In 2014, Michelle Carter, then 17, used text messages to "encourage" her 18-year-old boyfriend Conrad Roy III to kill himself. Roy was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in his truck.

While the dust is still settling from this month's decision by a Massachusetts judge to convict the young "suicide texter" of involuntary manslaughter, the reaction on social media has been swift and savage.

Play Video Don't Play

Play Video Don't Play

Previous slide Next slide

A Massachusetts judge finds Michelle Carter guilty of urging her boyfriend's death with text messages.

Play Video Don't Play

Irish forecaster with a giant umbrella is blown away by a gust of wind and everyone can't stop laughing about it.

Play Video Don't Play

A forest fire in southern Spain has forced the evacuation of 1000 people and is threatening a national park famous for its biodiversity.

Play Video Don't Play

A boat carrying more than 150 people has sunk on a reservoir near the city of Medellin in north-west Colombia.

Play Video Don't Play

The Australian government is offering support to the Philippines as its military battles Islamist militants aligned with Islamic State. National Security correspondent David Wroe explains.

Play Video Don't Play

RAW VISION: Teen dangles from a stopped gondola ride at a New York amusement park, tumbling into a crowd gathered more than seven metres below to catch her.

Play Video Don't Play

In a bid to limit any further jail time, Crown Resorts staff will plead guilty to gambling-related crimes at their trial in Shanghai on Monday.

Play Video Don't Play

An overturned oil tanker exploded on Sunday in Pakistan, killing 148 people when spilt fuel from the stricken vehicle ignited.

A Massachusetts judge finds Michelle Carter guilty of urging her boyfriend's death with text messages.

On my own Facebook page, within hours of the verdict, I received nothing short of 100 irate responses to a hitherto gentle post I made casting doubt on Carter's legal, if not moral, blame for Roy's suicide.

I pondered if this was fair reason to use the very serious crime of manslaughter to teach young people a lesson in online behaviour? Clearly, Judge Lawrence Moniz thinks it is just the remedy, and in the virtual world of the internet he has many friends.

I'm not alone in worrying that the guilty decision in this judge-only criminal trial will have unintended consequences. For almost everyone involved in the debate over assisted suicide as a human right, we are all now much more concerned, and with good reason.

Mathew Segal of the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union saysthe conviction of Carter exceeds the limits of US criminal laws and violates the free speech protections contained in the constitution at a state and federal level.

Segalnotes that, for those having or likely to have "end-of-life discussions" with their loved ones -and let's face it, that will be many of us -Carter's conviction strikes a very real chill.

Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox.

New York attorney Ari Diaconistakes the debate one step further, arguing that Judge Moniz has conflated "morality and legality" and it is this that makes life post-Carter a different ball game altogether.

On the facts, Roy killed himself.He was not with Carter. She did not help him prepare for his death. What she did do was text him, not once, but often. Was Carter a good person on the night of Roy's death? Clearly not. Carter's text urging Roy to go through with his death - "I f---ingtold him to get back in [the truck]" - is not how a good girlfriend, a caring friend, would behave. But does this make her a criminal?

Just as suicide is lawful in Australia, being a bad person is not necessarily unlawful. Diaconis is correct. It is important not to conflate the law with morality, yet that is exactly what Judge Moniz has done. The challenge of keeping subjectivity out of the Carter case was something the court was acutely aware of from the get go.

In allowing the case to go to trial, the Massachusetts Judicial Court tried hard to create a narrow framework for argument. The case was not, it said"about a person ameliorating the anguish of someone confronting terminal illness and questioning the value of life".

Nor was it "about offering support, comfort, and even assistance to a mature adult who, confronted with such circumstances, has decided to end his or her life". By process of elimination, the court tried to delineate "good" suicide assistance from the reckless, misdirected and dangerous advice offered by Carter.

However, from a legal point of view, like it or not, Carter's guilty verdict has created a climate where any response to talk by a person considering ending their life is now problematic.

This is especially as Carter had earlier tried to convince her boyfriend to get help for his suicidal thoughts. She had supported him in choosing life. Her later support for Roy's suicide was certainly the result of misguided youth. But should her morally bad-person behaviour (what some might call misguided foolish youthfulness) make her a criminal? I don't think so. It is this apparent sureness of intent on the part of the Massachusetts Judicial Court that makes Carter's business our business, even here in Australia.

For instance, can a doctor (or close friend or loved one) talk to a terminally ill patient (or friend) if that mentally capable person has made the decision to end their life? Dare they agree in writing -say via a WhatsApp message -with the loved one's decision?

The legal answer is now 50 shades of grey darker.

Ironically, the assisted suicide movement's very existence depends on our ability to speak openly to people considering dying with dignity.

While the 80-year-olds whom I deal with on a daily basis are far from the troubled teen who was Roy, our chats occuron the phone, on email and in our online discussion forums. I have always gone out of my way to neither encourage nor discourage a terminally ill person, or an elderly person, who seeks my "counsel" to take one course of action over another. What I have done for the past 20 years is provide a safe and understanding space for the communication to take place.

Tricky questions abound daily. Should I be worried about what I say in response or what medium I choose? Open discussion is an essential part of the decision-making process that can surround dying. A healthy society must insist that it should not be shut down.

Dr Philip Nitschke is the director of Exit International.

Support is available for those who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline 13 11 14;Mensline1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800;beyondblue1300 224 636.

See the original post:

Euthanasia by text? Michelle Carter case impacts more than just free speech - The Sydney Morning Herald

25 Jun 2017, 3 p.m.

NSW: Fewer than 30 per cent of doctors oppose the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, according to a survey.

Most NSW doctors and nurses support a controversial medical euthanasia bill headed for Parliament, according to research that could prompt new debateabout the medical fraternity's willingness to accept changes to assisted suicide laws.

A bill, to allow patients to apply for medically assisted euthanasia in specific circumstances when older than 25 (an age when informed consent is deemed reached), will be introduced to the NSW upper house in August for a conscience vote.

Dr Anne Jaumees, an anaesthetist based in western Sydney. A poll of doctors and nurses into what they think about euthanasia has just been conducted. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

About 60 per cent of doctors support the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill and fewer than 30 per cent oppose it, according to a surveyby market research company Ekas emailed to a database of 4000 NSW doctors it deemed "opinion leaders" and returned by about 500.

A smaller sample of about 100 nurses had support running at 80 per cent in favour of the law reform and opposition at fewer than 10 per cent.

A crowd-funding campaign forAnnie Gabrielides,a motor neurone disease suffererwho has progressively lost her ability to speak and is a euthanasia advocate, paid for the research.

"I'mconsistently hearing from doctors and medical expertsexpressing their sincere support of my campaign, but they're reluctant to speak out," she said.

The results suggest the medical profession and its famously powerful unions, not just Parliament, will be divided when debate on the bill kicks off.

The Australian Medical Association, which opposes changes to euthanasia law, warnedthe research could overstate doctors' support.

"It is likely that doctors with more strongly held opinions are responding to these surveys so caution must be used," AMA NSW president Brad Frankum said.

A national AMA poll of 4000 doctors last year found 50 per cent of doctors believed medical professionals should not be involved in assisted suicide, a spokesman emphasised.

But only slightly less than four in ten said they should, according to a news report.Combined with 12 per cent who neither agreed nor disagreed that left physicians close to evenly splitin some respects.

And anAustralian Doctorpoll of about 370 medicoslast year found about 65 per cent of doctors supported a change to the law on physician-assisted suicide ifstrict conditions, such as patients nearing the end of their lives and suffering "intolerable pain", some of which are mirrored in the NSW proposal, were met. About half told the journal they would be willing to help perform aprocedure.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association general secretary Brett Holmes said: "The vast majority of nurses support change that enables medically assisted dying. Nurses know patients often choose more drastic means [to medically ending their life] in fear they cannot choose later."

A parliamentary report cited polls from the '90s that found nurses' support for euthanasia reform reached as high as about 75 per cent.

A dozen polls in the past decade hadfound between 75 to 80 per cent of Australians backed medically assisted euthanasia.

Western Sydney anaesthetistAnneJaumeesdoes too after working in palliative care for 15 years: "All their lives they want dignity and patients want that up until the end, too."

The bill is the product of cross-party collaboration and will only allow for applications frompatients expected to die within the coming year and experiencing extreme pain, suffering or incapacitation.

Safeguards proposed included allowing relatives to challenge applications in the Supreme Court,assessmentsby independent doctors and being subject to a 48-hour cooling-off period.

But Maria Cigolionisaid, while proponents arguedthe bill came laden with safeguards, it required no review of what palliative care patients had first sought before applying to end their lives or for alternatives to be suggested.

Overseas safeguards had been loosened so euthanasia could be applied forby people also suffering from psychosocial problems, Dr Cigolioni said.

"Instead of spending money on euthanasia reforms, we should be investing in psychosocial support programs to address suffering."

"People [will hasten the solution of death] when so many other things need to be looked at as the potential cause of that suffering," she said. "Once you change a criminal law [to allow] people to be killed, then [its conditions] can be extended beyond just being terminally ill, [and expand to include] the disabled and the aged and children, as it has in the Netherlands and Belgium."

The state budget last week announced a $100 million increase in funding for palliative care, something experts said would bring levels of NSW services into line with other states.

AMA policy recognises a divergence in doctors' views on euthanasia but it states doctors should not be involved in dispensing treatment that shortens a patient's life.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Read the rest here:

Euthanasia survey hints at support from doctors, nurses and division - Cootamundra Herald

PETER DORNAUF

Last updated05:00, June 26 2017

Mario Anzuoni

The documentary Autopsy focuses on the sudden and tragic end to Robin Williams' life.

OPINION: Recently I watched a television documentary called Autopsy, about the actor/comedianRobin Williams. It focused on the suddenand tragic end to his life, probing the events of his last days to unpick the reasons behind the man's shocking suicide.

It was revealed that Williams was suffering from Parkinson's disease, but that debilitating illness wasn't the thing which had brought him to the brink and pushed him over. There was something much darker going on deep in his mind which the autopsy finally exposed. He was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's, a humiliating and cruel death sentence for a man whose sharp mind was his identity as well as his bread and butter.

Williams was obviously aware that something was seriously amiss and intuited what it was early in the piece. In someone still with years ahead of him, it must have come as a devastating blow.

But what was most distressing for the viewerwas the re-enactment of what transpired as Robin Williams, the man who had brought so much wit, insight and laughter to the world, attempted to bring his life to a close, alone, without goodbyes, clumsily, painfully, violently.

Afterward, I thought how things could have been so much different in a more civilised society where assisted suicide was legal.

Currently, Parliament is to debate and vote on the issue of euthanasia. We've had to fight tooth and nail just to get some relaxation of the use of medical marijuana for suffering and terminally ill patients, so I can just imagine, in a society of roughneckswhere "suck it up"is the prevailing attitude among some, how difficult any move toward liberalisation is going to be.

Someone made the comment recently that the trouble lies with the fact that many of our rule-makers are religious, our prime minister leading the pack. It was expressed crudely and bluntly by Catholic adherentJohn Collier, who responded to the issue by saying, "Thou shalt not kill, and that's the end of it."

Such closed-mindedness demonstrates both a supreme lack of empathy for suffersas well as a denial of the right to choose for others. But more significantly it is a classic oversimplification of the matter. Reducing complex ethical questions to parroting some rote and formulaic code is lazy moral thinking. It is something the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre would have called"bad faith", a kind of moral sloth that attempts to escape from the burden of ethical responsibility on hard questions.

It also conveniently overlooks the fact that the god who is touted with issuing such a commandordered the wholesale slaughter of communities involving men, women and children. Obviously there is some wiggle room here.

Here in Hamilton, my own family is no stranger to the terrible suffering surrounding dementia and suicide. I cannot bear to think what must have been going through my grandmother's tortured mind as she took herself down to the edge of the Waikato River one morning and threw herself in.

It happened when I was 10 and all of it was rightly kept from us children to be discovered later in life. But how shockingly monstrous for my father, who never spoke of it once - about a mother, forced by the law of the land, to take such desperate measures at the end of her life.

Imagine an alternative in another time and place where she would have been able to tell her children she had had enough of life and they'd all been able to gather in a room and spend the last days together, hugged, kissed, said lovely things and said goodbye, and then quietly, with dignity, she, a doctor in attendance, could have gone to sleep.

But not here. You have to suffer to the bitter end here, albeit drugged to the eyeballs, or alternatively, hang, drown or shoot yourself, alone, forlorn and forsaken.

Some may want to cling on to the last remaining days or painful stupefying minutes of life. That is happily their choice. But others may not. At the moment, these people have other civilised options blocked off to them.

We have many rights, but the most profound one is legally denied us and so people, suffering, tired of life, have to resort to terrible means, by themselves, to terminate it. It seems quite barbarous.

What is legal already in eightcountries around the world should be made so here, surrounded with all the important and necessary safeguards.

A little boy of 10 would not have been able to handle those tragic events so many years ago. But my arms go out to you now, Grandma, wishing for a better place where I could have walked back with you, up and away from that river, holding your hand.

-Stuff

Link:

The time has come for euthanasia | Stuff.co.nz - Waikato Times

Most NSW doctors and nurses support a controversial medical euthanasia bill headed for Parliament, according to research that could prompt new debateabout the medical fraternity's willingness to accept changes to assisted suicide laws.

A bill, to allow patients to apply for medically assisted euthanasia in specific circumstances when older than 25 (an age when informed consent is deemed reached), will be introduced to the NSW upper house in August for a conscience vote.

About 60 per cent of doctors support the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill and fewer than 30 per cent oppose it, according to a surveyby market research company Ekas emailed to a database of 4000 NSW doctors it deemed "opinion leaders" and returned by about 500.

A smaller sample of about 100 nurses had support running at 80 per cent in favour of the law reform and opposition at fewer than 10 per cent.

A crowd-funding campaign forAnnie Gabrielides,a motor neurone disease suffererwho has progressively lost her ability to speak and is a euthanasia advocate, paid for the research.

"I'mconsistently hearing from doctors and medical expertsexpressing their sincere support of my campaign, but they're reluctant to speak out," she said.

The results suggest the medical profession and its famously powerful unions, not just Parliament, will be divided when debate on the bill kicks off.

The Australian Medical Association, which opposes changes to euthanasia law, warnedthe research could overstate doctors' support.

"It is likely that doctors with more strongly held opinions are responding to these surveys so caution must be used," AMA NSW president Brad Frankum said.

A national AMA poll of 4000 doctors last year found 50 per cent of doctors believed medical professionals should not be involved in assisted suicide, a spokesman emphasised.

But only slightly less than four in ten said they should, according to a news report.Combined with 12 per cent who neither agreed nor disagreed that left physicians close to evenly splitin some respects.

And anAustralian Doctorpoll of about 370 medicoslast year found about 65 per cent of doctors supported a change to the law on physician-assisted suicide ifstrict conditions, such as patients nearing the end of their lives and suffering "intolerable pain", some of which are mirrored in the NSW proposal, were met. About half told the journal they would be willing to help perform aprocedure.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association general secretary Brett Holmes said: "The vast majority of nurses support change that enables medically assisted dying. Nurses know patients often choose more drastic means [to medically ending their life] in fear they cannot choose later."

A parliamentary report cited polls from the '90s that found nurses' support for euthanasia reform reached as high as about 75 per cent.

A dozen polls in the past decade hadfound between 75 to 80 per cent of Australians backed medically assisted euthanasia.

Western Sydney anaesthetistAnneJaumeesdoes too after working in palliative care for 15 years: "All their lives they want dignity and patients want that up until the end, too."

The bill is the product of cross-party collaboration and will only allow for applications frompatients expected to die within the coming year and experiencing extreme pain, suffering or incapacitation.

Safeguards proposed included allowing relatives to challenge applications in the Supreme Court,assessmentsby independent doctors and being subject to a 48-hour cooling-off period.

But Maria Cigolionisaid, while proponents arguedthe bill came laden with safeguards, it required no review of what palliative care patients had first sought before applying to end their lives or for alternatives to be suggested.

Overseas safeguards had been loosened so euthanasia could be applied forby people also suffering from psychosocial problems, Dr Cigolioni said.

"Instead of spending money on euthanasia reforms, we should be investing in psychosocial support programs to address suffering."

"People [will hasten the solution of death] when so many other things need to be looked at as the potential cause of that suffering," she said. "Once you change a criminal law [to allow] people to be killed, then [its conditions] can be extended beyond just being terminally ill, [and expand to include] the disabled and the aged and children, as it has in the Netherlands and Belgium."

The state budget last week announced a $100 million increase in funding for palliative care, something experts said would bring levels of NSW services into line with other states.

AMA policy recognises a divergence in doctors' views on euthanasia but it states doctors should not be involved in dispensing treatment that shortens a patient's life.

See more here:

Euthanasia survey hints at support from doctors, nurses and division - The Sydney Morning Herald

What do medical students think about euthanasia? A new article in the journal Chest discusses some of the concerns held by the next generation of US medical professionals. The authors of the paper, students from several of the leading medical schools in the country, express grave concerns about the normalisation of euthanasia in end-of-life care.

Commenting on new legislation introduced in US states such as Colorado, the authors remark:

Doctor-patient trust, the authors assert, is founded upon the notion that doctors will commit to doing their best to heal and care for patients and will not intentionally kill those entrusted to their care. The students fear that PAS/E violates the fundamental bond of trust.

Indeed, the authors call upon doctors to return to the original meaning of euthanasia:

The American Medical Student Association currently has a position of conditional support for physician aid in dying.

MORE ON THESE TOPICS |

View original post here:

Medical students' perspectives on euthanasia - BioEdge

If there is anyone who could be called a patron saint of Dutch euthanasia, it is the psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot. In 1991 he gave one of his patients, Mrs B, a lethal dose of medication. After accompanying her until she died he reported himself to the police and was subsequently tried. In 1993, the Supreme Court declare that he was guilty of assisting a suicide, but did not punish him and allowed him to keep practicing medicine.

Physically, there was nothing wrong with Mrs B. Nor did she have depression. But her personal life was tragic and Dr Chabot felt that she in a state of existential distress that she should be allowed to die. It was a landmark case in the steady advance towards legalisation in 2002.

That was 25 years ago. Now Dr Chabot looks back and is horrified. Writing in one of the leading Dutch newspapers, NRC Handelsblad, he says that legal safeguards for euthanasia are slowly eroding away and that the law no longer protects people with psychiatric condition and dementia.

The Dutch are complacent about their famous law, he says. But there is no room for complacency.

Under current legislation, euthanasia is only legal if a doctor believes that three conditions have been met: (1) the request must be voluntary and deliberate; (2) there must be unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement; and (3) there must no reasonable alternative to euthanasia.

However, as euthanasia has sunk its roots deeper and deeper into Dutch medicine, the second and third conditions have shrivelled up. Patients define what is unbearable and they define what is a reasonable alternative. Unhappiness can be unbearable and a nursing home may not be a reasonable alternative. So, as one ethicist has observed, requirements (2) and (3) add little to the requirement of a voluntary and thoughtful request. Autonomy has trumped medicine. As a result, the number of euthanasia cases roughly tripled between 2007 and 2016, from 2000 to 6000.

In itself, this does not bother Dr Chabot. After all, he is the Grand Old Man of Dutch euthanasia. He says that he is prepared to accept tens of thousands of euthanasia cases. But he is aghast at the rapid rise in the number of people with psychiatric illness or dementia who have been euthanised:

What does worry me is the increase in the number of times euthanasia was performed on dementia patients, from 12 in 2009 to 141 in 2016, and on chronic psychiatric patients, from 0 to 60. That number is small, one might object. But note the rapid increase of brain diseases such as dementia and chronic psychiatric diseases.More than one hundred thousand patients suffer from these diseases, and their disease can almost never be completely cured.

One sign of the changing times is the rapid expansion of the services of the End of Life Clinic Foundation (Stichting Levenseindekliniek). This organisation offers euthanasia to patients whose own doctors have refused. They never offer to treat the underlying illness, whether it is physical or mental.

By 2015, a quarter of euthanasia cases on demented patients were performed by these doctors; in 2016 it had risen to one third. By 2015, doctors of the End of Life Clinic performed 60 percent of euthanasia cases in chronic psychiatric patients, by 2016 that had increased to 75 percent (46 out of 60 people).

Last year, Dr Chabot points out, doctors from the End of Life Clinic each performed about one euthanasia every month. What happens to doctors for whom a deadly injection becomes a monthly routine? he asks.

Now the End of Life Clinic is recruiting psychiatrists to service the mentally ill and demented. One obvious problem is that there is a shortage of good psychiatric help in the Netherland which tends to take a long time have an effect, in any case because of budget cuts.

Without a therapeutic relationship, by far most psychiatrists cannot reliably determine whether a death wish is a serious, enduring desire. Even within a therapeutic relationship, it remains difficult. But a psychiatrist of the clinic can do so without a therapeutic relationship, with less than ten in-depth conversations? Well

Dr Chabot is deeply sceptical about euthanasia for the demented: we are dealing with a morally problematic act: how do you kill someone who does not understand that he will be killed?.

How? It turns out that sometimes a relative or doctor secretly laces their food or drink with a sedative to make it easier to give them a lethal injection. In one notorious case last year, the sedative didnt work and relatives pinned the terrified woman to the bed while the doctor gave the lethal injection. Dr Chabot was astonished to discover that surreptitious administration of medication has previously occurred, but has never been mentioned in an annual report.

Isnt anyone paying attention to these developments, Dr Chabot asks.

The euthanasia practice is running amok because the legal requirements which doctors can reasonably apply in the context of physically ill people, are being declared equally applicable without limitation in the context of vulnerable patients with incurable brain diseases. In psychiatry, an essential limitation disappeared when the existence of a treatment relationship was no longer required. In the case of dementia, such a restriction disappeared by making the written advance request equivalent to an actual oral request. And lastly, it really went off the tracks when the review committee concealed that incapacitated people were surreptitiously killed.

After surveying the wreckage of the euthanasia law, Dr Chabot concludes bitterly,

I dont see how we can get the genie back in the bottle. It would already mean a lot if wed acknowledge hes out.

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge. Dr Chabots original article in NRC Handelsblad was translated by Professor Trudo Lemmens, of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Excerpts have been republished from his blog with permission.

Read more:

A Dutch euthanasia pioneer surveys the wreckage and despairs - BioEdge

Dr Bharat Lotes organs had begun failing due to cancer on Sunday, following which he slipped into a coma

The medical officer from Chiplun, who had been battling pancreatic cancer for the last few months, passed away on Monday at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Erandwane. He was admitted at the facility on March 30. In the past, he had written a letter, asking for euthanasia and intended to submit it to the Bombay High Court (HC) soon.

According to the hospital authorities, Dr Bharat Lote passed away on June 19 around 3.30 pm due to multiple organ failure. His treatment has cost Rs 32.5 lakh, of which the family has paid Rs 24 lakh. The hospital has waived off Rs 3.5 lakh on the amount as a goodwill gesture, the family has informed.

Lote, 56, used to be a medical officer at the primary health centre at Chiplun, before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer early in March, which he battled for months. His body was taken to his native place in Satara on Tuesday. Lote is survived by his wife and two sons. His elder son Pratik said, His condition started deteriorating from Sunday onwards, after which he stopped speaking. He then slipped into a coma at 8.30 pm on Sunday. He was again put in the intensive care unit.

Doctors found fungal infection in his blood and he was not responding to high-end drugs. Pratik said that over time, his kidney and other organs also failed due to the infection.

Dr Satish Pawar, director of health services, said, The state government has sanctioned Rs 24 lakh for Lotes treatment, which was communicated through a letter. The file has been sanctioned and all technical terms have been cleared within a week. The family will receive the funds soon.

Read more from the original source:

Doctor bidding for euthanasia dies - Pune Mirror

A Massachusetts court convicted Michelle Carter of involuntary manslaughter for the death of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy. Roy had obviously been suffering from depression when Carter sent him repeated text messages urging him to go ahead and kill himself. Eventually he complied. He sat in his truck while the cab filled with carbon monoxide. Carters encouragement of Roys suicide, including her instruction to him to get back into his truck, is deplorable. Few would dispute this.

If he had been suffering from metastatic cancer, rather than depression, there are undoubtedly those who would have been praising Carter for her act of compassion. Of course, Carters actions were morally reprehensible, and they would be just as bad had Roy been suffering physically rather than psychologically.

If you agree that Carter lacks moral decency you should take a close look at Connecticut state Rep. Josh Elliott. He has introduced HB 6238, An Act Concerning the Option to Die with Dignity. Elliott, along with his friends at Compassion and Choices, wants to make it legal for Connecticut doctors to prescribe lethal cocktails of medications to patients that are suffering from severe physical pain. Make no mistake; Rep. Elliotts proposal is just as morally corrupt as Carters actions. Physicians helping patients commit suicide, is no better than manipulative, teenaged girls pushing their boyfriends to asphyxiate themselves. Doctors have plenty of means to help patients who are in suffering or in pain. There is no need to engage in euthanasia.

Rep. Elliott should concern himself with our states actual problems, like our current financial situation. Although, if he is like most Democrats, he will probably argue that this bill will help state residents by reducing carbon emissions. Those carbon monoxide suicides really do burn through a lot of fossil fuels.

Advertisement

Frank J. Mongillo III, M.D.

New Haven

Continue reading here:

Letter to the Editor: Connecticut lawmaker wrong to advocate for euthanasia - New Haven Register

The Dutch psychiatrist whose lawsuit opened the door to allowing assisted suicide in the Netherlands for people suffering depression is now having second thoughts.

Boudewijn Chabot

Boudewijn Chabot, in an article titled Worrisome Culture Shift in the Context of Self-Selected Death, decries the new practice of allowing psychiatrists without a therapeutic relationship with a patient to determine whether assisted suicide is permissible under the law.

Wesley Smith, a leading bioethics expert and opponent of assisted suicide and euthanasia, writes in a column for National Review that he predicted the development.

Euthanasia consciousness changes mindsets. It alters societal morality, he said. It distorts our views of the importance of vulnerable lives. It leads to abandonment and various forms of subtle and blatant coercion. Over time, it cant be controlled.

Was Terri Schiavos death really assisted suicide? Get the book that powerfully and comprehensively tells Terris Story: The Court-Ordered Death of an American Woman at the WND Superstore

The Netherlands became the first nation to allow assisted suicide after a series of court cases in the 1980s formalized the criteria for it, culminating in a 2002 law.

Chabot was prosecuted in the early 1990s for assisting the suicide of a deeply depressed woman who wanted to die after the deaths of her two children. He met with the womanfour times over several weeks but never actually treated her, Smith recounted.The psychiatrist then supplied her with poison pills, which she took.

Smith said Chabots lawyer told him in an interview for his book Forced Exit that the Dutch government never had anyintention of actually imprisoning or even sanctioning Chabot.

The purpose, the lawyer said, was to set a precedent to allow deep psychological suffering to justifyassisted suicide.

Smith said the DutchSupreme Court in 1994 ruled, essentially, that suffering is suffering, whether physical or emotional, and its the suffering thatjustifies assisted suicide, not the disease itself.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WNDs Email News Alerts!

Two decades later, he said, Dutch psychiatrists euthanize mentally ill patients, whose organs may be voluntarily harvestedafter their death.

Now, he said, Chabot has been stricken by conscience, recognizing euthanasia groups have recruited psychiatrists to kill.

Chabot argued in his paper that without a therapeutic relationship, by far most psychiatrists cannot reliably determine whether a death wish is a serious, enduring desire.

Wesley J. Smith

Even within a therapeutic relationship, it remains difficult. But a psychiatrist of the clinic can do so without a therapeutic relationship, with less than ten in-depth conversations?

Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism, is a consultant for the Patients Rights Council who has been named by the National Journal as one of the nations top expert thinkers in bioengineering for his work in bioethics. He is among the worlds foremost critics of assisted suicide and utilitarian bioethics.

Chabot, in his article, recounted three reports of euthanasia of deep-demented persons who could not confirm their death wish.

One of the three was identified as having been done without due care; her advance request could be interpreted in different ways. The execution was also done without due care; the doctor had first put a sedative in her coffee. When the patient was lying drowsily on her bed and was about to be given a high dose, she got up with fear in her eyes and had to be held down by family members. The doctor stated that she had continued the procedure very consciously.

Smith commented that Chabot is examiningthe social and moral wreckage he helped unleash and wonders: Where did the Euthanasia Law go off the tracks?

Chabot writes that theeuthanasia practice is running amok because the legal requirements which doctors can reasonably apply in the context of physically ill people, are being declared equally applicable without limitation in the context of vulnerable patients with incurable brain diseases.

In psychiatry, Chabot writes, an essential limitation disappeared when the existence of a treatment relationship was no longer required. In the case of dementia, such a restriction disappeared by making the written advance request equivalent to an actual oral request.

Lastly, Chabot says, it really went off the tracks when the review committee concealed that incapacitated people were surreptitiously killed.

Horrible picture

In February, a Dutch doctor carrying out a lethal injection on an elderly woman ordered her family to restrain her when she resisted, creating what even euthanasia advocates called a horrible picture.

The case in Amsterdam, the National Catholic Register reported, was one of several similar instances of resistance, including a sex-abuse victim in her 20s, a 41-year-old alcoholic, a woman with ringing in her ears and now an Alzheimers patient.

In nearby Belgium, euthanasia was broadened three years agoto include children.

Alistair Thompson of the anti-euthanasia advocacy group Care Not Killing told the Register its a typical slippery-slope scenario.

The problem is that the law always evolves. Its always pushed on, a little bit, and a little bit. Once youve crossed the Rubicon, it becomes people who are not mentally competent, people who are frail or weary of life, he said.

In the Netherlands, assisted suicide is legal for infants up to a year old and for children over the age of 12. But doctors are already investigating allowing it for all children.

Duty to die

In the United States, six states allow doctor-assisted suicide, beginning with Oregons 1994 Death with Dignity Act, which was approvedby a voter referendum, 51 to 49 percent.

In an interview last fall with WND and Radio America, Jeff Hunt, director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, warned that where doctor-assisted suicide is legal, it moves from what is generally called a right to die to a duty to die.

He pointed out that former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm made that argument in 1984, stating elderly people who are terminally ill have got a duty to die and get out of the way. Let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.

Was Terri Schiavos death really assisted suicide? Get the book that powerfully and comprehensively tells Terris Story: The Court-Ordered Death of an American Woman at the WND Superstore

Hunt said that while assisted-suicide advocates paint the practice as the ultimate act of personal liberty, in every case where this is legalized, you are inviting government and youre inviting insurance companies to get involved in this decision and that is a very, very bad deal.

In Oregon, the Medicaid system has become involved with end-of-life decisions, Hunt said.

They would send letters to terminally ill cancer patients saying, Were not going to pay the $4,000 per month required for you to stay alive, but well pay the $100 for you to kill yourself.'

Another argument in favor of doctor-assisted suicide is that it mainly happens at the very end of life when the pain becomes unbearable. Hunt said the facts simply dont bear that out.

What the research actually shows is that most people who choose doctor-assisted suicide do it out of depression or theyre afraid because of their lack of mobility, their quality of life, he said.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WNDs Email News Alerts!

Hunt said in places such asthe Netherlands, physically healthy young people access doctor-assisted suicide over relationships gone bad or the loss of a job.

He said the push for doctor-assisted suicide is especially horrifying for the disabled and those with special needs.

If you look at the organizations that are trying to stop this, it is primarily led by the disabled community, Hunt said. They understand what this is creating in the law. This is creating an entire classification of people that can be killed or choose to be killed.

We should be investing in great palliative care and good hospice care because doctor-assisted suicide brings with it a whole parade of terribles that we do not want in our society, Hunt said.

Original post:

Euthanasia pioneer alarmed by what he unleashed - WND.com - WND.com

KANPUR: Alleging police inaction against their neighbour, an elderly visually impaired couple had written to the DIG seeking permission to undergo euthanasia. In the letter, Gaya Prasad, who resides in the staff quarters with their niece, who is a class IV employee, on the premises of Lala Lajpat Rai Hospital, alleged that he and his wife Prem Lata were recently assaulted by their neighbour Kamlesh Kumar when they asked him not to tie cattle in front of their house. The couple also alleged that the police have not taken any action against the accused despite a complaint. The visually impaired couple then wrote a letter to DIG to grant them justice or allow them to undergo euthanasia. Taking cognizance of the letter, circle officer Gaurav Banswal visited the elderly couple's house on Wednesday and assured them of police action. "On the instructions of DIG, we visited the spot and removed the cattle tied up by the accused in front of the couple's house on Wednesday ," the CO said. The couple had alleged that they are being harassed by accused Kamlesh Kumar. No arrests have been made so far.

Go here to read the rest:

Blind elderly couple seeks DIG's nod for euthanasia | Kanpur News ... - Times of India

Boudewijn Chabot was the Netherlander psychiatrist who assisted the suicide of a deeply depressed woman who wanted to die after the demise of her two children. All she wanted to do was be buried between them. Chabot met with her four times over several weeksnever engaged actual treatmentand then supplied her with poison pills, which she took. He watched as she died.

That led to a prosecution. I put the word in quotes becauseas Chabots lawyer told me in an interview for my book Forced Exitthere was never any intention of actually imprisoning Chabot, or indeed, sanction him in any way. Rather, the purpose was to set a precedent to allow deep psychological suffering to justify euthanasia.

The gambit worked. The Supreme Court ruled, essentially, that suffering is sufferingand whether physical or emotionalIT is what justifies assisted suicide/euthanasia, not disease itself.

Twenty or so years later and Netherlander psychiatrists euthanize mentally ill patients, whose organs may be voluntarily harvested post-death.

Now, Chabot has been stricken by conscience. He notes that euthanasia groups have recruited psychiatrists to kill. From his article, Worrisome Culture Shift in the Context of Self-Selected Death:

Without a therapeutic relationship [ME: which he didn't really have, by the way], by far most psychiatrists cannot reliably determine whether a death wish is a serious, enduring desire. Even within a therapeutic relationship, it remains difficult. But a psychiatrist of the clinic can do so without a therapeutic relationship, with less than ten in-depth conversations?

Hey, you opened this door: Own it! More:

In 2016, there were three reports of euthanasia of deep-demented persons who could not confirm their death wish. One of the three was identified as having been done without due care; her advance request could be interpreted in different ways. The execution was also done without due care; the doctor had first put a sedative in her coffee. When the patient was lying drowsily on her bed and was about to be given a high dose, she got up with fear in her eyes and had to be held down by family members. The doctor stated that she had continued the procedure very consciously.

Chabot looks at the social and moral wreckage he helped unleash and wonders:

Where did the Euthanasia Law go off the tracks? The euthanasia practice is running amok because the legal requirements which doctors can reasonably apply in the context of physically ill people, are being declared equally applicable without limitation in the context of vulnerable patients with incurable brain diseases.

In psychiatry, an essential limitation disappeared when the existence of a treatment relationship was no longer required. In the case of dementia, such a restriction disappeared by making the written advance request equivalent to an actual oral request.

And lastly, it really went off the tracks when the review committee concealed that incapacitated people were surreptitiously killed.

Please. It was all so predictable. Heck, I predicted it.

Euthanasia consciousness changes mindsets. It alters societal morality. It distorts our views of the importance of vulnerable lives. It leads to abandonment and various forms of subtle and blatant coercion.

Over time, it cant be controlled.

See original here:

Netherlander Euthanasia Guru Bemoans His Handiwork - National Review

London, England, Jun 22, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Legal efforts to bar the parents of a British baby born with a disabling medical condition from seeking treatment overseas are based on deep ethical errors, a Catholic expert in medical ethics has warned.

It seems to me completely wrongheaded that the state should be stepping in here when the decision that the parents are making is really aimed at the best interests of the child, Dr. Melissa Moschella, a Catholic University of America philosophy professor, told CNA.

Its not crazy, its not abusive, its not neglectful. Its the decision of parents who want to, however they can, to give their very sick child a chance for life.

She said such a decision should be completely within the prerogative of the parent, citing the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to Moschella, that declaration clearly indicates that the parents, not the state will have primarily responsibility.

Charlie Gard, now aged 10 months, is believed to suffer from a rare genetic condition called mitochondrial depletion syndrome, which causes progressive muscle weakness. The disorder is believed to affect fewer than 20 children worldwide. Charlie has been in intensive care since October 2016. He has suffered significant brain damage due to the disease and is currently fed through a tube. He breathes with an artificial ventilator and is unable to move.

His parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, have wanted to keep him on life support and transport him to the United States in order to try an experimental treatment.

However, their decision was challenged in court by hospitals and an attorney appointed to represent Charlie. The parents appealed a High Court decision, and their appeal to the U.K.s Supreme Court was rejected.

Their final legal challenge is presently before the European Court of Human Rights. The court has said Charlie must continue to receive treatment until its judges make a decision.

Moschella said the legal decisions favoring ending life support for Charlie are effectively telling the parents that their childs life has no value and that therefore they should cease any effort to heal him of his disease.

These decisions represent a quality of life ethic and an ideology that say human life is valuable only if it meets certain capacities.

Its the same ideology that underlies allowing euthanasia or physician assisted suicide, she said. Thats completely opposed to the Catholic view in which every human life has intrinsic value regardless of the quality of that life.

Charlies parents have raised more than $1.6 million to help seek experimental treatment for him in the U.S. Their decision faced legal challenge from Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he is being treated.

In early April, the babys hospital challenged their efforts. The hospitals experts argued in court that long-term life support should be withdrawn from the baby because his quality of life was so poor.

Charlies court-appointed lawyer argued before a High Court judge that any treatments in the U.S. would be experimental and long-term life-support would only prolong the process of dying.

Charlies parents had their own legal representative in the case, who argued that travel to the U.S. for treatment would not cause the boy significant suffering or harm and could give him another chance.

Yates, Charlies mother, has argued that she would welcome any treatment that could help him live. She also suggested anything learned during an experimental treatment could help treat future babies who suffer from the disorder.

According to Moschella, who has a background in parental rights and medical ethics, said parental rights derive both from the special intimate relationship they have with their child and from their primary obligations to care for their own children. Interfering with their conscientious best efforts is akin to violating religious freedom, she said.

It is a deep violation of conscience, when, without a very serious reason, the state presents parents from fulfilling that conscientious obligation, she said.

She noted that what Charlies parents are trying to do by helping secure extraordinary treatment is not ethically required by Catholic ethics.

It would be perfectly morally acceptable should they choose to forgo seeking further treatment and take the baby off life support and allow him to pass away naturally due to the underlying disease, the professor said. But its also acceptable, on Catholic ethics, to do whatever you can to heal a person if you think that theres any chance that a treatment could have a positive effect.

She suggested that extraordinary treatment could be unethical only when there is absolutely no hope of any benefit whatsoever and the treatment is painful to the patient, or the treatment would take away important resources that are needed to help other patients who could benefit.

Moschella said there should only be legal intervention against the wishes of parents in cases when there is a clear case of abuse or neglect or some significant threat to the public order.

Neither of those situations is the case here.

View original post here:

Euthanasia mindset looms over disabled baby's legal fight, ethicist ... - Catholic News Agency

A convict, Robert Pious, who has served 26 years in prison after being convicted for former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhis assassination, has requested the Puzhal Prison authorities for mercy killing.

According to another news report, Pious wrote in the letter to the prison authorities that that he has lost all purpose in life as his family does not visit him in the prison anymore, and therefore, has sought permission for euthanasia.

Pious claims that the government does not intend to release him and he would never again be a free person.

He, therefore, wants mercy killing and his body to be handed over to his family.

Robert Pious, along with six other persons, were convicted in 1991 for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Three out of these seven convicts were awarded the death sentence.

The Jayalalithaa-led government of Tamil Nadu, in 2014, ordered a release of these seven prisoners. However, this order was stayed by a constitution bench of the Supreme Court in 2015, on the ground that the power to do the same lies with the Centre. The Supreme Courts decision has been appealed by the state of Tamil Nadu; however, the matter is still pending before the court.

See the original post:

Rajiv Gandhi Assassin Robert Pious Seeks Euthanasia - Live Law

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (ChurchMilitant.com) - The pioneer for legalized euthanasia in the Netherlands is denouncing a lack of ethics as legal safeguards for vulnerable patients erode.

Dutch euthanasia pioneer and psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot wrote an opinion pieceFriday that described the "worrisome rate" at which dementia and psychiatric patients are killed. He claims the legal safeguards protecting the vulnerable are being quietly eroded. He also claims panels reviewing the requests are concealing incidents of wrongful death.

Chabot is most worried about the increase in euthanasia of dementia patients. While he considers the numbers to be relatively small with 141 killed in 2016 diagnostic tests are identifying age-related chronic psychiatric diseases earlier. Thus, this more often leads to a large increase in the number of patients with "incurable" conditions. And the cost for years of medical care can lead to financial devastation adversely affecting the patient's quality of life. He predicts "this could cause a skyrocketingincrease in the number of euthanasia cases."

Free clip from CHURCH MILITANT PremiumWATCH MORE LIKE THIS

Chabot notes these patients are not euthanizedin hospitals but mostly in the country's End of Life Clinics. Like abortion mills, the doctors there do not provide care for the patient but only purport to alleviate suffering by killing him. Doctors and patients soon learn the keywords and phrases to use to get the desired result.

"Within the End of Life Clinic, a group culture has emerged in which euthanasia is regarded as virtuous labor," says Chabot.

Chabot was prosecuted for the 1991assisted suicide of a50-year-oldhealthy woman suffering from "existential distress." Though he wasfound guilty of the crime, he wasn't punished. The case became a landmark, however, leading to the Euthanasia Act of 2002, which legalized assisted suicide in the Netherlands.

Since its legalization, the Netherlands has steadily loosened its restrictions on assisted suicide. In 2016, it looked into expanding the age range for children to be euthanized, broadening it from age 12 all the way down to age one.

Chabot explains that "lawful" euthanasia must fulfill three criteria, the first being that the patient must make a voluntary and deliberate request; second, he must be experiencing unbearable suffering with noprospect of improvement; and third, there must be no reasonable alternativetreatment.

Chabot notes that dementia patients are put to death mostly by doctors and the End of Life Clinics, not in hospitals. He says since the standards for physical illnesses are being used for psychiatric illnesses, the clinic's psychiatrists won't need to enter into a treatment relationship with patients before prescribing death. A psychiatrist himself, he says it is difficult to determine if a death wish is "serious and enduring," even with a developed patient-doctor relationship.

Chabotsees the shift in thinking in the comment made byGovertHartogh, an ethicist from the evaluation committee: "The patient suffers unbearably when he says he suffers unbearably, and an alternative is not a reasonable alternative if the patient rejects it."

With this comment, Chabotnotes that the patient's own judgment of suffering is given the most weight, similar to what the abortion industry has done with the woman's evaluation of "distress"in order to get an abortion.

What worries Chabot is the recent development that prior written consent for euthanasia is now taken to have the same weight as verbal consent. The patients' own determinations of "unbearable suffering" as well as his written consent now being sufficient, "the door has been opened wide for euthanasia of patients with severe dementia."

One other troubling aspect is that in cases where dementia patients are being killed without their express consent and against their wishes, the review committees are not identifying the execution as wrongful.Chabot notes that dementiapatients are being secretly drugged prior to the arrival of doctors, either by the family or by the doctors themselves, to avoid resistance by the patients. This technique is used to execute patients with severe neurological disabilities to get around consent laws.

In one case, the doctor put sleep medication in a patient's coffee, but the woman woke up just before the injection and began to fight off the doctor. The family was called in to hold the woman down so they could administer the lethal dose. The doctor claimed the procedure was done with "care."

Current rates of doctor prescribed euthanasia at clinics are about one per doctor per month. Chabot wonders what happens to the doctors when prescribing death becomes "routine." He believes they may have good intentions, but they might be "fuel[ing] the death wish in vulnerable people who are still trying to live with their disabilities."

Have a news tip? Submit news to our tip line.

Like our work? Support us with a donation.

Read more:

Dutch Euthanasia Pioneer Disturbed by Kill Rates - Church Militant

Catholic pro-life advocate Patty Knap works hard to raise awareness about the growing push to legalize assisted suicide in the United States.

The Catholic Church strongly opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia, as well as abortion, because they destroy precious, valuable human lives. And Knap and many other Catholics are uniting with disability rights groups, medical professionals, pro-lifers and others to stop assisted suicide from becoming law across the U.S.

So Knap said she was extremely concerned to learn that Fordham University, a Catholic school in New York state, hosted several workshops with a pro-euthanasia group during the past school year. In contrast, Knap said she could not find a single workshop at the university that presented the Catholic perspective on assisted suicide.

In a column for the National Catholic Register, Knap wrote:

According to its web site, Fordham has hosted at least four workshopsfor student creditin collaboration with the pro-euthanasia group End of Life Choices New York(EOLCNY) in justthe past year

EOLCNY is backing the Medical Aid in Dying Act [doctor-prescribed suicide] currently being pushed in New York. The law allows terminally ill patients to request medication from a doctor to kill themselves. EOLCNY is a previous affiliate of Compassion & Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society). EOLCNY became independent of Compassion & Choices that same year courtesy of a $300,000 grant from the billionaire globalist George Soross Open Society Foundations.

Knap said the New York Alliance Against Assisted Suicide, an alliance of disability rights, health care, civil rights, faith-based and patient advocacy groups, offered to give a presentation at the university, but it did not receive a response.

New York state lawmakers have been debating legislation that would legalize doctor-prescribed suicide in the state. The bill euphemistically describes the deadly procedure as medical aid in dying. It would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to an adult patient with intention to commit suicide.

An analysis by the New York State Catholic Conference states the bill lacks basic safeguards to protect vulnerable patients and adequate conscience protections for health care workers.

Keep up with the latest pro-life news and information on Twitter.

Knap said she and a group of fellow advocates held an event outside Fordham last week to educate people about the bill.

Most had no idea how one-sided the euthanasia issue is being presented to students, she said. We encountered many peopleon the street who say they support the legalization of assisted suicide but have no idea what is actually in the Bill and what the real-life ramifications are.

Knap said many different groups are opposed to assisted suicide for various reasons, including doctors and nurses organizations, disability rights groups like Not Dead Yet and the Catholic-based Human Life Alliance, any one of which could provide a life-affirming perspective on the issue at Fordham.

One would think that even asecularuniversity would offer at leastone opposing viewto fourpresentations all with the same agenda, she wrote.

Society increasingly is encouraging vulnerable people to end their lives prematurely rather than receive treatment and support. Canada recently legalized assisted suicide, leading to nearly 1,000 government-condoned suicide deaths in the first year. In the United States, five states and Washington, D.C. now allow people to commit doctor-prescribed suicide. Data indicates that depression is the most common link to these suicide deaths, not physical pain.

Read more:

Catholic Fordham University Hosts Workshops With Euthanasia Group Promoting Assisted Suicide - LifeNews.com

Keating Hall at Fordham University (Doug Olson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Panoramio and Wikimedia Commons)

Blogs | Jun. 21, 2017

Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. (CCC 2324)

Why is a supposedly Catholic university pushing assisted suicide? That's what some are asking Fordham University in New York. Last week I joined agroup opposed to assisted suicide outside the school. Assisted suicide/euthanasia has become a very hot debate in New York State (the so called Medical Aid in Dying Act) yet few really understand what legalization would actually mean.

According to its web site, Fordham has hosted at least four workshopsfor student creditin collaboration with the pro-euthanasia group End of Life Choices New York(EOLCNY) in justthe past year:

1.Being Mortal Documentary and Discussion(September 6, 2016) by EOLCNY and Fordham University, School of Social Work

2.How to Die in Oregon:Screening and discussion of NY Medical Aid in Dying Act (October 18, 2016) by Department of Sociology and Anthropology/Compassion & ChoicesLaurie Leonard, LMSW, Executive Director,EOLCNY

3. Choice in Dying: Current Legal, Policy and Ethical Issues(February 25, 2017) Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service

4.Palliative Art: Using the Arts to Improve Care at the End of Life(June 7, 2017) by EOLCNYFordham University, School of Social Work

EOLCNY is backing the Medical Aid in Dying Act currently being pushed in New York. The law allows terminally ill patients to request medication from a doctor to kill themselves. EOLCNY is a previous affiliate of Compassion & Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society). EOLCNY became independent of Compassion & Choices that same year courtesy of a $300,000 grant from the billionaire globalist George Soross Open Society Foundations.

The group'smission states clearly, We advocate to legalize medical aid in dying in New York through litigation or by legislation. EOLCNY has initiated a lawsuit which is currently making its way through the system. We seek a ruling to clarify that a mentally competent, terminally ill patient has the right to obtain medicine by prescription that he or she could ingest to achieve a peaceful death.

David Leven, executive director emeritus and senior consultant for EOCNY, and a regular guest lecturer for Fordham Graduate School of Social Service, gave the Fordham presentation in February. He's said publicly that neither the Catholic Church for any other religious group has a say in end-of-life issues, dismissing the voice of the disabilities rights community as well.

It's disturbing that a Catholic university hasn't offered a single presentation or workshop on theCatholic perspective on assisted suicide. In fact, the NY Alliance Against Assisted Suicide has offered to present, with no response. Calls to the university for comment were not returned.

Outside the university, we had dozens of interactions with students, faculty, and administrators of Fordham. Most had no idea how one-sided the euthanasia issue is being presented to students. We encountered many peopleon the street who say they support the legalization of assisted suicidebut have no idea what is actually in the Bill says and what the real-life ramifications are. Some were truly shocked to learn the facts.

I didn't either until I was clued in. It's not as simple an issue as assisted suicide advocates would have us believe.

Did you know the family of the person seeking to end his life does not have to be notified? One pro-euthanasia person I spoke to found that very surprising. She said she strongly supports assisted suicide laws so that people can check out when they want to. Actually, she didn't believe me that the family wouldn't be notified. But it's true. The pending New York law does not require the immediate family who very well might want to discuss such a drasticfataldecision with the personbe informed.

Did you know that doctors cannot opt out of participating inan intentional deathassisted suicide? Legalization requires them to either provide the lethal dose or refer to a doctor who will do so. What about their freedom of conscience? And what about a physician who knows he can cure the patient but is denied the opportunity to use his medical skills and curative treatment (along with the patient who is similarly denied such treatment)? One student I spoke to who is from Oregon described what a disaster legalization has been for his state.

Did you know the law doesn't allow for protecting a patient from any financial pressures from someone else that they end their life now? A Fordham law student I spoke with said, That's insane. Someone who'sgetting an inheritance might be urging assisted suicide, and if the pressured person is disabled, has a mental health issue, or is on medication, they could be especially vulnerable to such pressure.

Did you know that the death certificate for a person who dies by assisted suicide/euthanasia reads 'terminal illness' rather than assisted suicide? This only helps someone with murderous intentions, someone who could benefit from the person's death, as there would be no legal way to prosecute. One woman on her lunch breakhad no idea legalization would actually protect a potential murderer from 'getting away with murder.' This woman stood and chatted with us for a while, signed our petition against legalization, and helped us hand out brochures with the factsall on her way tonoonMass.

Did you know that most disability groups oppose legalizing assisted suicide/euthanasia, understanding that it discriminates against the disabled in encouraging them toend their lives? They resent being viewed only as a financial burden and not as individual people with innate dignity. A young guy passing our group in his electric wheelchair stopped to read our signs and our brochure andmade this crucial point to us.

Assisted suicide poses a threat to those with disabilities or who are in vulnerable circumstances. When assisted suicide becomes an option, pressure can be placed on these individuals to take that option. Research shows that most people who say they want to die by assisted suicide would not want to if they had sufficient love and support around them. Prescription requests from terminally ill individuals for suicide drugs are often based on fear and depression. Most cases of depression among terminally ill people can be successfully treated. Yet primary care physicians are generally not experts in diagnosing depression. Nothing in the Oregon or Washington assisted suicide laws compel doctors to refer patients for evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist to screen for depression or mental illness.

If assisted suicide is made legal, it quickly becomes just another form of treatment and as such, will always be the cheapest option. In an already cost-conscious healthcare environment, this is a serious concern. Oregonian Barbara Wagner was denied coverage of her cancer treatment but received a letter from the Oregon Health Plan that stated the plan would cover assisted suicide. Another Oregon resident, Randy Stroup, received an identical letter, telling him that the Oregon Health Plan would cover the cost of his assisted suicide, but would not pay for medical treatment for his prostate cancer.

One would think that even asecularuniversity would offer at leastone opposing viewto fourpresentations all with the same agenda.

There are hundredsof groups that are sincerely opposed to assisted suicide legalization, including the group I protested with, NY Alliance Against Assisted Suicide,doctors and nurses groups, pro-life groupsand disability groups, including the poignantlynamed, Not Dead Yet. Other groups that have been suggested to Fordham to present the authentic Catholic view include the Human Life Alliance and Catholic Hospice.

Read the original here:

Fordham Won't Pull the Plug on Pro-Euthanasia Efforts - National Catholic Register (blog)

A Dutch euthanasia pioneer surveys the wreckage and despairs MercatorNet If there is anyone who could be called a patron saint of Dutch euthanasia, it is the psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot. In 1991 he gave one of his patients, Mrs B, ... and more »

See more here:

A Dutch euthanasia pioneer surveys the wreckage and despairs - MercatorNet

Calling all pet lovers.

The Effingham County animal shelter is holding a town hall meeting to discuss the possibility of working with two nonprofit groups to lower euthanasia rates.

The meeting will be at 6 p.m. Monday, June 26, in the large conference room of the county Administration Building, at 601 N. Laurel St., Springfield.

Target Zero works on best practices to help shelters lower euthanasia rates and Fix Georgia Pets helps find grants to make spay and neuter affordable.

Effingham shelter director Lorna Shelton said the groups can help with trap-neuter-release programs for cats that live on their own in the community.

Shelton has been working to try to reduce euthanasia rates at the Effingham shelter. She said she hopes people will read about the two groups on the web and come to the meeting.

This is the time for citizens to educate themselves and ask questions, Shelton said.

Target Zero helps shelters by assessing their needs and giving advice on how to decrease intake and increase live-release rates.

Organizational and fundraising assistance is included.

We serve as the business strategy consultant in all areas of shelter management, with the number one goal being to keep animals out of shelters, the groups website says.

Efforts are made to help pet owners either keep their pets or place them outside the shelter system with foster volunteers. Shelter space should be reserved for those animals with no alternative placement, cruelty/neglect cases, dangerous dogs and injured animals with no identified owner, the group says.

Target Zero helps shelters maintain accurate data. Progress is analyzed monthly.

We define a community as being at zero if it demonstrates the ability to save 90 percent or more of cats and dogs that enter its shelters, the website says.

The remaining 10 percent or less are accounted for by animals which, regardless of medical treatment, will die from illness and/or large dogs with non-rehabilitative aggression issues.

Target Zero operates on donations; no taxpayer money is involved.

For more information go to: http://www.target-zero.org and https://fixgeorgiapets.org.

Follow this link:

Animal shelter holds town hall to reduce euthanasia | SavannahNow - Savannah Morning News

Safeguards for the mentally ill and the demented are slipping away

By Michael Cook | Jun 20 2017 |

If there is anyone who could be called a patron saint of Dutch euthanasia, it is the psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot. In 1991 he gave one of his patients, Mrs B, a lethal dose of medication. After accompanying her until she died he reported himself to the police and was subsequently tried. In 1993, the Supreme Court declare that he was guilty of assisting a suicide, but did not punish him and allowed him to keep practicing medicine.

Physically, there was nothing wrong with Mrs B. Nor did she have depression. But her personal life was tragic and Dr Chabot felt that she in a state of existential distress that she should be allowed to die. It was a landmark case in the steady advance towards legalisation in 2002.

That was 25 years ago. Now Dr Chabot looks back and is horrified. Writing in one of the leading Dutch newspapers, NRC Handelsblad, he says that legal safeguards for euthanasia are slowly eroding away and that the law no longer protects people with psychiatric condition and dementia.

The Dutch are complacent about their famous law, he says. But there is no room for complacency.

Under current legislation, euthanasia is only legal if a doctor believes that three conditions have been met: (1) the request must be voluntary and deliberate; (2) there must be unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement; and (3) there must no reasonable alternative to euthanasia.

However, as euthanasia has sunk its roots deeper and deeper into Dutch medicine, the second and third conditions have shrivelled up. Patients define what is unbearable and they define what is a reasonable alternative. Unhappiness can be unbearable and a nursing home may not be a reasonable alternative. So, as one ethicist has observed, requirements (1) and (2) add little to the requirement of a voluntary and thoughtful request. Autonomy has trumped medicine. As a result, the number of euthanasia cases roughly tripled between 2007 and 2016, from 2000 to 6000.

In itself, this does not bother Dr Chabot. After all, he is the Grand Old Man of Dutch euthanasia. He says that he is prepared to accept tens of thousands of euthanasia cases. But he is aghast at the rapid rise in the number of people with psychiatric illness or dementia who have been euthanised:

What does worry me is the increase in the number of times euthanasia was performed on dementia patients, from 12 in 2009 to 141 in 2016, and on chronic psychiatric patients, from 0 to 60. That number is small, one might object. But note the rapid increase of brain diseases such as dementia and chronic psychiatric diseases. More than one hundred thousand patients suffer from these diseases, and their disease can almost never be completely cured.

One sign of the changing times is the rapid expansion of the services of the End of Life Clinic Foundation (Stichting Levenseindekliniek). This organisation offers euthanasia to patients whose own doctors have refused. They never offer to treat the underlying illness, whether it is physical or mental.

By 2015, a quarter of euthanasia cases on demented patients were performed by these doctors; in 2016 it had risen to one third. By 2015, doctors of the End of Life Clinic performed 60 percent of euthanasia cases in chronic psychiatric patients, by 2016 that had increased to 75 percent (46 out of 60 people).

Last year, Dr Chabot points out, doctors from the End of Life Clinic each performed about one euthanasia every month. What happens to doctors for whom a deadly injection becomes a monthly routine? he asks.

Now the End of Life Clinic is recruiting psychiatrists to service the mentally ill and demented. One obvious problem is that there is a shortage of good psychiatric help in the Netherland which tends to take a long time have an effect, in any case because of budget cuts.

Without a therapeutic relationship, by far most psychiatrists cannot reliably determine whether a death wish is a serious, enduring desire. Even within a therapeutic relationship, it remains difficult. But a psychiatrist of the clinic can do so without a therapeutic relationship, with less than ten in-depth conversations? Well

Dr Chabot is deeply sceptical about euthanasia for the demented: we are dealing with a morally problematic act: how do you kill someone who does not understand that he will be killed?.

How? It turns out that sometimes a relative or doctor secretly laces their food or drink with a sedative to make it easier to give them a lethal injection. In one notorious case last year, the sedative didnt work and relatives pinned the terrified woman to the bed while the doctor gave the lethal injection. Dr Chabot was astonished to discover that surreptitious administration of medication has previously occurred, but has never been mentioned in an annual report.

Isnt anyone paying attention to these developments, Dr Chabot asks.

The euthanasia practice is running amok because the legal requirements which doctors can reasonably apply in the context of physically ill people, are being declared equally applicable without limitation in the context of vulnerable patients with incurable brain diseases. In psychiatry, an essential limitation disappeared when the existence of a treatment relationship was no longer required. In the case of dementia, such a restriction disappeared by making the written advance request equivalent to an actual oral request. And lastly, it really went off the tracks when the review committee concealed that incapacitated people were surreptitiously killed.

After surveying the wreckage of the euthanasia law, Dr Chabot concludes bitterly,

I dont see how we can get the genie back in the bottle. It would already mean a lot if wed acknowledge hes out.

_________________________________________

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. Dr Chabots original article in NRC Handelsblad was translated by Professor Trudo Lemmens, of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Excerpts have been republished from his blog with permission.

See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/careful/view/a-dutch-euthanasia-pioneer-surveys-the-wreckage-and-despairs/19992#sthash.ClTxHOn3.dpuf

Read the rest here:

A Dutch euthanasia pioneer surveys the wreckage and despairs - Catholic Citizens of Illinois (press release)

rF [w(Y.ET#[lP$Q{=wa}lfV(I]3m *+3++3_G Gg^ylyFs=q=RfYmkAaG?l'8QPQn>z2g#fS?4TflqXUxNp-fQau:%{P +jdTL]&<[aX7}? Oku6dIoZ jlmZN N]aD~l gG7:~}UIfPV),h:VVyZF,,Z.v:vn]X9|R!n=1y(C-}9a$R`]ouaVlca Gcg_9p6n6w5L!EZmw44H'?q`_O8;j <*h>KXA$)-R2D#+f[^Rg&aT~'?TKwZ~9^O KM*mO&7o#pkjo:H*n~j'#6fXRuyFL"YMa1C|gT'~^ )>c-qN^&d<{6fb?-+lm>Gb>"N+O)v< UUC+jl7,fON$$JLn]?w]?yBkfPJgHHB=SJanL6PUM!+%xQy~5g7}_x*('X8`siU#V<}*FZJeR$TiqyHAtH Ku_qY.?]|pnAto '(YsMflA|k<+Zg^jokT3Pb .F^ =$,:d5WrAV`6eS*6,{.S#C*1ybNMvRc CjX'g `24b4)U dzAUj0;}7rZ$v~|>C4iF o*o+#)M%N2h"+P!1VBjqX;L0xO#m)-9|Tcmb );lT<;zmYq@WV:WG_?+<6Anta)% '4z%lx8&`U1mV+AGzX l{"c[9?KS4n*]Fr!0'Wp!,p0PO^JQMZ'<8T@F-Td *oiWrKXk<&~WYg>q&qRtLpBxuN+'pX47vyXM#.U*vsJW/RkUzpE]<&u~NeHp"{!NR;k6tic8#`rPlZn_5ROw?P3(o%(P ~!92 5TW?PE4]26?l,v7z$E?K0*WkJ,,Nd;,;IQ.bGBW5 7p8`72f|w#w"/e26oKi6:.]0S>E{Bs)51+e=Ao 97pr)wV3PlYRj-Q#cs#{mR?=2*|#d9RR{UK:Q[:%ux@G YTo ]j6[kZIY( )h%.g%D>0$'|[%e4k$[7>=39'8]zB0"Vk2NDSdReC:~29fU9]~U%UT[zs%Z[)ETAu.rUJ#r<3c|F)Eip5H^]9^DQU{kiJlr>v.BcS[rDL,>`EON%6b)1yJPNlo3SunBBB-+,$K qe$HVrqk%b[@]_p+($ dLX"Eiu`A("thk:aTADsX'W)cT3 M/:%LvUm; .&)kT gv|nS'1!YVw ^A?y`9<:w]`'Cs4+Ii@&E,m'U5 %gxlu/FH8W8 f=I1rIX"'eW+"? >^q)7NWKC^S)"tC'4v@?8SN1dI9 TiP%j'fR R'~'HpH_ Jqswux69I8I$Fhd2aLE2HH-9K e^b|R-w2+vl*aOJra@ ;(M;o|z_-DZ?~n7h9<1QSp7P#.G|&K0*3Ur7*W!$lsr E L=9-;d1{tl*}-(t` qWel=3tF8MH;04C:]u!FM%FTE+im_P2kJg>cV+FgW$lpB3/wFTE+mqxPSG]>%r+$[jn9=,*<9N%x[KK xpx(l Z3jT J3YH+G>DhRcx8AH); ^:(HQHMdW@<$0= Wl"i Dh!8&05z([Cq)M q7PFB>c]>^VKK,d v0hYGlU:TA{M $Sn9rd%TR Zyd_l`LC+t)b2l[_:4KmTJZ[$FHn/UcpS~GJ) %7} JtdxcH'iOf}WsAsj#X:"v"-n2UJr$iWe<4`H/_ f .%f39#Z.#9qlOCiY8 8eIA@g6X"` |3u>.uJiTP9^@^8gNh$hjhp#Du4MPC.4Yu63QOdl9h|D1XU8J-BC'WY;HL0JZ* lpjuIt)XG[pIr )AQ]'0 E(hhDWLJ$Nq+d;J<*A ZjND"KhT8Am`#xa}NvE;b@H0HU;(XVH8byCF)}}/~J*` &=tOFhWz?%t*5]-}{4#C>'])l5Eu!uCl]i'G rI4 } jb!OT/qUE!i%Z)|%MK!Ry!Y2K({# =/kLT+E<'FEk.jE)PKRX`%pU4;E/+ea3QW`C)@`,;Y &.F}=#H[?Am%rv,1h 'X<~!#Z|!NhechG`AL( &1p-+=l1|beWd aO`G^ZTF$d[< %Q,%gsm-S'&pht7Ziiz,Z<_9#9!74CCedRM$KRh7@9>6^'Uj8bxO9.;lj|c1K4ZV^M)Teyl'jjd_Qhz&oU}]$ ,U'yYBJQ:H86_3'PCk?-5S'AnV2C|Aemp:}Miwl7gd7'k[7]7r//SsbEVwf{o=_* ;|8O/O{#L'o(3 rWqofz0/"5zl5wy/_^^|?_yxlOH9ky8}}ocDYfnpnfeZv'l+%I!K8P+ZrJpY#'9*~0l>m6)AHT1C5v*{dL=V^<~]-VyF4tC /12,yDK^ H <5)&n=t:c*AK$V"voW>.bgQK#a:o(nShE, :G ]U/[XwuLta~oF=8re$)p+)qAV8y%ZzQNP"${R8`/u8nhMg][H.Ib0c,9 %g-_s&-R%Kpn6IkcY7lELn*0cC} Uz*zgz_OwQ,e2}/] 5wd,K&?-Jc{MIARigKBYf0wr[[&1SPb*+d6tHgbHL^d]+=>kT'v=|#~M7&3lco mLamr.xfawkG;I'"=LU,UI>]b)| #-<%J<.o'ikIP NZ!hc`v% 4q?SrPbc=uoPrl}6Ec-e|B1xcFO(6bUE=xlZ`,n">N _~ayn/A_t`Bcrgn2btOT/uA'o`*'ulgR-$v2`,=4K-w>7ro /;Z2[?,v],)%+u1!RpO+T'NejnKk5 ts .xy1R6#rr2)+in?hKe_%(7svdNK^j _84* 0;^jV{oHn+D=|[#2U&j t:|gGp&YN&~_e*_*lUoA(<5*Jk/'~ #tP;-M+7gJqt[8hr""M4T7os$L/Eegq0`la9u(J7aD%)4m!Se#WYMxb,wkQpi4c &*a2 V B$F]9FCy|&%Fhw.v2F3HI.S)v|AL2 B;I6+M7s,Tf}?^UUH;0~aHN47H|aX=nsc1P?`0Xv(txk$vdU]HbY )NT]7v-nt&oz^l5vszbrx}pnwQg4S08bm#`XZ)(PJ,odi[wC#__pQusm Xf~[5)?Yfx&"w$w.D7W.cX=06)Pb}]j" o=]RCG 3e< g-p/VK-4]]V8 1ktFj.!`4!t.> 8p X90n;}viN&!y'Q Bm~H{v+T&B}2i~%axJ.$Rrxg_d84Jf" n0 6C@AWKhfgW`$B+1F95"W BFyjMVKYcz}C%o?l[bQ'q }8LuY$1nG@.gJ[)v!3vnV75}rR#gC(x+7F xaxzGzwQoq0/D/Uj7bw>^Lj6b`YV3;fS19LBs_q2'!+t>Uy$BTV-` x[=;=z+ N%DaZkw, CR?L)HJR3jXJ*($9Xy*)BWUCJsf/uhl22 /N&$J*'bS3nxx1/iz1 []sie' ur9R-g5lAJxq^}u;Ly}O( tJ6HOf"dW!sju^sS0ZT~@}%Crc?C&PErxO8ukW{6Qw2} R&5%m5L7vuj6V>1_P4Q_VX[o]vTj {&ISeWIFavXhEev/-.h4-fW ,%UDU4/aW_yUkgt|Sy3^H. 41z6E.9M7fkhu s4{~%Dq)]c*Yy2l"zwXN9j)^*_ZhYTqD,G+i)^XT , 5K*gx)=*#Q8 >2P"VC_*Gy|UN2fk(*(PTJ2u+nQ%eJKFjQ7n{fAmnvzvntj):S7A9?(?r=y`>q3kY 4I::zc=-mF:AeN|[>mB)ejAm9StV(46]2>7/AS-:]FWV'< goxi-gnn~gyC4v4ElX^C:y~G}xi .]wU(aU6qVLi_!f?-lKl9l`;hMc/@}b*`)aG?lQKl!6;z?BlzvTX6+?YOk>^/LQ"CTa:C (lsZ#h?16#Ld#A=XwVto7M.fooMy^w 7KqtlsOa RCR5"C v"6{`3~HL`)k5{C>6&j,lejAm&PoIKRA

Read more:

Doctor who promoted Quebec's euthanasia law having second thoughts - The Catholic Register