Read the Original here

By Peter Saunders
Care Not Killing Alliance

The Care Not Killing Alliance has warned Parliament, the public and the media not to be misled by a report published today that downplays the risk to vulnerable people posed by the legalisation of euthanasia. The warning comes amidst fears that fresh attempts will shortly be made to legalise the practice in Britain, most likely beginning with Scotland, which is seen as a soft target by pro-euthanasia advocates. Dr Peter Saunders, Campaign Director of Care Not Killing, warned:

read more

DAILY MAIL (London)

Read the original here.

25 September 2007

By Jill Parkin

None of us likes to imagine such a terrible fate, but this much I do know: If I am ever in a coma I would like to be treated by Muslim or Catholic doctors, because if they're in charge, at least I know I will not be starved to death.

How extraordinary to think that in doing so - in the simple act of keeping me alive - they could be breaking the law.

read more

Read the original here.

By Simon Caldwell
9/19/2007

Catholic News Service

LONDON (CNS) – Medical ethicists in Britain said a Vatican document reiterating that it is a moral obligation to provide food and water to patients in a vegetative state will encourage doctors to defy living wills.

Anthony Ozimic, political director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said the document released Sept. 14 by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was "highly significant" for England and Wales, where the Mental Capacity Act will take effect Oct. 1.

read more

DAILY MAIL (London)

September 24, 2007 Monday

BY Simon Caldwell AND Daniel Martin

MUSLIM MEDICS SAY THEY WILL REFUSE TO LET PATIENTS WITH 'LIVING WILLS' DIE

MUSLIM doctors warned yesterday that they would rather go to jail than allow patients to die in accordance with 'living wills'.

The new Mental Capacity Act allows patients to write the wills, instructing doctors not to try to save them if they become incapacitated.

It also allows patients to give 'lasting powers of attorney' to a friend or relative who would be able to instruct doctors to starve to death a patient who becomes incapacitated.

read more

Fewer took their lives in 2005, small comfort for a state where such cases top traffic deaths

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

DON COLBURN

The Oregonian

Suicide accounts for three-quarters of all violent deaths in Oregon, outnumbering homicides by more than 5-to-1, state health officials reported Monday.

What jumps out is not a trend -- slightly fewer suicides and other violent deaths in 2005 than the year before -- but the ongoing high numbers, said Dr. Mel Kohn, state epidemiologist.

read more

From Christian Newswire.

Read the original here.

Vatican Statement Defends Pope John Paul II’s 2004 Allocution on the Moral Obligation to Care for and Show Compassion for All People Like Terri

Contact: Suzanne Vitadamo, The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, 727-490-7603,

ST. PETERSBURG, Fl., Sept. 14 /Christian Newswire/ -- By issuing its latest statement on the obligation to feed and hydrate those persons deemed to be in a "vegetative" or even comatose state, the Vatican today reiterated its two thousand year old teaching that all human life is sacred and deserving of our care, no matter its condition. The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation (Terri's Foundation) wishes to extend its sincere thanks to the Holy See for again repeating this vital truth.

read more

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Read the original here.

First question: Is the administration of food and water (whether by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a “vegetative state” morally obligatory except when they cannot be assimilated by the patient’s body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort?

Response: Yes. The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented.

read more

Read the original here.

( lavan ) ( 6/28/2007 5:58:59 AM )
IT is not a crime in this country to commit suicide. Nor is it a crime to attempt to commit suicide. Nor is it criminal to refuse medical treatment for yourself, even if that decision effectively hastens your death.

That’s not to say that efforts should not be made to persuade people against making such choices, for many reasons. In terms of the law, however, an individual’s ultimate choice in these matters, which directly bears on their own life or death, is not bound by the Criminal Code.

read more

Original article here.

Wesley J. Smith
June 28, 2007

The Hastings Center Report is probably the most prestigious bioethics journal in the world. Thus, when an opinion article appears in its pages, the ideas expressed are definitely in play among the bioethical elite. I bring this up because an article appeared in the May-June edition advocating assisted suicide for the mentally ill.

I have long maintained that the weight-bearing ideological pillars of assisted suicide advocacy--radical individualism that includes the right to choose the time, manner, and method of death, along with the view that killing is an acceptable answer to the problems of human suffering--preclude legalized assisted suicide from being limited to the terminally ill. The force of human logic--one of the most powerful forces in the universe--simply would not permit such a "restricted" approach, proved by the experiences of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland.

read more

Friends: Man on life-support responsive

Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 21, 2007 12:00 AM
Friends and co-workers of a Chandler man at the center of a court battle over whether he should remain on life-support say that he is responsive to his surroundings and should be moved to a hospital.

Jesse Ramirez was seriously injured in a car accident on May 30, and 10 days later, his wife, Rebecca, ordered that his food and water tubes be disconnected and that he be moved from the hospital to a hospice so that he could die. Within days, Jesse Ramirez's parents and siblings appealed to a Maricopa County Superior Court judge, who in turn ordered that Jesse remain on life-support pending a thorough investigation by a court-appointed guardian.

read more