Category Archives: Euthanasia

President Joe Biden referred indirectly to abortion as health care during his State of the Union address. It was a euphemism inside a euphemism: the "right to choose" abortion framed as a necessary part of this thing we call "health care."

But abortion isn't health care. And it's time to stop playing word games.

Health care's dictionary definition is "efforts made to maintain or restore physical, mental, or emotional well-being especially by trained and licensed professionals." But abortion doesn't treat a disease or improve a disorder. It forcibly ends a life.

The Hippocratic Oath, one of the foundational pillars of the medical profession, explicitly bans doctors from administering abortions or euthanasia.

Talking about abortion like it's "health care" isn't just a pernicious, subtle lie. It confuses and obscures reality. It harms women, it harms children and it prevents us from improving countless lives.

There is also a deliberate attempt to convince our kids that abortion is just another part of women's health care. Planned Parenthood is already in many classrooms nationwide, teaching students that abortions are a normal medical procedure. This muddies the water even more, and is going to make real maternal health care reform increasingly difficult as time passes.

There's a reason its advocates need to play word games, after all"abortion" is a word with negative connotations, no matter where it's used. An "aborted" landing, an "aborted" meeting, an "aborted" mission: these are all things that have been terminated too soon. They aren't routine procedures. Being "aborted" is not a good thing.

Framing abortion as the only possible response to inadequate maternal health care makes killing unplanned babies the easiest thing to doand that's exactly what so many young, frightened mothers choose to do.

And the longer people get away with calling abortion "health care," the longer we avoid the conversation about what real maternal health care would look like.

I'm not really sure why we dodge this question. The U.S. has nearly double the maternal mortality rate of any other wealthy, developed nation. That's a scandal.

The maternal mortality rate disproportionately affects minority women. The impact of structural racism and implicit bias on social determinants of health is undeniable. During the pandemic, for example, maternal mortality spiked because more Black women died. The mortality rate for white women, while still relatively high, remained more or less unchanged. When critical factors such as economic stability, quality education, health care access and mental health are left unaddressed, we simply double down on the nefarious policies that created these inequities.

Complications from pregnancy, delivery or the postpartum period is among the most common causes of death for American women ages 20-34. I find it hard to believe that these mortality rates don't influence a mother's decision to kill her child.

This is avoidable. We should make it possible for these women to feel safe keeping their babies, by giving them better access to maternal health care.

Not abortion, mind you. Actual health care.

A woman's reproductive system is one of the only biological systems we suppress when it is working properly. Improving mothers' access to health care during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum could vastly reduce the risks and stress of childbearing and delivery. Why not aid its function and support it, rather than turn to abortion as a quick fix? Why not galvanize every sector of society, from policy to the pew, to promote opportunities for human thriving?

Those who argue that pregnancy is unsafe for womenand that, for that reason, access to abortion is a necessary health serviceare ignoring the fact that pregnancy is natural and has been made amply safe for women all over the world. Many nonprofit organizations, including Human Coalition, have worked hard to fill the gap in American maternal health care by coordinating long-term support services for women and children.

We need to set the record straight, now. Killing people isn't health care.

It never has been, it never will be, and we must stop letting people act like it is.

Benjamin Watson is a former Super Bowl champion and current vice president of strategic relationships with Human Coalition.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Link:

It's Time to Stop Playing Word Games. Abortion Isn't Health Care | Opinion - Newsweek

A 500-pound black bear nicknamed Hank the Tank has been breaking into homes around Lake Tahoe, Calif., stealing food and causing damage. He was last spotted walking down a street in the Tahoe Keys.

The bear, as of now, has caused damage to over 30 Lake Tahoe properties and prompted over 150 calls to the South Tahoe police department. He has also broken and entered at least 28 homes over the course of his rampage.

The most recent incident occurred on Friday, Feb. 18, when Hank smashed a window of a house on Catalina Drive. He squeezed through the window as the family was still in the home. When police arrived, they banged on the door and the outside of the house, and Hank escaped out the back door.

The motive for the break-ins, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says, is that the bear is severely food-habituated, meaning that he has lost his fear of people and associates them with providing food.

Despite Hanks immense presence and ruthlessness, he has not caused any harm to humans or pets in the area. But, because of the extensive damage to homes, wildlife officials are considering relocating the bear.

Options for relocation include a zoo, a wildlife preservation, another facility or, an alternative, euthanization. Relocation to the wilderness would not be healthy. Since the bear is food-habituated, they [would] starve because theyre not used to hunting for food, Peter Tira, a spokesman for the CDFW said.

Ann Bryant, executive director of BEAR League, a group that promotes humans living in harmony with bears, stresses that there are options better than euthanasia. Tira affirms that euthanasia is always the last resort. This is especially the case since Lake Tahoes bear population is at a healthy density.

With this in mind, authorities are still trying to capture the bear, who has been avoiding being caught for over seven months. The conflict bear, the CDFW calls him, has not yet been matched with a placement option that meets the organizations Black Bear Policy.

As of Feb. 22, Hank has still not been captured by wildlife officials. The CDFW suggests that homeowners be smart about the disposal of their food waste, since bears like Hank are driven by the scent of food.

An Instagram post by the South Lake Tahoe Police Department urges people to apply for bear boxes, structures that can be installed on a property to safely store food and hopefully prevent further break-ins.

Sources: BEAR League, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, CNN, NBC Bay Area

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500-Pound Black Bear Breaks Into California Homes: The bear nicknamed Hank the Tank has been stealing food from homes and causing damage but no harm....

DENVER Colorado Parks and Wildlife is offering up to $1 million in grants to local groups who want to create ways to reduce human-bear conflicts.

Local governments, NGOs, HOAs, open space departments, community groups, businesses, tribes, universities and individuals are all eligible to apply for the grants, which will range from $50,000 to $500,000 each.

The projects must be designed to prevent conflicts with bears over a realistic timeline, CPW said. The projects must also have local support and either expand on current efforts or develop new approaches.

Kristin Cannon, deputy regional manager for CPWs Northeast Region, is helping to lead the effort.

This is a unique funding opportunity we are providing to help communities reduce human-bear conflicts," she said. High-priority projects will model solutions to conflict, be innovative, are replicable by other communities, involve multiple partners and fill a need in an area with high conflict.

Related stories:

The main concern with these interactions is that bears may become comfortable around humans, which can lead to property damage, increased strain on wildlife officers, physical injury to people, and euthanasia of the animal. However, CPW wanted to stress that a conflict with a bear doesn't always lead to euthanization according to its data, of the 14,013 reports regarding bears in the past three years, just 2.3% led to it being put down.

Nearly a third of those 14,000 reports involved a bear attracted to a trash can or dumpster. CPW said it hopes grant applicants will look to address that specific issue, as bears seeking trash is the leading cause of conflicts. Other problems include birdfeeders, livestock, and open garages.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife

CPW said innovative solutions from this grant process will be replicated in other parts of the state.

When evaluating the applicants, CPW said it will take the following aspects into consideration:

Funding for these grants comes from House Bill 21-1326, which passed the General Assembly and was signed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2021.

Colorado is home to between 17,000 and 20,000 black bears a population that is steadily growing. They are typically wary of people and will run away or climb a tree if they believe they are in danger, CPW said. Their natural diet consists of grasses, berries, fruits, nuts, plants and scavenged carcasses. Bears remember where they find food and can often return to those locations.

Want to apply? CPW will hold a virtual meeting on March 24 from 6-8 p.m. to share more details. You can register for the Zoom here. To apply, download an application here. They are due at 5 p.m. on May 6. Grantees will be announced no later than June 30. Click here for more details.

Anybody with questions can contact Cannon by email at kristin.cannon@state.co.us, or by phone at 303-291-7313.

The rest is here:

CPW to award $1M in grants to projects focused on reducing human-bear conflicts around Colorado - Denver 7 Colorado News

In the early 20th century, the medical psychiatric obsession of diagnosing not only humans but also their artworks as insane led to the looting of their artworks in psychiatries and asylums. Hans Prinzhorn led the movement and took advantage of the common practice in psychiatric institutions throughout Germany, including Heidelberg, for psychiatrists to take possession of these works, who included them in the medical records as clinical evidence to support their psychiatric diagnoses. This was comparable to the looting by the colonial masters.

This slander still holds today, where the artwork of people with psychiatric diagnoses is labelled outsider art and exhibited in a segregated fashion as novelties, rather than real art. The discussion around these outsider art pieces always revolves around understanding the diagnosis of the artist, rather than evaluating the art itself and its message. The clearest example of the injustices still being perpetrated is the German museum of the Prinzhorn Collection, which opened in 2001 and exhibits the stolen art of those considered by the Nazis to be degenerates.

As a way to address this ongoing discrimination and finally disprove the myth of art and madness, the authors propose an exhibition in a prominent location only of works of art by authors who remain anonymous, a wild mixture of authors who were suppressed in coercive psychiatry and by psychiatrists.

It is now one hundred years since Hans Prinzhorn published his book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (pictorial products of the mentally ill) in 1922. High time then, to take stock of the trail of destruction left by this concept of medicalising and therefore pathologising works of art. The hegemonic narrative is that insane outsider art was discovered by this German psychiatrist who collected the works in the Heidelberg University Hospital at which he worked and disclosed their existence by publishing this groundbreaking book that made these works and their influence known to the world.

When we came across a recent version of this clich written by The Guardian journalist Charlie English, we, the International Association Against Psychiatric Assault, decided that it was time to publish a different view of this event, based both on knowledge of the facts and its chronology and aimed at restoring human dignity to the victims.

We refute the mystification of art and madness by showing the significance of Hans Prinzhorn for the Nazi specific concept of degenerate art. Prinzhorn was an ideological precursor of systematic medical mass murder (which in turn was an important waypost of the Shoah).

In 1916 during World War I, the first Dada exhibition took place in Switzerland. The first great anti-art-movement, Dadaism or Dada, was a revolt against the culture and values that had caused the carnage of the First World War. The movement quickly evolved into an anarchist form of avant-garde art whose aim was to undermine the value system of the ruling organisation that had allowed the war to happen, including the art institution, which they saw as inseparable from the socio-political status quo. Several of the exhibitors, Hans Arp, Hans Richter, Walter Serner and Ferdinand Hardekopf contributed works while they were incarcerated in the Kilchberg psychiatric sanatorium.

Of course, it can be argued that they were mentally ill, but it should also be remembered that several of them were not Swiss citizens and their stay in a mental institution offered them asylum from having to return to their countries and certain forced conscription.

The background of the Dada exhibitions and perhaps other new art movements in the first years of the 20th century (Cubism, Futurism, Negro art, etc.) is the reason for the reaction of authoritarian Heidelberg revisionism in the form of the Prinzhorn book, a reaction that defines the collection acquired in the psychiatric department of the University of Heidelberg. This is a diagnostic slander of the authors of the works in clinical-psychiatric terms. Prinzhorn wrote a letter in 1919 asking all institutions to send him works produced by their inmates. He thus took advantage of the common practice in psychiatric institutions throughout Germany, including Heidelberg, for psychiatrists to take possession of these works, who included them in the medical records as clinical evidence to support their psychiatric diagnoses. This was comparable to the looting by the colonial masters. Prinzhorn not only illegally collected these works (i.e. he did NOT buy/pay for the works) for a museum of pathological art or his longed-for museum of pathological art, but also did NOT regard them as works of art. Charlie English writes about this, but it becomes even clearer in the clinical term Prinzhorn gives to the title of his book: Bildnerei. It means something like pictorial products.

A) The fact that the development of Dadaism had a profound impact on German art and poetry in the 1910s and 1920s allows only one conclusion: Dadaism was a real challenge to 20th century art and especially poetry, as it went against the traditional styles and values characteristic of traditional art and poetry in the social order, even if the Dadaists only experimented for about a decade. Nevertheless, Dadaist influences continued to be felt in the literary movements of the 20th century for a long time.

Against this demolition of traditional boundaries, Heidelberg University Psychiatry, with Hans Prinzhorns collection Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (pictorial products of the mentally ill), medically labeled the artists as mentally ill based on psychiatric diagnoses, reinforcing the notion of pathologisation of art that originated at the end of 19th century. Art was thus no longer judged, or rather condemned, according to the work, but rather according to the supposedly sick mental state of the artists. We call this authoritarian revisionism.. Heidelberg University is guilty of reacting to the liberation of art through Dadaism with this authoritarian revisionism, thus revising this groundbreaking step for the modernising art of the 20th century. The cathedral of reason, the university and its psychiatry, initiated defining art as a disease by assigning it to the madness of the insane. This initiative continues to this day, as artists are still discriminated against as artists who are different if they come from or have already been interned in asylums and/or psychiatric institutions. Wilmanns and Prinzhorn intended to use the works of art which they had acquired in psychiatric institutions in bad faith, i.e. looted art, to establish the Psychopathological Museum in Heidelberg, which indeed was opened on 13 September 2001.

if the Fhrer had not put a stop to it.

B) This basic structure was further developed in the next step from 1933: ill became degenerate (entartet). In German, the word has a special meaning due to the formative part of the word: art, which is often not understood in other languages.

In German the word art is in a biological context a basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism. By using the word entartet, it not only defines a human illness, but worse, excludes a person from being part of the human race. The moral taboo of murder had thus been broken for persons who are defamed in this way. It marked the ideological preparation of exterminationist exclusion, first through forced sterilisation and marriage bans, then from 1939/40 through murder in gas chambers, which was exported to the gas murder factories in occupied Poland in 1942. From 1941, the centrally organised murders were transferred directly to the psychiatric prisons and continued through death by starvation until 1948/49.

C) The logical consequence of this radical exclusion was then openly expressed by Carl Schneider, Karl Wilmanns successor as chief physician of Heidelberg University Psychiatry. In his lecture published by the Archiv fr Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten (Archive for Psychiatry and Neurological Diseases) in 1939, he described the objective that modern art and the creators of this art should meet the same fate as he executed on the mentally ill shortly afterwards, i.e. their murder. As with the insane, he would select them beforehand: the painter Otto Dix was specified! Then he would have them murdered in the same way, in order to then dissect their brains and to be able to present them as exhibits to his students in the lecture hall of the university psychiatry department, exactly where today the so-called Prinzhorn Collection is displayed, mocking its victims and demonstrating the hegemony and diagnostic power of psychiatry.

D) This basic ideological structure was not broken after 1949, only the killing stopped. It continued unchanged in Art and Delusion and is still the basis of exhibitions such as the 2005 Biennale meine Welt at the Museum Junge Kunst in Frankfurt-Oder.

That Charlie English actively collaborated with the Prinzhorn Collection for his book The Gallery of Miracles and Madness can then no longer come as a surprise, especially since he titles the fourth part of his book Euthanasia. This very word was used in the language of the doctor-Nazis to cover up murder and we tirelessly demanded to stop using it in our publication on 17.2.2009. Our appeal:

We deplore the absence of a declaration of solidarity by the art world with the persecuted artists in psychiatry. Unfortunately, the art world has thus yet to take this step. In contrast, the Parisian students were exemplary when they demonstrated in solidarity against the expulsion of Daniel Cohn-Bendit by the De Gaulle government in 1968 with the slogan: We are all German Jews.

A similar reaction is missing, because Lucy Wasensteiners 2019 book The Twentieth Century German Art Exhibition: Answering Degenerate Art in 1930s London about the 1939 London exhibition also precisely misses this point. Here, too, reference is made only to the proper art of the time, while the art of the alleged insane and mentally ill continues to go unmentioned, a discrimination, despite being threatened with murder and manslaughter, or being persecuted, imprisoned and mistreated.

As a way to address this ongoing discrimination and finally disprove the myth of art and madness, we, IAAPA, propose an exhibition in a prominent location only of works of art by authors who remain anonymous, a wild mixture of authors who were suppressed in coercive psychiatry and by psychiatrists. For either modernism, like Dada, breaks with the boundaries of conventionality and normality in art, including anti-art, and abolishes these boundaries, or it clings to the idea that mental illness can show itself in pictorial products (Geisteskrankheit in Bildnerei) Prinzhorns choice of words that excludes from art the works by those imprisoned and slandered in the psychiatric wards.

And of course, the collection of looted art in the lecture hall of the murderers in Heidelberg must finally be freed from the medical clutches of psychiatry and transferred to the museum Haus des Eigensinns until it can be handed over to its rightful owners, the heirs of the authors.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussionbroadly speakingof psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers own.

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The Looting of "Outsider Art" by Psychiatry Continues Today - Mad In America - Mad in America

Vets and animal advocates in the US are calling for restrictions on cruel methods of culling birds, as farmers face killing millions of poultry due to a highly virulent avian flu tearing through the country.

In 2020, millions of farm animals were killed across the US after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down slaughterhouses and left animals stranded on farms. Now, bird flu, which has already led to the slaughter of millions of birds in Europe, is likely to result in another mass depopulation.

More than 50 million chickens and turkeys were killed after an aggressive bird flu outbreak in the US in 2015.

However, two commonly used methods to cull animals on-farm are attracting increasing backlash. The use of firefighting foam to suffocate animals and ventilation shutdown, in which animals are killed with extremely high heat and steam, are still permitted in the US, despite being effectively banned in the EU and labelled inhumane.

Poultry flocks sickened with avian flu are commonly killed with carbon dioxide poisoning or firefighting foam, where birds are smothered with a blanket of foam.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says the method involves drowning in fluids or suffocation by occlusion of the airways and is not accepted as a humane method for killing animals.

It is also not listed as a method of killing animals for disease control by the main animal health body, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

Ventilation shutdown, which has been described as death by heatstroke, was used to kill potentially millions of pigs during the Covid-19 pandemic. They were packed into sealed barns and killed with extremely high heat and steam.

The EFSA lists it among methods that are likely to be highly painful and must never be used.

In the EU, killing animals by suffocation or heat stress would be illegal, although it would be possible to obtain a derogation in an emergency when no suitable alternatives are available, said Peter Sande, a professor of bioethics at the University of Copenhagen.

In undercover recordings by the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) of ventilation shutdown taking place, pigs can be heard screaming as they are killed.

I have treated animals with heatstroke and its horrible, said Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the US-based Animal Welfare Institute. In cases of heatstroke, she explained, chunks of mucosa and blood come pouring out of the rectum and vomiting of blood is common as well.

Pork producers have maintained that ventilation shutdown was a last-ditch measure necessitated by the pandemic.

The American Veterinary Medical Associations (AVMA) depopulation guidelines says the method should only be used if it can kill 95% or more of animals within an hour. However, Reyes-Illg said that in audio from the DxE investigation, sounds could be heard coming from the pigs after two-and-a-half hours.

News stories have described ventilation shutdown as euthanasia. But Reyes-lllg said: Its kind of Orwellian when you call cooking them alive euthanasia.

Last year, a group of AVMA members submitted a resolution to classify ventilation shutdown as not recommended. A decision on the resolution has not been made, but animal welfare experts say it is time for US-wide rules to govern the treatment of farm animals before slaughter.

That is the main difference when it comes to the EU, that we actually have common regulatory standards regarding the welfare of animals on farms, which are not found in the US at the federal level, said Sande, who called the USs use of ventilation shutdown a big failure.

Animals are killed on-farm for many reasons, not just disease control, for example due to illness or serious injury. More than 170 million chickens, pigs and cows die or are killed on-farm every year in the US, according to estimates from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Last month, DxE activists said they discovered a large number of piles of dead pigs discarded outside concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in central Iowa potentially a result of the spread of an aggressive strain of porcine reproductive respiratory syndrome (PRRS), a deadly virus, in the midwest.

In one pile, activists said they found a three-week-old piglet still alive and rushed the animal to a vet, where it tested positive for PRRS. It also had a broken jaw and ribs.

It is impossible to know exactly what happened to the piglet, but activists say its injuries suggest it may have been thumped, a standard method used to cull sick or otherwise unwanted piglets by slamming them into the floor or ground or hitting them with a hard object such as a pipe.

The EFSA lists disposal of pigs while still alive as a risk associated with this and other cull methods if not carried out correctly. AVMA guidelines state that failure to achieve 100% mortality in depopulation is unacceptable, but reliable statistics on how many animals are thrown away while still alive are hard to come by.

Any new US-wide regulations around the killing of farm animals should protect workers too, say activists. According to one study, 10% of surveyed swine veterinarians involved in on-farm culling have thought about suicide and 23% reported needing mental health counselling.

In a 2020 video taken by DxE, in which activists spoke to farm workers the day after a ventilation shutdown, one worker simply said: Its terrible for everybody.

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Theyre cooking them alive: calls to ban cruel killing methods on US farms - The Guardian

Internet celebrity, serial break-in suspect and 500-pound black bear Hank the Tank was falsely accused at least partly.

The bear had been suspected of breaking into nearly 30 homes and causing extensive property damage in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., over the last seven months as he searched for snacks, earning him designation as a severely food-habituated bear and putting him at risk of being euthanized or relocated.

The fate of the rotund fellow became a cause clbre as photos of him circulated on the internet, where his many aliases included Yogi, Chunky and the Big Guy.

But evidence gathered after a break-in reported last week planted doubt that Hank had been the sole culprit in the crime spree, saving him from euthanasia by state wildlife officials.

DNA evidence collected from the most recent incident as well as prior incidents over the past several months prove that at least three bears were responsible for breaking into numerous residences, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement Thursday.

Hank had been implicated in last weeks break-in likely based on visual observation, according to the statement, but DNA evidence showed the real perpetrator was a female bear, said department spokesman Peter Tira.

Members of a homeowners association in the waterfront Tahoe Keys neighborhood voted last week to allow wildlife officials to set up traps on their properties to catch Hank. Even bear advocates admitted he should no longer be allowed to roam free, although they pushed for relocation over euthanasia in the event of his capture.

Hes on a mission. You can tell he likes to eat, said Ann Bryant, who oversees the Bear League. The Big Guy likes to eat where its easy to get food, and he doesnt like to forage.

In a post on its Facebook page Thursday, the advocacy group said, Hank no longer has a death sentence hanging over him and he is no longer going to have his freedom taken away from him by sending him to a sanctuary.

Those options are off the table, Tira said.

For now, the department will undertake a trap, tag, haze campaign during which bears will be captured, tagged with an ear tag and released using hazing methods such as air horns and paintball guns to instill a healthy fear of humans.

The program also aims to gather DNA to prevent the future misidentification of bears.

Wildlife officials urged residents and visitors of the Lake Tahoe area to bear-proof their food and trash to prevent human-animal encounters.

Increasingly, CDFW is involved in bear/human conflicts that could have been avoided by people taking a few simple actions, the department wrote. Improperly stored human food and trash are likely attracting bears into this neighborhood. We all need to take all precautions to store food and trash properly to protect ourselves, our neighbors and local bears.

Read more from the original source:

Tahoe bear Hank the Tank spared from euthanasia by DNA evidence - Los Angeles Times

Italians want to legalise cannabis and euthanasia despite a disappointing Constitutional court verdict not to admit two referenda on the topics and politicians apparent disinterest, according to activist Marco Cappato in an interview with EURACTIV.

Marco Cappato is an Italian politician and activist, ex-MEP with the ALDE political group from 1999 to 2009. He can be considered the Italian frontline leader in the struggle to legalise euthanasia and cannabis.

How did we arrive at the proposals of the two referenda on euthanasia and cannabis in Italy, and why are they two important topics for EU politics?

The Italian Constitution provides citizens with two instruments of participatory democracy: the first and more powerful one is calling a referendum to abolish a law. To be held, a referendum needs 500,000 signatures or the approval of five Regional Councils.

The second tool is the popular ballot initiative, which consists of a proposal to the parliament to discuss a specific law by gathering 50,000 signatures.

We tabled a popular ballot initiative eight years ago on legalising euthanasia and another one on decriminalisation of cannabis five years ago, with the Associazione Luca Coscioni. But the parliament never discussed the two proposals.

Therefore, to overcome this deadlock, we decided to gather signatures for referenda on cannabis and euthanasia, which the Constitutional Court assessed as not admittable last week.

Generally speaking, I think it would have been significant for EU politics to have a country such as Italy face these two issues with referenda. It would have been the first time in history.

I believe we are going toward the legalisation of euthanasia and cannabis worldwide anyway. And this is because our life dramatically changed in the last decades.

For euthanasia: our lives are longer and longer because of the advance in technology of medical treatments. As a consequence, the process of dying is becoming longer and longer. And if the process of dying will last longer, people have to be entitled to freely decide how they want to end their lives.

For cannabis: nowadays, we are aware that to create a drugs free world, as stated by the UN in a 1998 campaign, is an illusion. But at least, there is the possibility to decriminalise cannabis.

Those two goals will be achieved sooner or later. The problem is: when? It could take 10 or 15 years. In the meantime, people will continue to experience violence or imprisonment regarding cannabis or suffer when we talk about euthanasia. With the referenda, we aimed to accelerate this process.

Is there something that can be done at the EU level?

With the EUMANS association, a pan-European movement for civic participation, we will discuss how to deal with the two issues at the EU level on the occasion of our next congress in Warsaw next 11-12 March.

We indeed need the EU to solve this impasse: it is well-known that EU institutions do not have direct competences to legalise euthanasia or drugs. However, on end-of-life decisions, the EU could create a European living will (following the example of the EU Covid Certificate) as a legal instrument where people can state their will if they lose their abilities.

For instance, if an Italian citizen has their European living will pass, they can use it also in other EU countries if they temporarily move abroad for professional or other reasons.

Doctors of other countries can work according to the European living will pass if something severe happens to a person.

On drugs, you cannot legalise cannabis at the EU level. Nevertheless, there is a regulation on the cooperation of policies in criminal matters explicitly designed around the prohibition of drugs. The idea is to prepare a European Initiative Campaign, gathering one million signatures across the EU, asking to abolish the EU repression mechanism on drugs.

In general, I feel citizens are always missing in the political debates. Governments are at the centre of the landscape, but very few are left to civil society, NGOs or common citizens, cooperating at the EU level to reach common goals.

Citizens across Europe can cooperate on common goals regardless of what their governments are doing. What we would like to do with this congress in Warsaw is to reinforce the idea of the need for a civic movement that goes beyond electoral politics, which is fundamentally national business. Of course, there are EU elections, but national political dynamics still dominate them.

The Italian Constitutional Court declared that the two referenda on legalising cannabis and euthanasia, for which you gathered millions of signatures, cannot be held. What is your opinion on such a decision?

The decision was a political one. The Italian Constitution clearly states that the three issues on which a referendum cannot be held are fiscal and budgetary laws, amnesty laws, and ratification of international treaties. These are obvious and objective criteria.

Neither euthanasia nor cannabis is included in the subjects above mentioned. However, in the last decades, the court created more criteria that are very subjective, such as the clarity of the referendum the not-manipulation of the latter.

Those criteria are open to interpretation. This is transforming the admissibility judgement on a referendum into a political choice. The more subjective the way of deciding, the more the verdict is political.

So, of course, we defended with our lawyers the admissibility of the two referenda.

The court will publish their technical motivation soon. However, I believe that behind technical motivations, there are political stances.

The president of the Constitutional Court, Giuliano Amato, said that now the parliament should discuss these two referenda. However, as MPs did not do in the past, there are still no conditions to hold appropriate discussions on these two issues. Can you explain why it is so hard to consider new laws on cannabis and euthanasia in Italy?

This is a problem of democracy. The public opinion is ready in Italy to legalise euthanasia and decriminalise cannabis: a poll published on 17 February showed that more than 70% of people favour legalising euthanasia under certain conditions.

But the political system is stuck, very often by minority branches within parties. Do not also forget the influence of the Vatican City in these two issues. This incapability of deciding on cannabis and euthanasia represents a problem of Italian democracy, which is not in good condition.

Follow this link:

Activist, Italians ready to legalise cannabis and euthanasia - EURACTIV

Did Ottawa authorities really threaten to kill the pets of truckers to punish them for protesting Canadas vaccine mandates?

Thats what some on social media were saying after a tweet by Ottawa By-law & Regulatory Services on Feb. 17, a day before police started moving in to clear the downtown area of protesters who had been camped out on city streets for more than three weeks.

But thats a distortion of the tweet, which warned protesters who brought their pets along to the demonstration that the city may have to take their animals into "protective custody" should the owners be arrested.

"SHOCK POLICY: Ottawa may euthanize truckers pets as punishment," read a Feb. 20 Facebook post. Its a screenshot of a headline from the website The Counter Signal, a website that describes itself as helping "conservatives to fight back and share the news that Justin Trudeau would prefer to cover up."

Underneath that headline in the Facebook post is a photoshopped image of Dr. Anthony Fauci supposedly saying, "You stole that from me!" (That's a reference to another claim we already tackled here.)

The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Heres why the post is misleading.

By-law and Regulatory Services is a city law-enforcement agency that handles non-criminal issues, such as nuisances, business licensing and traffic. On Feb. 17, the agencys Twitter account, @OttawaBylaw, tweeted out a warning to protesters who brought pets with them that if protesters are jailed, their pets will be "placed into protective custody for 8 days." If arrangements arent made after that, the tweet said, "your animal will be considered relinquished."

We dont know how many protesters brought their pets along with them, but only one pet was placed in custody, officials said. On Feb. 21, the Ottawa Police Department reported 196 arrests of protesters.

Ottawa police and the Childrens Aid Society of Ottawa made similar statements to protesters, urging them to arrange care for their children should parents be sent to jail.

Jennifer Therkelsen, acting director of By-law and Regulatory Services, said that Ottawas Animal Care and Control By-law (2003-77) allows officers to take animals whose owners cannot care for them "as a result of incarceration, fire, medical emergency or eviction" into "protective custody."

"This authority is applicable citywide and intended to ensure the animals safety and well-being, including the provision of basic needs, while their owner is unavailable to do so," she said.

The bylaw declares the Ottawa Humane Society as the "operator of the pound."

"When the city places an animal in protective care, the owner has eight days to make arrangements for their animal," said Stephen Smith, a spokesperson for the Ottawa Humane Society.

Arrangements can be made by phone or the owner can have someone make them on their behalf. If that doesnt happen, the organization assumes ownership and assesses the animal for adoption, Smith added.

"We received one animal as a result of arrests at the protest, and the animal was returned to its owner the same day," said Smith.

The organizations euthanasia policy reads that it "keeps every adoptable animal until the right home is found, regardless of length of stay."

"Humane euthanasia" may be necessary when an animal is suffering incurably, is considered dangerous to the public or "professionally assessed as not suitable for adoption, either medically and/or behaviourally, using a best-practices protocol," the policy says.

The organizations most recent annual report covering 18 months in 2020-21 said it took in 2,585 animals, reunited 690 of them with their owners, adopted out 1,278 and transferred 73 to other shelters.

The shelter had a live release rate of 79.4% of animals taken in, the report said. There were 674 animals euthanized 39% of those at their owners request, 51% due to serious medical issues and 10% due to serious behavioral issues such as aggression and/or extreme fear, the report said.

Our ruling

A Facebook post said that the city of Ottawa may euthanize the pets of protesters as punishment for participating in the recent truckers protest against vaccine mandates.

The city did not threaten to kill any pets "as punishment." Ottawa By-law & Regulatory Services did tweet a warning that if protesters were incarcerated, the city would place their pets in protective care for up to eight days. If no arrangements were made to retrieve the animals by then, the pets would be considered "relinquished," it said.

Animals taken into the citys custody are brought to the Ottawa Humane Society, which says it euthanizes animals only if they have serious medical or behavioral issues, the organizations website said. Only one animal from the protest was brought to the shelter and it was returned to its owner, the shelter said.

While it is possible that any animal brought into the shelter may meet the agencys euthanasia criteria, the shelters numbers show such situations are rare.

We rate this claim False.

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No, Ottawa didn't threaten to punish protesters by killing their pets - PolitiFact

SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the Season 18 Episode 9 of Greys Anatomy, No Time To Die.

The last time we saw Kevin McKidds Owen Hunt, he was in an SUV, rolling down a ravine. The Station 19-Greys Anatomy midseason premiere crossover revealed Owens fate. He was rescued by the Station 19 crew and taken to Grey Sloan Memorial where he was treated for his extensive injuries, including to his spine and a shattered leg. He underwent a successful emergency surgery on both.

Also successful was Farouks miracle heart transplant surgery despite a bruise the donor heart had sustained in the crash.

Amid the joy, there was heartache too. Schmitt was having a very hard time after losing his first patient in the OR. The shock sent him into a catatonic state as he spent the episode vigorously scrubbing his hands until his friends intervened.

All three passengers in the SUV that crashed in the winter finale were dealing with the aftermath. While Owen was the only one seriously hurt physically, Teddy had a difficult time seeing him in pain while Hayes was struggling with the ethical dilemma posed by Owen in the finale when, thinking that he would most likely die, he asked Hayes to continue his efforts helping terminally ill soldiers get drugs for physician-assisted deaths.

Hayes confronted Owen who was undeterred in his commitment to help the veterans. Facing serious repercussions as an accessory if he didnt report his friend, Hayes opted to resign, telling Bailey that he was moving back to Ireland with his children. (Richard Flood, who plays Hayes, is said to be leaving Greys Anatomy.)

In romantic developments, Nick flew in to see Meredith, Amelia and Kai had another date while Jo and Link hooked up after months of sexual tension and cohabitation.

In an interview with Deadline, McKidd spoke about the crash and its aftermath, Owens decision in the car to sacrifice himself so Teddy and Hayes can live, the long recovery in front of him and what else is in store for the rest of the season. McKidd also addressed the issue of euthanasia.

DEADLINE: When you got the script for the winter finale, were you concerned about Owens fate?

MCKIDD: I remember back in Season 5 or 6 when we had the shooter episode, and Owen was shot in the chest. I remember that table read distinctly because I had only been on the show for two years. The table read was, Owen falls on the floor. Christina yells, Meredith, is he alive? and then I had to turn this page to see what Merediths response was. I remember that page turn was in slow motion to find out. She said, yeah, hes got a pulse and I was oh, OK.

It kind of felt like a repeat of that, which is the life of an actor. Such a strange life we live, at the stroke of a pen, a character could be gone. Its been an interesting, nerve-wracking time.

DEADLINE: What do you think about Owens decision to send Teddy and Hayes to safety and stay behind in the car, knowing that he would likely die?

MCKIDD: For better or for worse, Owen is quite an impulsive man and has been for many years. He goes with his gut, sometimes he gets it right, sometimes he gets it wrong. In this instance, sitting in the front of the car, he sees the writing on the wall, and I think it was the right call. it was pretty noble of him to do that. I love that about Owen. He is very flawed as a man as many people are but hes got a very good heart at the end of the day. I think what he is doing with the veterans is all heart, putting himself in jeopardy, bending the rules, thats the way he operates. Seeing these other vets in so much pain, hes found it morally very hard to deal with it but he is led by his heart.

DEADLINE: What is your position on physician-assisted death?

MCKIDD: Its a very hard topic. I think on balance, I support it as a concept because there is that thing of Do No Harm as an axiom for doctors but some of these [patients] are in so much pain that by withholding some way to help them, you are causing harm to that patient. Any case of euthanasia or assisted death has to be taken on its face value and on a case by case. I think in principal, the only correct criteria would be, if nothing else can be done medically, and there is so much discomfort and so much pain on the part of the patient, ethically I do support it.

DEADLINE: What is ahead for Owen in terms of recovery?

MCKIDD: He is in a lot of pain. He was mangled, mangled up in this car at the bottom of this ravine. He really took one for the team. His legs are in a complete mess. Basically what we will see is a slow road to recovery. And also there is some real medical jeopardy, he has a spinal injury as well his leg injury. The spine injury can potentially paralyze him or make him very compromised for the rest of his life. So he is not out of the woods by any means.

In Station 19, they recover his body in that mangled car wreck. He has a long way to go, its going to be interesting. Its been fun playing him. He is a man of action, Owen, and to see him really struggle with his physicality has been kind of fun to see in a strange way, walking around on crutches has been fun too. And there are a couple of episodes where I get to lay down a lot which is always pleasant, to get to lay down.

This brings out a lot of stuff between Owen and Teddy as recovery is frustrating for him. He just wants to get back to work, he wants to get to doing good medicine, to help the veterans, continue that project he feels very passionated about.

He gets impatient, and also there is a big debate between Teddy and Owen as things go forward. As the truth about what Owen has been doing comes out, Teddy has a lot of feelings about that so there is a lot of emotional fallout from this crash but also the work he has been doing with these terminally ill veterans.

This is going to cause a lot of emotional fallout in the second half of the season. Its very intense.

DEADLINE: You mentioned crutches, which is a good sign, but can you say whether Owen will be walking again?

MCKIDD: I cant say.

DEADLINE: We talked about Owens physical recovery? What about his mental recovery? He has a long history of PTSD, and the crash was certainly a traumatic experience.

MCKIDD: In the episodes weve shot so far, he is dealing with the physical side. We havent quite gotten to the psychological side. Most people, when they have gone through something like that, they would physically get themselves back from the brink and then the psychological fallout happens later. We havent quite touched on that but Im interested to see where that leads, whether it would trigger his PTSD or not.

DEADLINE: What will the impact of Owen continuing to help veterans be on his career? We saw Hayes quit over fears that it might be illegal.

MCKIDD:In Washington State, physician-assisted death is actually legal. But there is some grey areas within it. Owen does not follow the correct protocols. He does put himself in the harms way, and its very interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out because I cant tell you what happens but its a thing that I think Owen wants to get back to, the work that Noah, his veteran friend, was doing, trying to put pressure on Congress and take it to that level in trying to advocate for these veterans, get better care and bring more awareness. As far as potential fallout for Owen, that will continue to be a thread through the rest of season.

DEADLINE: How do you feel about Owen being the reason Hayes quit his job?

MCKIDD: The character of Hayes was already reassessing his life in Seattle, and I think this was probably another factor in his decision, hed already been mulling over where his life was headed. I think morally, Hayes feels very conflicted. Owen sees Hayes life so Hayes and and his child can go on and have a fruitful life so, in a strange way, Hayes kind of owes something to Owen but he also doesnt quite know where he stands on the ethics of physician-assisted death so I think it just creates that area where Hayes is. It pushes him towards a decision he was already on the way to.

DEADLINE: How were you able to keep Owens fate secret over the past couple of months?

MCKIDD: Im terrible at keeping secrets so I decided If you notice on my social media feed, I have been absent which is not like me. I just thought, Im going to spoil something, so I have been very away, and I think it helped create that mystery. Once the episode airs, I will be back online more. A lot of people have been asking me, Ive been itching to tell them but couldnt.

Original post:

Greys Anatomy: Kevin McKidd On Owens Sacrifice & Its Emotional Fallout In Intense Second Half Of Season 18 - Deadline

WATERGATE: A New History, by Garrett M. Graff. (Avid Reader, $35.) Employing all of the recent scholarship on the scandal that refuses to die, Graff presents a lively, comprehensive account full of sad, strange and interesting characters, not least of whom was Richard Nixon himself. Douglas Brinkley, reviewing it, calls the book dazzling: Graff explores the dramatic scope of the Watergate saga through its participants, he writes, and with granular detail, Graff writes about the white-collar criminals, hatchet men and rogues who populated the outer circles of Nixons covert operations.

CHILEAN POET, by Alejandro Zambra. Translated by Megan McDowell. (Viking, $27.) Zambras novel (about, yes, Chile and poetry) follows Gonzalo and Vicente, a father and stepson in Chile who have a complicated relationship both to each other and to poetry. Zambra uses their bond to think through literary, and literal, inheritance. As its jocular title suggests, Chilean Poet complicates the notion of an artistic birthright rooted in national identity while also acknowledging, with a tender and humorous shrug, that its not an easy thing to give up, our contributing essayist, Jennifer Wilson, writes in her review.

STOLEN FOCUS: Why You Cant Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari. (Crown, $28.) The author of Lost Connections and Chasing the Scream explores how technology disrupts our ability to concentrate. Hari focuses on the experience of living with too much information and stress, too little sleep and navel gazing. Some of the chapters are inspiring, such as the one that focuses on the concept of flow, Cathy ONeil writes, reviewing the book alongside Jacob Wards The Loop (which is also about technologys effect on our behavior). Even just focusing on focus for this much time is useful, and ends up giving the reader a novel and worthwhile way of measuring our quality of attention.

HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK, by Sequoia Nagamatsu. (Morrow, $27.99.) A devastating virus afflicts the world in this debut novel-in-stories (much of it written pre-Covid), with an array of inventive responses to the plague: among them, euthanasia amusement parks and robotic pets that speak for the dead. If youre a short-story lover as I am youll be impressed with Nagamatsus meticulous craft, Lincoln Michel writes in his review. If you crave sustained character and plot arcs, well, youll have to settle for admiring the well-honed prose, poignant meditations and unique concepts. Hardly small pleasures.

WOMAN RUNNING IN THE MOUNTAINS, by Yuko Tsushima. Translated by Geraldine Harcourt. (New York Review Books, paper, $17.95.) Originally published in 1980, this subtly powerful novel follows a single mother named Takiko, struggling to define herself while managing the pressures of parenthood. Her son becomes a source of unfathomable joy despite remaining something of a mystery, Anderson Tepper writes, reviewing the book with three other works of international fiction. When Takiko meets Kambayashi, a soft-spoken gardener, her complex range of emotions only intensifies, and the novel truly takes flight.

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