Showing posts with label physician-assisted suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label physician-assisted suicide. Show all posts

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Papers Say "NO" to Question 2

1.  The Boston Globe:  End-of-life discussions, care should come before Question 2 
2.  The Cape Cod Times - Vote No on Question 2
3. 
The Salem News - Our View: No on Question 2
4. 
The Worchester Telegram and Gazette - Vote "No" on Question 2
5. 
The Boston Herald - No on Question 2
6. 
The New Bedford Standard Times - Our View: Death with Dignity law fatally flawed
7. 
The Bay State Banner - Vote No on Question 2
8. 
The Lowell Sun - Vote No on Question 2
9The Springfield Republic - recommend voting “no” on Question 2, physician-assisted suicide
10.  The Waltham News Tribune - Endorsement: 'Death with dignity' is not good enough

Question 2 will put the vulnerable at risk

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x1272750569/Coiro-Question-2-will-put-vulnerable-at-risk#ixzz2BCKQGRss

Dear Editor:

The desire "not to be a burden," has been part of all five suicides I have experienced as a priest.  Pre-death interviews in Oregon and Washington show that those who make use of Physician Assisted Suicide there often state the desire "not to be a burden" as their primary motivation.  Not suffering, but rather the challenge of being dependent on the aid of others.

The greatest misconception about legalizing Assisted Suicide is that it is strictly about giving individuals the right to make choices for themselves - that it will not impact others.  The reality is that once suicide is introduced as a legal option in some circumstances, it becomes a more acceptable and likely option for society as a whole.  Consider Oregon.  Oregon passed doctor-assisted suicide in 1994.  Now, suicide is the leading cause of "injury death" there, and the second leading cause of death among 15 to 34 year olds.  The suicide rate in Oregon, which had been in decline before 1994, is now 35 percent higher than the national average.

As one who ministers to the dying and the depressed, I am deeply concerned that if passed, Question 2 will put many more vulnerable persons at risk.  Do you know a teen, or family member, or coworker who suffers from depression?  A yes vote for Question Two would tell those individuals that yes, sometimes the deliberate taking of one's own life is an appropriate choice.  On their behalf, please join in defeating Question 2.

 REV. MARK J. COIRO


Pastor, St. Mary's, Holliston
Read more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x1272750569/Coiro-Question-2-will-put-vulnerable-at-risk#ixzz2BCKQGRss

Doctor-assisted suicide won't bring "peace and comfort"

http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/news/x255964445/Letter-Doctor-assisted-suicide-won-t-bring-peace-and-comfort#ixzz2BCHxVAkS

"The incantatory phrase, 'in a humane and dignified manner,' is incessantly repeated throughout the pages of the proposal of Question 2. It scares me."

Dear Editor:

Suicide's tragedy is in its failure, on both the personal level of caring and the societal level of caring for people who are not going to get well. The training of doctors and nurses, geared toward the recovery of health, can engender frustration in the face of death, a defeat in the battle for a cure. Dying is fearsome, not death itself. In the abstract, one can be tempted toward ending one's life, especially where there is physical and/or mental suffering. On the practical level, suicide is never the answer, is never a comfort, always leaving distressing questions afterward. Killing attacks life and is an affront to the art and science of medicine.

A mother's vote against assisted suicide

http://www.patriotledger.com/letters/x346791105/DOTTY-McLAUGHLIN-Randolph-A-mothers-vote-against-assisted-suicide#ixzz2BCFhdnk2

I was disappointed in your editorial, “Vote yes on Question 2; allow death with dignity” (Nov. 2).

Question 2 makes it legal to obtain a lethal prescription if a person has a terminal illness that carries a prognosis of six or fewer months to live.   As a mother whose son outlived his six-month prognosis by six years, I oppose Question 2 for that reason alone.  The years we had with my son are a precious gift; I would not want to see another family deprived of days, months, or years with a loved one because of this law.  

Question 2 also has other deep and serious flaws.  To begin, a patient’s mental health does not have to be evaluated before making such a significant life-ending decision.  Today, if a patient confides in their doctor that they are having suicidal thoughts or intend to do harm to themselves, it is the doctor’s professional obligation to do everything they can to prevent such actions.  Taking a lethal dose of 100 Seconal pills should not be an exception to this rule.

Once the patient picks up this lethal prescription from his or her local pharmacy, there is absolutely no tracking method to ensure that the medication does not end up in the wrong hands.  In your editorial, you correctly state that such a thing is not required for any other sorts of medications. However, none of these medications have an expressed intent to kill anyone. The importance of a tracking method for this medication is distinctive and necessary. Moreover, as a resident of the South Shore, I am shocked at the Ledger’s loose attitude toward this serious issue under the banner of prescription monitoring, given the paper’s strong coverage of the region’s oxycontin epidemic in the past.

Your newspaper cited Oregon – where assisted suicide is legal – as a model case, since only about 600 people had actually taken their lives.  Since when did 596 lives become insignificant? How many of them could have outlived their prognosis, or had more time to spend with friends, their families and children? How many of them could have been suffering from a treatable form of depression or misdiagnosed in the first place? My son enjoyed five years and six extra months more than he was predicted to live. Time which may have been lost if physician assisted suicide had been legal. 

We should be focusing more on options such as hospice and palliative care for patients with terminal illnesses, rather than the finality of death, because let’s face it – how many doctors can say with absolute certitude that a patient has only six months left to live? The answer: zero. 

I stand with the Massachusetts Medical Society and its 23,000 physicians across the state in opposing Question 2, and I urge all voters to do the same on Nov. 6.

DOTTY MCLAUGHLIN
Randolph


Read more: DOTTY McLAUGHLIN, Randolph: A mother's vote against assisted suicide - West Bridgewater, MA - Wicked Local West Bridgewater http://www.patriotledger.com/letters/x346791105/DOTTY-McLAUGHLIN-Randolph-A-mothers-vote-against-assisted-suicide#ixzz2BCFhdnk2

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Mayor, Full Council Oppose Assisted Suicide Question


The following was submitted by City Councilor Diane LeBlanc.
Mayor Jeannette McCarthy and the City’s 15 Councilors will be voting No on Question 2 and they are urging Waltham residents and residents across the state to do the same.  While it is not common for elected officials to speak out on ballot questions, they are making an exception because of the life and death issue at stake, and what they unanimously agree, are gross flaws in the proposed law.

Support plunges for assisted suicide question

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1757123000/Support-plunges-for-assisted-suicide-question


By Laura Krantz


Support has plummeted for a ballot question to legalize assisted suicide, a poll released Tuesday shows.
Support for the Death with Dignity measure waned from 64 percent to 47 percent since a similar poll was released last month.

Fourty-one percent of voters oppose it, according to the Suffolk University/7News poll, giving the question only a six-point lead compared to the 37 point advantage it had six weeks ago.

The poll surveyed 600 likely voters using live telephone interviews of landline and cell phone users and reported a 4 percent margin of error.

NY Times: Suicide by Choice? Not so Fast


NEXT week, voters in Massachusetts will decide whether to adopt an assisted-suicide law. As a good pro-choice liberal, I ought to support the effort. But as a lifelong disabled person, I cannot.

There are solid arguments in favor. No one will be coerced into taking a poison pill, supporters insist. The “right to die” will apply only to those with six months to live or less. Doctors will take into account the possibility of depression. There is no slippery slope.

Fair enough, but I remain skeptical. There’s been scant evidence of abuse so far in Oregon [and] Washington . . . , the [two] states where physician-assisted death is already legal, but abuse — whether spousal, child or elder — is notoriously underreported, and evidence is difficult to come by. What’s more, Massachusetts registered nearly 20,000 cases of elder abuse in 2010 alone.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Legalization Will Not Prevent Violent Deaths

By Margaret Dore

Assisted suicide proponents claim that legal assisted suicide will prevent violent deaths such as those by murder-suicide and suicide involving a handgun.[1] In Oregon where assisted-suicide has been legal since 1997, murder-suicide has not been eliminated.[2]  Indeed, murder-suicides follow "the national pattern."[3]  As discussed below, suicides involving a handgun have also not been eliminated.  Oregon's suicide rate has instead increased with legalization of assisted suicide.

Oregon’s overall suicide rate, which excludes suicides under Oregon’s assisted suicide act, is 35% above the national average.[4] This rate has been "increasing significantly since 2000."[5]  Just three years prior, in 1997, Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide.[6] Other suicides thus increased, not decreased, with legalization of assisted suicide.  Moreover, many of these deaths are violent.  For 2007, which is the most recent year reported, "[f]irearms were the dominant mechanism of suicide among men."[7] The claim that legalization will prevent violent deaths is without factual support.

* * *

[1]  See e.g. Lindsey Anderson, Associated Press, "Mass. Voters Consider Physician-Assisted Suicide," October 20, 2012, at http://www.wbur.org/2012/10/20/physician-assisted-suicide ("Dr. Marcia Angell ... believes [her father] would've lived longer and not turned to a pistol had assisted suicide been available").
[2]  See Don Colburn, "Recent murder-suicides follow the national pattern," The Oregonian, November 17, 2009 ("In the span of one week this month in the Portland area, three murder-suicides resulted in the deaths of six adults and two children") (Available at http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/11/recent_murder-suicides_follow.html); Baldr Odinson, "Fourth Murder-Suicide for the Eugene Area," New Trajectory:  A blog for Ceasefire Oregon, March 2, 2011, ("Harry Hanus, age 74, shot and killed his wife, Barbara, before taking his own life")

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

People Living with HIV/AIDS: Is This What You Want?

By Margaret Dore, Esq.
Updated August 16, 2016

Some HIV/AIDS groups have endorsed Ballot Question 2, which seeks to legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts.  This post suggests that these groups and/or persons living with HIV/AIDS should give the issue a second look. 

1.  "Terminal" Does Not Mean "Dying" 

The proposed act applies to persons with a "terminal disease," defined in terms of less than six months to live.[1]  In Oregon, where there is a similar act, the six months to live is determined without requiring treatment.[2] 

In other words, a person living with HIV/AIDS, who is doing well, but who is dependent on treatment to live, could be "terminal" for the purpose of assisted suicide eligibility. 

2.  The Significance of a Terminal Label

Once someone is labeled "terminal," an easy justification can be made that his or her treatment should be denied in favor of someone more deserving.  In Oregon, "terminal" patients are not only denied treatment, they are offered assisted suicide instead.  In a recent affidavit, Oregon doctor Ken Stevens states:
9.  Under the Oregon Health Plan, there is . . .  a financial incentive towards suicide because the Plan will not necessarily pay for a patient’s treatment.  For example, patients with cancer are denied treatment if they have a "less than 24 months median survival with treatment" and fit other criteria. . . . 
12. All such persons . . .  will . . . be denied treatment. Their suicides under Oregon’s assisted suicide act will be covered.[3]
Dr. Stevens concludes:
14. The Oregon Health Plan is a government health plan administered by the State of Oregon. If assisted suicide is legalized in [your jurisdiction], your government health plan could follow a similar pattern. If so, the plan will pay for a patient to die, but not to live.[4]
3.  Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup

In Oregon, the most well known persons denied treatment and offered suicide are Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup.[5]  Neither saw this event as a celebration of their "choice."  Wagner said: "I'm not ready to die."[6]  Stroup said: "This is my life they’re playing with."[7] 

4.  Proposals for Expansion

I live in Washington State, where assisted suicide is legal under an act passed in 2008.[8]  Four years later, there have already been proposals to expand our act to non-terminal people.[9]  Moreover, this year, there was a Seattle Times column suggesting euthanasia as a solution for people unable to afford care, which would be nonvoluntary or involuntary euthanasia for those persons who want to live.[10]

Prior to our law's being passed, I never heard anyone talk like this.

Is this what you want?

Legal assisted suicide puts anyone with a significant health condition at risk of being steered to suicide.  For other reasons to vote against assisted suicide, please click here for talking points.  I hope that AIDS groups and people living with AIDS reconsider any support of Ballot Question No. 2.  Thank you.
* * *

Margaret Dore is a lawyer in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal. She is also President of Choice is an Illusion, a non-profit corporation opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia.  Ms. Dore has been licensed to practice law since 1986. She is a former Law Clerk to the Washington State Supreme Court. She has several published court cases and many published scholarly articles. Her viewpoint is that people should be in control of their own fates, but that assisted suicide laws do not deliver. This year, she had an editorial published in the NY Times: "Assisted Suicide: A Recipe for Elder Abuse." For more information see www.margaretdore.com and www.choiceillusion.org

* * *


[1]  The proposed Massachusetts act, Section 1(13) states:  "'Terminal disease" means an incurable and irreversible disease that has been medically confirmed and will, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within six months.  To view the entire act, go here:  http://www.massagainstassistedsuicide.org/p/initiatives-text.html
[2]  For an example, see the affidavit of Oregon doctor Ken Stevens describing his patient Jeanette Hall.  She had been given six months to a year to live by another doctor, i.e. without treatment, and had decided that she would use Oregon's law.  Dr. Stevens convinced her to be treated instead.  His affidavit can be viewed here:  http://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/signed-ken-stevens-affidavit_001.pdf  Oregon's definition of "terminal disease" can be viewed here: http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Pages/ors.aspx
[3]  Dr. Stevens affidavit can be viewed here: http://choiceisanillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/signed-ken-stevens-affidavit_001.pdf 
[4]  Id.
[5]  Susan Donaldson James, "Death Drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon," ABC News, August 6, 2008, available at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=5517492&page=1 and "Letter noting assisted suicide raises questions,"  KATU TV, July 30, 2008, available at http://www.katu.com/news/26119539.html
[6]  KATU TV article at Note 5.
[7]  ABC News article at Note 5.
[8]  Washington State's assisted suicide law can be viewed here:  http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=70.245
[9]  See e.g.,  Brian Faller, "Perhaps it's time to expand Washington's Death with Dignity Act, The Olympian, November 16, 2011, available at http://www.theolympian.com/2011/11/16/1878667/perhaps-its-time-to-expand-washingtons.html
[10]  Jerry Large, "Planning for old age at a premium," The Seattle Times, March 8, 2012 at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2017693023.html  ("After Monday's column, some readers were unsympathetic [to people who couldn't afford their own care], a few suggested that if you couldn't save enough money to see you through your old age, you shouldn't expect society to bail you out. At least a couple mentioned euthanasia as a solution.")