Defending Vulnerable People's Right to Live
Friday September 10, 2010
ALS "Depression" About the Same as the General Public
From Wesley J. Smith
ALS, called Lou Gehrig's disease in the USA and motor neurone disease in the UK, is the bloody flag often waved by euthanasia activists as a reason to legalize mercy killing. "Of course he wants to die," they will say. and then some will assert falsely and cruelly that death from ALS will agonizing by choking on saliva, even though patients receiving proper care do not die choking.
My last hospice patient died peacefully in his sleep from ALS. While I was with him, euthanasia was in the news with ALS patients featured on ABC Nightline as wanting euthanasia. Bob was fit to be tied! After being suicidal for more than two years--because he felt so abandoned by his friends, not due to the disease--he told me that his ending period was the best time of his life. (Yet, had assisted suicide been legal, he would have probably missed the good times--or so he told me. But people from Compassion and Choices say that people like Bob can't commit suicide because their lives are already over.) And he is not the only ALS patient I have known with that incredibly positive attitude.
Now, there is some journal evidence that ALS patients quality of life is not unremitting horror. From the story:
Golubchuck Futility Case: Can Wanted Life be a "Harm?"
From Wesley J. Smith
After three doctors resigned rather than maintain--and thus, extend--the life of the catastrophically ill Samuel Golubchuk, an unnamed physician has agreed to provide the wanted care. From the story:
Three doctors at the city's Grace Hospital have refused to continue providing care to the elderly patient, Samuel Golubchuk, who they say has no brain function and should not be kept physically alive on a ventilator.
State denies cancer treatment, offers suicide instead
'To say, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel'
State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.
The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.
Patients need proper care, not euthanasia
By Melanie McDonagh
For someone contemplating death, Debbie Purdey seems radiantly alive. She is the multiple sclerosis sufferer who was allowed a judicial review this week to clarify what would happen if she were to travel to a Swiss or Belgian euthanasia clinic to end her life.
She wants to make sure that her husband, Omar, would not be prosecuted if he accompanied her. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, has refused to publicise the official policy on assisted suicide. However, according to the pro-euthanasia organisation Dignity in Dying, which is backing her case, 100 Britons have travelled to suicide clinics abroad since 1992 - and none of their relatives has been prosecuted.
The Debbie Purdy Campaign - Statement by ALERT against Euthanasia
It seems compassionate to support a woman dying of a progressive illness who doesn't want to leave it too late to commit suicide. In fact, it is compassionate to no-one but ourselves to promote her death instead of the good care which helpless people deserve. We are not really doing ourselves a kindness, either, by deciding that a human life has no value. If Debbie Purdy, and others like her, can be put on the list of people society can do without, so can we all.
10 Years Under Oregon's Assisted-Suicide Law
From the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide comes a special report on 10 years under Oregon's assisted-suicide law.
Canadian Futile Care Doctor Quits Hospital Rather Than Treat Patient
I have reported on the Canadian futile care lawsuit involving Samuel Golubchuck here at SHS previously. For those who may not recall, Golubchuck is a terminally ill elderly patient being treated in a Winnipeg hospital's ICU. Doctors want to refuse life-sustaining treatment. The family--citing religious reasons (they are Orthodox Jews) and believing that Mr. Golubchuck would want treatment to continue--sued and won a temporary injunction requiring his life to be maintained.
Now, the doctor who wanted to impose his values on the patient and family by forcing Golubchuck off of a respirator and feeding tube has resigned rather than continue treatment. I have no trouble with that so long as there is continuity of care. But the following comment by the head of an ICU should alarm everyone. From the story:
Suicide Problem in Oregon: Ignoring the Elephant in the Living Room
By Wesley J. Smith:
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.
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
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:
