St. Thomas's Hospitals in London, has been sounding the warning that the NHS has an unofficial system in place to authorise the killing of vulnerable disabled patients with an unwritten policy of "involuntary euthanasia" by deep sedation and dehydration.

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